It’s been a busy three days for me and Jolly Foul Play: I’ve travelled to THREE cities (if you count London in between), spoken at TWO literary festivals, and eaten SEVERAL bunbreaks.
On Friday, I headed to Cambridge. It’s a special place for me – I used to live there (I wrote Arsenic for Tea and First Class Murder on the commuter train between Cambridge and London), and it’s where my fifth book is going to be set.
After a swift train bunbreak, I arrived at the festival to discover that the whole place had been themed around my book. How kind of them! My event was sold out, and it turns out that 100 people is quite a lot to see staring back at you when you get up on a stage. If you came, thank you so much – and if you waited in the enormous signing queue afterwards, thank you even more!
On Sunday, I visited Oxford. Oxford is where I grew up – I lived in Pembroke College, where my father was Master. And it just so happens that the venue for Sunday’s event, The Story Museum, is across the road from Pembroke!
Before the event began, I went on a mini tour of Oxford bookshops. Both Blackwell’s (where I used to work, and where I wrote the first draft of Murder Most Unladylike all the way back in 2010) and Waterstones had Jolly Foul Play in their windows. Below are some pictures of me pointing at them excitedly, because pointing at my books is one of my favourite things to do.
The Oxford Literary Festival event was a panel with fellow crime writers Katherine Woodfine and Julia Lee. It was, delightfully, called Murder for Tea, which horrified the nice old gentleman I met in the green room. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked me kindly. ‘Murder!’ I said. ‘For tea!’ He did not speak to me again.
The Lit Fest had very cleverly (and luckily) supplied our audience with buns for a post-event bunbreak – we talked about buns so much that everyone must have been hungry. We also discussed real-life crime solving, and our ideal detective societies, as well as doing readings from our latest books. It was a thoroughly spiffing afternoon, and if you came, thank you so much!
And all of this is just the beginning. Over the next week and a half I’m going to be travelling around, visiting as many schools as I can to talk about Jolly Foul Play. I’m very excited (and already stocking up on bunbreak) – wish me luck!
