Harrogate Happenings

Yesterday afternoon, I returned from my annual trip to Harrogate for the Theakstons Crime Writing Festival, the event where 100s of crime writers, bloggers, authors, industry professionals and many, many readers converge at The Old Swan hotel (of Agatha Christie disappearance fame…) for a weekend of talks, parties, drinks, books, scandals and hangovers. As usual, the festival was excellent fun – and even the rain didn’t stop play 🙂

Great things…

• The Pimms-in-A-Tin tent… genius
• Promoting my new book The Deaths of December at the Hodder drinks party, which included pulling crackers and saying ‘Merry Christmas’ to a lot of bemused faces (and keeping my reindeer antlers on all night afterwards)
• Reading my short story ‘The Chair’ while my fellow Slice Girls A.K. Benedict and Steph Broadribb duct taped author Neil White to a chair at The Blues Bar (thanks to Zoe Sharp for the torch!)
• The Slice Girls performance afterwards (as part of fringe event Noir At The Bar)
• The Dark Side panel on Friday, featuring Clare Donoghue, Elly Griffiths (this year’s fab festival chair), Simon Toyne, Lesley Thomson & James Oswald – chatting about supernatural elements in crime and why we should all read it
• Chocolate cake and Prosecco at the Bonnier drinks party
• Hanging out with lots of really cool people and laughing very much at lots of unrepeatable and ridiculous thing (…laughing at Katerina Diamond telling me to stop laughing so much)
• Ed’s highanus
• Danny not being dead

Annoying things…

• Not getting a burger because it started to piss down with rain and they had to close it down before everything blew away
• Not spending enough time with some people (and not seeing others at all…)
• My agent not being there
• Rain
• Forgetting to buy Farrah’s fudge
• Rod Reynolds*

Sad things…

• Thinking about the beautiful Helen Cadbury, who had planned to be there and will always be missed 💔

Some pics below, mostly stolen from others. Thanks to the organisers for a fantastic event, my publishers for spoiling me with a lovely meal and showering me with praise, the cleaner at The Cairn for giving me extra biscuits, and all the lovely people who kept me entertained. Roll on 2018!!

*Not really 🙂

What the Dickens? Literary Magazine #WTDzine

I’d like to tell you about my latest exciting news from the world of writing… I’m very pleased to announce that I am now a regular contributor to the fabulous What the Dickens? Magazine! I was lucky to have a short story accepted for Issue 1, and then a couple of flashes in subsequent issues (you can find the links here) so I was delighted to be asked to be involved on a regular basis.

If you haven’t seen this magazine before, you should go and check it out now… It comes out bi-monthly and each issue has a theme – this one being ‘The Pumpkin Edition’. As well as lots of features about writing/reading, it also contains info on other creative arts including music, theatre, screenwriting and everything else ‘creative’ you can think of. There are reviews, author features, writing prompts, photos and competitions, not to mention a wide range of short stories and poems. The magazine is currently available online only, but watch this space as there is more exciting news to follow soon!

Click on the magazine cover to read online (you can also find all issues in the kindle store).

My article in ‘The Curious Creative Life’ section can be found on Page 65.