Busy times! Happy times!
I’ve recently completed the third and final term of ‘Inspiring Short Stories’, the course I’ve been running for Writing East Midlands at Nottingham’s Waterstones – and what a total pleasure it has been: a privilege to meet so many warm and wonderful people, who have repeatedly blown me away with their stories.
I enjoyed a brilliant evening in May at Worksop library too, where I’d been invited to discuss the Bailey’s Prize shortlist, alongside the fascinating crime writer, Sarah Ward. It was great to hear her opinions and those of many other discerning readers there, and also to thrash out my own (all the books, I thought, were intriguing, and Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies was undoubtedly a worthy winner, but for me, Anne Enright’s The Green Road shone).
Then, at the start of June, there was more incredibly impressive creative writing at Mansfield Central Library, where we played with settings, ‘Writing Home’.
And there are more workshops to come!
I’ll be leading two at Nottingham Writers’ Studio – ‘How to write descriptive and sensory details in fiction’, as part of their Development Day (2nd July), and When the words won’t come (though you know they will!) 10am -12.30 on Saturday, 25th June.
In addition, there’s a further opportunity to ‘Free your fiction’ at West Bridgford Library, 10am – 1, 30th July.
And on top of all this (as if I wasn’t feeling lucky enough!), the talented students from NTU’s Creative Writing MA invited me to submit a short story for their Monster anthology, after I visited them last year. It’s an honor to have my ‘Fever’ (first published in ‘The Woman Under the Ground’) included among their excellent work. The celebrations begin with an event at the National Videogame Arcade on July 1st.