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.

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.

West Cork Literary Festival

Despite living in the UK for the better part of six years, I've only managed to get over to Ireland twice so far, even though the flight is shorter than the train journey to Norwich. My first thought on landing in Cork airport was that this is a problem that needs remedying, preferably with David in tow, as he hasn't really seen Ireland either. It's not so much that the southwest coast is beautiful - everyone knows that - as that it is my kind of place: quiet and slow and hidden, coastal with lots of space for walking and getting lost.

The festival was held in the town of Bantry, which was big enough for me to get lost in more than once but small enough that I really shouldn't have been able to. Since it was such a trek the festival let me come across a day early, which meant that I had an evening and a morning in which to get lost.

The reading took place on Whiddy Island, which looks like this:

The other writer was Horatio Clare with Down to the Sea in Ships, who is a character. We scooted across to the island an hour early to get ourselves settled in, which consisted mostly of talking books and teaching, being anxious, and getting sunburned. That was when I found out that I should probably update my author photo: he'd spent the evening before drinking with the festival organisers and other writers, and even though they knew for certain that I'd made it to Bantry, no one had been able to spot me, or been certain that they'd spotted me, because they were all looking for red hair. 

Most of our nerves were due to neither of us being able to remember if we had a chairperson for the event, which is the difference between an easy-bordering-on-fun undertaking and an event in which I am guaranteed to faint, so we were both incredibly relieved when Sue Leonard turned up on the ferry along with the audience and said that she'd be running the show so we needn't worry. We read, we talked about misogyny and violence and the sea, and all in all it was a lovely way to put The Shore to bed, as this was most likely the last time that I'll get to talk about it more than in passing. The Bantry bookseller managed a little black magic and had copies of The Lauras for sale, which gave Sue and I both a moment of anxiety when we saw them because she hadn't read it and I hadn't prepared it and we were both certain that it wasn't the book that we were meant to be talking about but there it was. 

Afterwards I got the chance to chat with some of the audience, which is always fun, and finally met Sara Baume, who wrote Spill, Simmer, Falter, Whither, and with whom I share an agent, a publisher, and a name. And after that I got to hear Zadie Smith and Nick Laird read their work and talk about writing, which brought about something not far off a moment of perfect happiness. Which was good, because after that I discovered that somewhere along the way I'd picked up a case of food poisoning. Which is half the reason why it's taken me nearly a week to say anything on the wonder of West Cork. The other half the reason is the sudden burst of little things to do before The Lauras comes out next week but which I haven't really had the energy to do. 

At least I'm back in Reading for a little while - this may be the first Saturday I've woken up here in five weeks - and with any luck will turn back into myself soon.

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.

Surprise and the Sunday Times

I hadn't known that the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award had been revived, or that I've now been in the UK long enough to be considered a British writer by their standards and therefor be in the running, so I was more than a little shocked to find out that The Shore has made the shortlist. So now I will do my happy dance, but not for long because a shortlist means skittering down to London quite a bit over the next few weeks. One of those skitters is going to be for an evening at Foyles Bookshop on Monday the 23 of November, which will include reading and conversation from the four shortlisted authors and beer and pizza for the audience; it's free, but you have to go to their website and reserve a ticket, I'm guessing so that they'll have enough pizza if real life is anything like uni. 

The other three authors on the shortlist are Sarah Howe for Loop of Jade, Sunjeev Sahota for The Year of the Runaways, and Ben Fergusson for The Spring of Kasper Meier. Peters, Fraser, and Dunlop, the agency that is in part responsible for the prize, has bios and blurbs on their website for the curious, and two of the judges, Peter Kemp and Sarah Waters, appeared on Open Book this past weekend to discuss the books.

And I'm personally amused that the three women involved are all called Sara(h).

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.

Recovering

If ever I fake my own death it will probably be an accident, considering that this summer a few people, Lucy included, were temporarily under the impression that I'd shuffled off the mortal coil. Though I have been tempted to fake my own kidnapping once or twice before, for the sake of getting a little work done.

July was spent, as mentioned before, trying to polish off a still nameless novel, which has since been passed on to Lucy and even now is lurking in at least one reading pile that I can think of - which is probably why I've suddenly gotten so much better at keeping my phone charged and in my pocket. The day after it was handed off I dragged the Englishman to meet my grandfather, which hasn't happened before because said grandfather doesn't fly and I don't Florida, which is where he happens to have wedged himself in. It also happens that he's a retired NASA physicist, so I spent the week playing with ion mass spectrometers and scribbling down the stories he told while the two of them talked philosophy. Then we hauled butt to the Shore, with a detour along the way to fetch my little sister from summer camp, because the Englishman has never seen the Shore and I miss it.

The day after I made it back to my usual timezone, I packed up and went to Edinburgh. Which was unexpectedly lovely, given the amount of carping I've heard from people about Scotland. Besides dragging myself up Calton Hill and being treated to the unexpected sight of a dozen well-muscled men wearing nothing but kilts, I also dragged myself up Arthur's Seat, and saw the absolute worst stand-up comedy that has ever been performed anywhere by anyone. The Book Festival sticks its authors in an actual yurt when they're not in use, and since Jura was a sponsor there was a full bottle of whisky out to be poured from at will every evening I was there. The actual event in which I participated was the most enjoyable I've ever done; the chair was lovely, the audience was lovely, Michael Russell was lovely, I didn't misspell anyone's name when I signed their book, and I didn't do anything that I need to be ashamed of. Though I did manage to trigger an audience gasp of horror: the chair asked who we'd have for a fantasy dinner party; I asked if it was a party to have a nice chat or for the sole purpose of putting strychnine in the soup, because I'd been waiting for the day to poison Phillip Pullman since I read The Amber Spyglass as a child.

And almost immediately following my return from Edinburgh came the holiday weekend and the Reading Festival, where I saw bands playing live that I can't name because it'll just sound like bragging.

Even making allowances for my fuzzy math skills, I think I've had five actual working days in the month of August.

So now it's back to work. I'm hoping that, any day now, my head will break water. Though it's more likely that Henry will find out how little I've gotten done. Or rather, how much more there still is to do. I should be hauling carcass back to Norwich for the last year of the degree in a few weeks, and usually my work life takes over once I'm back. The room we began turning into an office at the beginning of the summer will be getting a floor tomorrow, so of course I'll be going back the moment that it's actually finished and useable. I have a half-hope still that having a designated room of my own, instead of working off the dining room table and being moved around constantly, will mean that I'll get more work done while I'm down in Reading, because it feels like I simply don't work enough while I'm here. Of course, the converse is equally likely to be true: I do far too much work while I'm in Norwich and if I keep up that pace something will spontaneously combust.

Heaven alone knows what will happen once I graduate and home and work find themselves merging.

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.

Edinburgh!

Five years after first setting foot in the UK I've finally made it to Scotland, Edinburgh, and the Festival! Or Festivals, as it happens to be; the city is absolutely lousy with them. I've gotten about quite a bit since getting in on Tuesday night, and spent a good deal of time bumming around the Book Festival with my author badge strategically obscured feeling a right impostor. Hopefully, the event on Friday will do something about that.

At 3.30 on Friday afternoon I get to sit down with Michael Russell to read from our respective books and chat about whatever the chair and the audience thinks pertinent; at 5.30 I have the honour of being allowed to read the work of Ibrahim Qashoush as part of the Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers Series. And some time this week I might get to slow down and react to finally seeing Edinburgh for the first time - I've been traveling for three weeks now without interruption, and I'm not entirely sure that my brain cells haven't been left behind somewhere.

Houston, we have achieved orbit

I've fallen off the face of the earth this month due to an all but doomed attempt to finish a final pass on the as yet nameless novel from the MA before I go to visit my grandfather. Summer is always shorter than it looks. But I've touched down for a moment to make sure said grandfather is actually expecting me (he's a bit of a recluse; the last time he allowed someone to visit him a Bush was in the White House) and I realised that things are going on.

The Shore has (somehow, inexplicably) been nominated for Not The Booker, which is a bit of fun run by the Guardian that has for the past six years or so determined The People's Choice for book of the year in democratic fashion. Which means that anyone who wants to can mosey on over and put in their two votes for any of the 70 books on the list. It may be the final bastion of true democracy in the universe, so take advantage.

On Friday the 21st of August at 3.30 in the afternoon I'm going to be at the Edinburgh Book Festival chatting with Michael F Russell about freaky communities. Ok, I'll be at the book festival for most of that week, but if you want to heckle or sling tomatoes, that's the best time to do it. Edinburgh, as it happens, also runs a democracy-based award for first books, with the added bonus that everyone who votes gets entered in a drawing to win the entire 56 book longlist. Go and vote, because everyone likes free books. And if you don't like books they'd probably make a charming fortress.

And finally, I've been asked to natter on about the last thing I read that lit my fire for #30Authors, which is an event run by The Book Wheel where thirty writers write about their favourite recent reads on thirty book blogs over the thirty days of September. I hear there's a good chance that this could involve giveaways...

And now, back to the noveling!

Reading at UEA

Popping this up before I forget about it again. Given that it's a UEA Prose MA party there is almost guaranteed to be wine that is nearly as good as the fiction being read. And I can tell you, having met/heard/read this lot before, the fiction that will be read is seriously good.