All things must come to an end

Today is the first day of my last term as a student (unless I bollocks it up) and marks four solid years since I came to Norwich, sight unseen, armed with a blank notebook, a woollen jacket of insufficient thickness, and the intention of whacking my head against the metaphorical wall until one of the two broke or someone made me stop. Looking back, I'm shocked that it was the wall that gave way, rather than my head, and not just the wall of the university's ivory tower but that of publishing's looming fortress: I never thought I'd make it this far.

I came to Norwich in 2012 with the hope that I'd get a year to breathe: to write, to recover from the illness that had kept me pretty near insensate for six months, to spend time in a country I loved but didn't think would have me and in the same timezone as someone who I loved but who wouldn't let me compromise on my goals for it. I've stayed for longer than I planned, done more than I thought was possible - in fact, pretty much everything I dreamed of doing, except for the 'breathing and resting' part. I thought by now I'd be back in the States, working a dead-end job with health insurance too expensive to actually use and writing stories no one would ever read in my free time. I still feel like an impostor, but it's a simple fact that, if I am, I'm an impostor with two published novels and a thesis in its final stage of revisions,  who trembles at the unknown but jumps into it anyway on the off chance that it will be interesting.

At the end of December I should be turning in my thesis and moving down to Reading. What happens after that, I'm not sure - doubtless the viva and the revisions and the handing in of the final dissertation will take up a lot of time and account for endless fannying about. I'm looking forward to waking up in the same town every morning for a month, and I keep daydreaming about what I'll do when I'm finished, making little lists of the books I want to read and places I want to explore and foods I want to feed Dave while I'm in the post-handin limbo. After that, who knows?

Already I'm sad about the prospect of leaving Norwich. It's been a lovely place to become an adult. It's been a good place to become a writer. I hope it will be a great place to come back to, just as much as I hope I'll have plenty of reasons to come back.

It's not over yet though. And tonight, there will be fencing.

Book Tour!

I'm one of those people that's superstitious about talking about an opportunity until it's pretty certain that it's going to happen, which is why I'm only now saying anything about this: I'm going to be scooting around Italy in October!

The Shore was released in Italy yesterday under the title Tutto il Nostro Sangue, because the nuances of 'shore' don't translate.

I'm probably a little too happy that the version my aunts will read has 'blood' in the title.

So, for the purpose of getting to meet me and talking up the book, my Italian publisher has decided to ship me over for a week in October.

I'll be at the CartaCarbone Festival in Treviso on the 13th of October, then the Marco Polo bookshop in Venice on Friday the 14th, Le Notti Bianche in Pavia and Volante in Lecco on the 15th, Il Mio Libro in Milan on the 16th, and Minimum Fax bookshop in Rome on the 17th.

Considering that I've tried and failed to visit Italy several times over the past decade and a half, I'm more excited about the trip than terrified. The only real issue is that I'm pretty rubbish at languages - In school I studied French for two years, Spanish for five, and Italian for seven, and can navigate exactly none of them. Though they say that finding oneself in a position where one is forced to use the language results in a dramatic increase in understanding.

On the plus side, I'm going back to Virginia for my brother's wedding the week before, so I'll have the chance to refresh the basic phrases ahead of time. Assuming that I can get my uncle to stop worrying about my personal safety long enough to teach me.