Birmingham Book Festival

UEA Class of '95

A reunion of sorts was held this week in Birmingham where I was reading at the Birmingham Book Festival with novelist Janette Jenkins, author of 3 novels including the recent ANGEL OF BROOKLYN, and Richard Beard, who has published 4 novels and 3 works of non-fiction. Richard, Janette and I were students together 15 years ago on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. In those days, Malcolm Bradbury was running the course and our year (‘94/’95) was his final year as he retired after our graduation. It’s the first time that the 3 of us have been together since 1995, although we’ve seen each other individually in the meantime, most recently when I stepped in for Richard at a Dublin reading after he was laid low with chicken pox.

Signing with Jeannie afterwards

There were only 12 students on that writing course but between five of us we’ve published 30 books; the missing published writers from the photo are Toby Litt and Bo Fowler.

Literary Lunch

Literary Lunch

The last few days in Sydney have been filled with media activities, none more enjoyable than yesterday’s literary lunch at the Four Seasons, hosted by the Sydney Morning Herald and Dymocks Booksellers. This is a great tradition in Sydney literary circles that has been going on for 20 years and a big thank you to all those who organised it and came out to hear me talk about THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE and my other novels. Tomorrow, it’s on to Melbourne for the Writers Festival.

Sydney Literary Lunch

Before heading to Melbourne for the Writers Festival in a few weeks, I will be in Sydney for a few days and taking part in a literary lunch organised by the Australian booksellers, Dymocks, in association with the Sydney Morning Herald. It takes place on Tuesday 18th August at 12:30 pm at the Four Seasons Hotel and tickets are currently available from the Dymocks website. I’ll be talking about THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE and my other novels so if you’re in Sydney then, it should be an enjoyable afternoon.

Irish Tour

Hughes & Hughes, Wexford

Waterstone’s Cork

Just back from a mini-tour of Ireland over the last few days, first to Dubray in Galway, the Waterstone’s in Cork, then Hughes & Hughes in Wexford in the always delightful company of Claire Kilroy, where we read from and discussed our new novels THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE and ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED. Thanks to all the staff in each of the bookshops for their generosity each evening and to the fine audiences who showed up! Writers do a lot of events in Dublin and it’s clear that there’s a real appetite outside the capital for author readings – booktours should look to extend their borders!

Ireland Tour

Claire Kilroy (TENDERWIRE / ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED) and I will be reading together in 3 Irish cities next week as well as signing copies of our books, so if you happen to be in one of these cities, do come along:

Tuesday 21st: Dubray, Galway, 6 pm

Wednesday 22nd: Waterstone’s, Patrick Street, Cork, 6 pm

Thursday 23rd: Hughes & Hughes, Wexford, 6:30 pm

End of Tour

I finished my mini-tour of England yesterday. On Friday I visited four libraries in Suffolk to talk about THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, but also THE DARE, which the libraries had chosen as their communities reading book. In each, there was a ‘Dare Door’ where readers could leave their thoughts on the Quick Read novella I published earlier this year. Then, on Saturday morning, I was at the BBC as a guest on Saturday View on Radio 4. You can listen back to the broadcast here.

Ipswich Arts Festival

Moved on from Hull to Ipswich for the Ipswich Arts Festival last night. In the afternoon I appeared as a guest on BBC Radio Suffolk and then later, on a beautifully sunny evening, my event was held on a university campus that overlooks a fantastic harbour. I’d been here 2 or 3 years ago while touring THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS so it was nice to come back with THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE. Also got a chance for a quick trip back and forth to Norwich, my old university, to catch up with some friends. The picture below reminds me of my 7 years working as a bookseller with Waterstone’s and the amount of times I stood behind tables like this one at events, selling books!

Becoming Richard

Richard and I, photo by Dru

Back in 1994/95, I was a student on the Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia, alongside fellow future-novelists Janette Jenkins and Richard Beard. Last night, I was due to attend a reading in Dublin where Richard and his friend Dru Marland were to read from Richard’s fascinating and often very witty non-fiction book BECOMING DRUSILLA, an account of a walking tour that the two friends took after Dru announced plans for gender reassigment.

However, those plans changed around lunchtime when Richard phoned me to say that he’d come down with chicken-pox. ‘Have you ever had chicken pox?’ he asked me and I realised that I didn’t know, so I did what anyone else would do under the circumstances: I phoned my mum. ‘Have I ever had chicken pox?’ I asked her. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, sounding for all the world like it was a very happy memory. ‘You were about six or seven at the time and we were coming home from holidays and you cried all the way back in the car.’

‘Yes,’ I told Richard, phoning him back. ‘I had it as a kid.’

‘Delighted to hear it,’ he replied. ‘In that case, how would you feel about taking my place at the reading tonight?’

Which was how I ended up not sitting in the audience listening to Richard and Dru read from the new paperback edition of their book, but standing in front of them instead, pretending to be a cheerful, rugby-playing Englishman as Dru and I read several passages from the book.

And very good fun it was too.

Back to College

I gave an address last week to the Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin. Thankfully the organisers did not ask me to speak about philosophy so instead I talked a little about writing and gave a reading from the new novel THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE.

I was a student in Trinity between 1989 and 1993 where I studied English Literature. In fact I wrote most of my early stories in the Lecky Library, including ‘The Entertainments Jar’, which went on to be my first published story and was shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award.

Thanks to all the organisers of the reading and sorry for not realising that I should have dressed up more formally. As you can see from the photos below, the society favours shirts, ties and suits…

Image Author Evening

There’s a special evening planned at the Fitzwilliam Hotel in Dublin for Thursday April 23rd.

IMAGE Magazine are hosting the event which sees three Irish authors, Claire Kilroy, Alex Barclay and I, engaging in a Q&A and some readings. Tickets are available through Image Magazine on 01-2808415 .

Alex has recently published her third novel, BLOOD RUNS COLD, while Claire’s third, ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED, is published on May 7th, the same day as THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE.