Super Swanwick

Forget Super Saturday or Super Sunday.  I've just got back from Super Swanwick, the annual Writers' School in the heart of Derbyshire, where I return year after year to meet old friends and new, learn new things, share tips and enjoy Britain's craziest live entertainment. 

My highlights for this year were...


1. Running into Ingrid from the National Gallery/Liars' League prize, and subsequently running a pop-up film showing of both our stories being performed at the National Gallery.

2. Steve Hartley's 4-part course on the Psychology of Characters.  If you have to ask what "knicker net.com" might be, you clearly weren't there!


3. The fancy dress disco, for which I dressed as Jasper Fforde's literary detective, Thursday Next.  Yes, that's THURSDAY NEXT I'm dressed as.  Surprised how many people hadn't a clue, when there were at least three Thursday Next novels lying around the conference centre.  True fans we will pleased to know that I tattooed (wrote in pen) "Crimea" on my upper arm and "Jenny is a mindworm" on my hand.  Having been v ill earlier this year, it was incredible to myself that I was able to dance the night away.

4.  "Winning" a free book - basically for knowing EH Shepard illustrated The Wind in the Willows.  After a year of genuine achievements, being constantly congratulated for this was quite bizarre.

And, yes, Swanwick coincided with the Olympics this year.  Very pleasant way of getting off to sleep.  So, despite my opening sentence, most of my Swanwick camera roll looks suspiciously like this..


See you all next year!




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