Notes from limbo

It's about two months until my viva, and I seem to be recovering some of the brain cells that were sacrificed to finish writing the thesis. I've also started recovering the draft of Belief that I lost, or rather piecing together a new draft from what I've still got, and since a good chunk of that is in the thesis I've had more than one horrible moment of realising that what I've handed in contains some Glaring Mistakes.

One of the major contributors to the returning brain cells is the three weeks spent in Australia over last month, first for Adelaide Writers' Week and then for some independent exploring, because spending 35 hours travelling only to turn around and come home when the work is finished is really hard to contemplate when you don't have anything seriously pressing to come home to, and because it took me most of our time in Adelaide to get over the trauma of that much time spent in a metal tube in the forcible company of people.

Writers' Week was amazing on several levels: the organisers were both inhumanly organised and superhumanly lovely, the speakers were the stuff of fantasy, and the audience members were genuinely lovely, both during the events and in casual conversation afterwards. Dave and I had the privilege of turning up before it all began and sticking around until it all ended, and we spent an agonised morning trying to figure out how many events we could afford to go to before we were told that they were all free, at which point we decided to go to all of them. And now my stack of books to read has grown exponentially, and my list of people that I'd quite like to have a drink with if ever they're in the area has expanded proportionately.

And a little bit of happy news: The Lauras has been shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award. 

Italy, Day 1: Treviso

I want to be an adventurer, probably because I read too many books as a kid which focussed on adventurers. The problem with this is that I am, by nature, a timid person who lives in terror of making mistakes and gets along just fine not speaking to another person for days. So when Lucy asked me if I would like to go on a book tour in Italy, the part that has delusions of dragonslaying said yes while the rest was trying to find the courage to say, "...is that such a good idea?" But no one ever became an adventurer by staying home, and I figure if I keep doing things that terrify me then at some point I'll simply run out of terrifying things to do, and then everything will be easy.

A canal in the rain.

Thursday morning I was convinced I'd never make it out of the country: I seem to have a travel curse where Italy is concerned, every plan I make to visit gets cancelled; on top of that I'd come back from the US on Tuesday with a wicked cold and couldn't wrap my head around the travel details that were in English, let alone all of the ones that weren't. In my defence, the times on all of my tickets and the times on my itinerary didn't agree, which would probably make anyone nervous. There was panic about missing my flight on the bus, the train, the tube, the other train, and all through check-in, and then there was a brief respite followed by panic on the flight and all the way to the hotel that I wouldn't go to the right place and there wouldn't be anyone to translate and I'd be sent home in disgrace. There was so much panic over logistics, in fact, that when it actually came time to speak to a roomful of people I couldn't find it in myself to even worry.

A different canal in the rain.

The first place I went was Treviso, which everyone described as a small town but which pretty well awed me. It looked like all of the descriptions I've read in novels set in northern Italy, so it was like arriving in a familiar town that I hadn't seen in a long time, which is similar to how I felt coming to Britain for the first time. It probably added to the sense of familiarity that the hotel they put me in was decorated a lot like my aunt's house, down to the gilt wall sconces.

It's probably time to get a new camera: that's a marble floor, the doors are marquetry, and the furniture is antique. Also, gilt everywhere.

I'm pretty sure my aunt has actually had those wall sconces at some point. The marble-topped nightstand and alligator album she's definitely had.

The evening was chaired and translated by a wonderful woman called Rosanna Martinelli, who teaches literature in English and who I found accidentally as I was coming down the stairs of the hotel, determined to be an adventurer and do some adventuring, just as she was coming up the stairs to find me since I hadn't answered my room phone. Live translation is difficult and time-consuming in the best circumstances, so we plotted out a good part of the discussion beforehand, so that she could focus on translating what I said into Italian without having to translate everything she said into English first. The evening was held in a gorgeous medieval building (as close as I can tell) and seemed to go over well - there were quite a few questions and several very positive comments. So all in all day one went much better than expected. And I managed to get coffee and get myself on the correct train this morning, so so far I'm ten for ten if you ignore the cold.

My mom asked for pictures. Hi Mom!

Edinburgh!

The Lauras was released on time, and if there were any negative reviews then I haven't seen them - and it would probably be good if it stayed that way, as I was a basket case for the week leading up and the week after publication. And now I'm a bit of a basket case again, because on Thursday I'll be at Edinburgh Book Festival, reading from and talking about book the second for the first time, and dammit if I don't have the slightest clue what questions, from audience or chair, the whole thing will lead to. In honesty, the only reason that I'm not hiding under the bed is that I've been paired with Jenni Fagan with The Sunlight Pilgrims, and there's a good chance I'll spend too much time asking her questions about her books to answer any about my own.

Dave gets to come along this time; I'm far too excited about getting to show him the yurt.

Book Festivals

Now that the programmes have been finalised I can say that I'm going to be at both the West Cork Literary Festival and the Edinburgh Book Festival this summer!

On Saturday the 23rd of July I and Horatio Clare will be on Whiddy Island as part of the West Cork Literary Festival, reading from our work and most likely talking about our shared preoccupation with the ocean. As far as I can figure it should be the last event that I'll be doing about The Shore, because The Lauras comes out on August 11th, and it seems that most people are interested in the latest thing. I'll be glad to get a chance to read something different, though I'll miss being able to say 'thang' in public and still seemingly be taken seriously.

On Thursday the 25th of August I'll be in Edinburgh with Jenni Fagan, where we'll both be talking about our second books, The Sunlight Pilgrims and The Lauras. I recently met Jenni Fagan and was struck dumb by her awesomeness, and may have missed a deadline because I couldn't stop reading her first book, The Panopticon. So while I never feel comfortable insisting that I'm worth listening to, I feel more than qualified to say that she is.

Parisot in retrospect: the most fun I've had in ages.

A few Fridays ago we got up at about three in the morning so we could get a taxi to the station to get the train to Gatwick to get the plane to Toulouse to drive to Parisot. Ok, Dave was the one doing the driving because if the idea of me driving anywhere other than the wide, straight, empty roads of the USA doesn't scare everyone (besides my mother) it should. I've been to Paris a few more times than I'd have liked, but I'd never seen France proper before this trip; all the fuss that people make over the place finally makes sense.

Parisot itself is a relatively small place, which reminded me of the crossroads where my parents live: the local restaurant, a few public buildings, houses tucked away from the main road. Except there was also a bakery with pain au chocolate so good I would willingly eat nothing else for the rest of my life. And mountains. And I didn't have the feeling that I'd be run off with a shotgun if I got too near someone's front porch. So, in essence, it was nothing like where my parents live unless you count the crossroads.

Since we were so far afield the speakers, the organisers, and a lot of the attendees ate together for most of the three days of the festival, which meant that the book chat began with the first arrival and didn't end until after the final speaker departed. Who was, by the by, Kate Mosse, who I'd never gotten to see before and would walk barefoot on hot blacktop to see again, talking about the importance of place to her Languedoc trilogy and her preparation and writing of The Taxidermist's Daughter. Another of the authors who spoke that weekend was Helen Dunmore, who I'd be equally willing to walk barefoot on hot blacktop to see again and who I found myself sitting next to at lunch more frequently that I'd thought possible. Though I was captivated by what they both said, it was interesting for me to watch the way in which they conducted both their talks and themselves. Like it or not, everyone needs a public face, authors probably more than other people because our private faces tend to be wholly unsuited to outdoor wear. And while plenty of people have shared their opinions on what that public face shouldn't look like (don't 'um', don't curse, don't say you have a grudge against Philip Pullman, etc.) not many have given indications what it should look like. So getting the chance to watch - Mosse with birdlike energy and bounciness, Dunmore with calm power - how women that know what they're doing do it was possibly the best part of the weekend.

After the glorious weekend of food and books we had a few days spare to poke around, so we went to Albi to see the cathedral and hear about religious oppression, and then we went to Carcassonne and heard about more religious oppression, so by the time I was getting back on the plane I'd about had it with religion in general and popes in particular. And immediately upon returning I came down with a cold, and the day after that cleared up I came down with a fever, so I'm not really sure what day it is or what's happened since France; the only sure thing is that I would desperately like to go to the festival again some year.

(If I can get my act together and get my hands on David's camera I might sling up some pictures of it all)

Finally: Parisot!

Skittering off to the Parisot Literary Festival in the morning with David in tow. I've never been outside of Paris when visiting France, so if no one ever hears from me again the safe money's on my having gotten irrevocably lost. Or chased by a cow into Andorra.

Things Going On

I've been a day late and a dollar short in pretty much all regards for the majority of the year. But in the interest of seeing if I can make it to the end of December without completely admitting failure, here's a brief list of Things Going On:

#30Authors is going on right now! A review a day will be going up for the entire month of September, and I understand that at some point there will be a shot at free books.

The Shore has made the longlist for the Guardian First Book Award - and it is a tantalising list indeed. I was with my family when I found out, and even after a solid hour of explaining I'm pretty sure that none of them understand what the Guardian is...

On Sunday the 27th of September I'm going to be at the Small Wonder Festival in East Sussex, chatting with Nicholas Shakespeare about short stories and other things. The festival is held at Charleston, which was at one point occupied by the Bloomsbury Group, and which is well worth seeing on its own merit.

The Parisot Literary Festival is taking place on the 23-25 of October, and I'm going to be there for the duration!

... and as soon as I click 'publish' I'll remember a half dozen other things that should really be mentioned, but oh well.