Your Messages

Your Messages was published yesterday, with a wonderful launch party at the Poetry Cafe. It was so amazing to have been part of such a wonderful literary experiment and online community and to help raise money for Kids Company. (If you would like to buy the book, clicking on the title link above will take you to Amazon)

It was a pleasure to finally meet the initiators of the project and editors of the book, Sarah Salway and Lynne Rees, who were both just as lovely as I had imagined them to be. (Warning: I think I might use the adjective lovely far too much in this post, simply because everyone was.)

It was a privilege to meet some of the other 40 contributors too, including Patricia Debney, whose novel, Losing You, is in my to-be-read pile, Caroline Smailes, whose first novel, In Search of Adam, and blog I adore, Clare Grant of the Three Beautiful Things blog and Leigh, another fellow Novel Racer.

The readings were all great. I think mine went reasonably well, the glass of red wine I had just drunk helped to ease any nerves. There was such a real sense of community among the gathered writers, some of whom, like me, were being published in print for the first time. Some had travelled a long way to be there, especially lovely Gina who had come all the way from Dallas, Texas.

When I first arrived Lynne welcomed me, gave me my contributor's copy of the book and immediately asked me to sign her copy. That set the tone for the evening, with books being passed around for signatures. During the break, I commented that this almost made me feel like a real writer, at which Sarah and Caroline, with whom I was standing, said in unison you are.

I guess I am now.

Three notable things:

1. Bluechrome produced a beautifully packaged book in just two months for Your Messages. A real achievement and it is a publisher worth watching, they have some great books on their list.

2. Back down to earth today, with a Tesco trip.

3. I've been doing some research on Creative Writing Masters degrees either in the London area or by distance learning. If anyone can help by telling me about their personal experiences of such courses, please leave a comment or email me.