Spring is (hopefully!) coming at last! A vase of daffodils is a little ray of sunshine, isn’t it? I’m looking out of the window of my study at the daffodils, snowdrops (very late), drifts of crocuses  and grape hyacinths, which are all starting to open into bloom under the trees.

I’m sorry that I haven’t been in touch for a while but sadly we have had the final illness and passing of my mother-in-law recently and the funeral yesterday.

On a brighter note, I’m now preparing for the first of the Tamworth Literary Festival dates, Thursday April14th, when I’m taking part in an evening  session of the Festival’s food and books event. I will be talking about my book, The Old Rectory: escape to a country kitchen, which is a memoir of renovation and research, with recipes of food to soothe the soul. I may even take along some samples to tempt you.

The other two dates in the Tamworth festival are Saturday June11th focussed on Romance literature, when I’ll be promoting my Drumbeats trilogy, and Saturday October 29th on Hallowe’en, when I’ll be doing something spooky with my children’s novel, S.C.A.R.S.

In the meantime, those of you who have signed up for my quarterly newsletter will have received it today and read my interview with author Anne Harvey over tea and cakes. I’ll be featuring other authors in forthcoming editions, including some famous popular writers … whose names I’ll be dropping in a later post.

Just to give you a flavour, here is the start of my interview with Anne, whose latest novel is just released on Amazon and is called ‘Bittersweet Flight’ and is a nostalgic tale of self-discovery, courage, loss and love in 1950s Lancashire. Check it out at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CBTQH54

So, as we sipped our Earl Grey tea and munched on French macarons, I asked Anne how and when she started writing for publication … she said,

“In the early 1960s, I spent a short time living and working in the United States. So life-changing was the experience that I wove a fictional novel around it and naïvely sent it out to various publishers. With no luck, of course. It was still, I now realise, a long way off publication. By then, I was hooked on the love of writing. In the intervening years, I wrote another two novels, now all gathering dust on the shelf, probably the best place for them. I also got involved in tracing my family history and wrote articles, many of them commissioned, on my research for various journals and national magazines. I really only took my writing seriously after taking early retirement. Last year, I self-published my debut novel, A Suitable Young Man, with some moderate success, I’m pleased to say.”

To read the whole interview, click on the Newsletter pic on the right side of my home page, and subscribe.

See you again soon!