Wigan Literary Festival

 

Saturday 25th  April I enjoyed meeting up with BeWrite Books, Cait and Alex, along with Mike Hunt and poet extraordinaire, Sam Smith. The event was to network, something all writers and small press need to do more these days. I manned a table as the British branch of Adventure Books of Seattle. Knowing how difficult it is to sell books and magazines at these events I put my hand in my pocket and visited each table. At the Bewrite table I was spoilt for choice and selected Insatiate Archer by Hunter Taylor because the medieval fantasy theme appeals to me and reflects my own Xaghra’s Revenge novel in writing. At the small press Green Arrow table I bought their anthology and a novella. I  shared a joke at the Lulu press table (the one when their executive, Henry  Hutton, forgot to bring a sample book to his first demo in the UK and so I sold him a copy of Dimensions - ie a Lulu book back to him – hah.) I  found a UK Authors writer to chat to. He didn’t seem to know about the UKAway weeks so I excited him about our weeks in Cyprus.  A wandering photographer agreed to snap me. So thanks to Colin Jones of Parallax Consultancy for the photo on this page. I actually appear a little slimmer when cowering behind my books. Note copies of Exit, Pursued by a Bee, the stunning risque cover art for issue 4 of Escape Velocity magazine and, hello Gary Baker, even your Ardly Effect was on show. One buyer. I’ll keep the money in lieu of royalties for Escaping Reality hah.

As I packed up,  I rushed around to collect my purchased books from Green Arrow and BeWrite, only to forget that I hadn’t paid the gorgeous Cait for Insatiate Archer. I could be done for shoplifting! I emailed her at BeWrite and she said I didn’t have to pay,  just enjoy the book. Wow. It is on my list of books to read and review. My friend Peter Tomlinson, of the Petronicus Legacy fabulous books, recommends Insatiate Archer so I am salivating already.

I’m now on twitter for good or bad http://twitter.com/geoffnelder

I discovered a new and unexpected review of my first  novel, Escaping Reality. Read it here.

I continue to judge the Whittaker Prize. It is now in the third round and the writers send their stories to  the organizers, who decaptitate and send the words onto me. It is a pleasure even if time consuming. One of the entries that I assessed and graded to be second at the first round, Jon Pinnock, has had his story accepted for publication in Tales of the Decongested. He’ll be reading it at Foyles Bookshop on the last Friday of this month.

Post-Cyprus 09

Between cycling a rented  bike in the Akamas National Park, hiking along the coast,  and feasting with friends, I hardly had time for writing. Nevertheless, the TV was in Greek and as exciting as Gibraltar TV so I did achieve some lowly fiction targets. I managed to find an internet Café (when will cheap hotels wake up to their guests’ needs?) in Coral Bay, so that meant another bike ride or two. I downloaded batches of stories I am judging for this year’s Whittaker prize and spent evenings reading and grading them.

 

It was a thrilling moment to huff and puff the rented bike up to Pegia  (sp?) where Eleanor was married and have a snack lunch of banana and nuts at the actual spot. My bike can be seen in the photo.

 

We writers explored the 6^th century ruined Basillica at Agios  Georgias, only 100 metres from our hotel but the event that intrigued  us the most was an  abandoned  hotel next door. The pool contained about a metre of horrible murky water. We had to investigate because at night the frogs made such a din. Of course they stopped when we closed in but soon started again  when we froze for a few minutes. We couldn’t figure how they got out of the pool. We didn’t see even one of them, only hear what seemed to be hundreds. Unless those frogs have learned to jump out of water and up the pool ladder at dawn, we remain mystified.

 

The meat-eaters and drinkers among us made the most of the tavernas and told me the food wasn’t cheap but tasty. The only vegan food I found on the menu was Village Salad, and only then when I asked for the Feta cheese  to be excluded. What remained was a bowl containing tomatoes, lettuce, onion swimming in a tasty but samey olive oil and  vinegar dressing. Occasionally an olive or celery snippet would be in there.  You’d think that a society that had evolved into civilization 2000 years before the Brits  were living in mud huts, would  know to add peppers, avocado, fruit, houmous, cress, nuts… Never mind, it was tasty and healthy. I expect if I paid more than 5 euros and travelled farther than the local village, I’d have found more vegan variety.

 

I swam every day but only in the hotel unheated pool (approx 15C brrrr at first but Ok for vigour). The sea attracted one of our number who’d brought flippers and snorkelling gear. Temp he estimated at 18C but he found no life in the local harbour though we saw  tiny fish in sunnier spots.

 

I’m glad I went. Talk is of Kerala in India next year.

 

There are some photos on a page in progress here

I have enough  photos to throw together an article  for  Cycling World and I made some progress on my fantasy, Xaghra’s Revenge.