Highlights of Edinburgh

Since coming back from Edinburgh on Monday I've had the worst time trying to stay awake, which probably means that the summer has finally caught up to me. Last year my first book had just come out, I knew no one, and I had to leave David at home, so I was generally shy and terrified throughout the festival. This year David came along, I kept running into book people I knew, and even though I was nervous about discussing The Lauras for the first time I had a rough idea of how the evening would go. 

Highlights of the trip include:

- Chatting with Gavin Grant and Olivia Smith, and listening to Kevin Barry's stories about minks, mice, and other vermin. 

- Spending an embarrassing amount of time in the Author's yurt trying to get in as much shop talk as possible. 

- Drinking pints of whisky with Jenni Fagan and Stuart Kelly after the yurt had closed and all sane people gone to bed.

- Dragging Dave to the top of an extinct volcano only to hear American accents. 

- Dragging Dave to eat cranachan and haggis only to hear American accents.

- Fangirling shamelessly over Marcus Sedgwick.

- Getting through my first reading from The Lauras without messing up or cursing. 

- Buying books when I'd promised I wouldn't. 

As the more social of the two of us, Dave made friends with pretty much everyone he came across, and now wants me to hurry up finishing the next book so we can go back.