It’s time to thank you for following my blog during 2021 and to wish you all the very best for the coming year. As a way to wind up events, please find some photos of our travels since release from lockdown.
Our itinerant life continues in 2022 and I look forward to sharing more of our experiences with you. In the meantime, here’s wishing you and yours all the best for 2022.
Over the weekend, I was delighted to present a workshop and talk at the Mani Lit Fest in the Peloponnese, Greece. The invitation came as a good excuse to continue our itinerant lifestyle and we’re spending the next month roaming around the country. Stoupa makes a delightful starting point and the Mani Lit Fest was a wonderful event to be involved with. I delivered a Get Creative! workshop where I shared prompts and exercises to generate ideas for short fiction. One of the participants had read This Much Huxley Knows and throughly recommended my novel to the gathered group. The following day, I gave a talk about my experience of being published by small presses. This was well received and an email arrived soon after from a member of the audience who said my input was thought provoking and reassuring.
There was a real buzz around the Lit Fest. The highlights for me included a talk from James Heneage (founder of the Chalke Valley History Festival and Ottakar’s bookshop chain) who shared stories from his new book The Shortest History of Greece. Carol McGrath gave a hilarious presentation on Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England (the name of her forthcoming non-fiction book) and then there was a delicious introduction to the cookbook Salt and Honey from Nicholas Tsakiris and his daughter. (David followed a chilli lentil recipe last night which was very tasty.)
The Lit Fest was held at a local restaurant where the venue created a cocktail in honour of Huxley. A non-alcoholic drink (Huxley is only seven years old) can you guess what it contains?
There was also delicious cake (enough for two) called Ekmek Kataifi. It’s made with a layer of syrupy shredded filo pastry, another of vanilla custard, a layer of whipped cream and topped with pistachios. It goes very well with Greek coffee although I think it’s also good with tea.
If you’d like to enter the Mani Lit Fest Flash Fiction Competition (I’m the judge), send up to 1000 words on the theme of return. The competition is free to enter and is open until 30 November 2021.
We’ve had a wonderful time staying with an old friend in central Cambridge. Although we’re here for another fortnight, I wanted to share are the highlights so far:
Cambridge Shakespeare Festival
Open air theatre is a particular delight and when plays are staged in Cambridge college gardens, there can be few better venues. Over a six week period we’ve seen plays that I know and love including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, A Comedy of Errors and two plays which were new to me, Richard III and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Richard III wins the prize for the most gruesome and A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a sheer joy.
I came across Sundy Flor’s Twitter account when I was investigating book bloggers online. I checked out her website, Books Unfold, and was impressed with the beautiful graphics she creates to accompany her posts and the interesting format for her reviews. I contacted Sundy Flor to see if she would be interested in reading and reviewing This Much Huxley Knows. She agreed and absolutely loved the novel, you can read the review here. We’ve had several email exchanges since then and it occurred to me readers of The Writer is a Lonely Hunter might be interested in learning more about book blogging and the new fangled Bookstagramming. Who better to ask than Sundy Flor?
Q&A with Sundy Flor from Books Unfold
Can you tell readers about yourself, where you’re from and Books Unfold?
I am Sundy Flor from Davao City, Philippines. I am an avid reader of books from Fantasy and Young Adult to Nonfiction. Books Unfold is my blog where I share my thoughts and the things I learned from books.
Read the rest of this entry »We’ve been in Edinburgh for three weeks and are coming to love the city more and more. Previously, we’ve been here during the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Fringe in August, so spending spring in the city is a new experience. Edinburgh seems such a chilled place outside the summer rush. And the real pleasure has been discovering the walkways and paths that crisscross the city. Here are a few of our adventures.
On my sixtieth birthday, we walked to the summit of Arthur’s Seat. (This is the main peak from an ancient volcano that overlooks the city.) It’s very craggy at the top and I had to scamper up like a mountain goat. The views are spectacular. When we were walking down the other side, we met an elderly woman carrying a shopping bag who was on her way up. We stepped aside to let her pass and my husband told her she was nearly at the top. She replied, ‘Och, I know that. I’m taking a short cut home from my Tai Chi class.’ If I’m that fit at her age, I’ll be very happy.
We are renting a flat in Stockbridge which is a few minutes from the walkway of the Water of Leith. From there we can stroll to the sea or go further around the city. The paths are like nature reserves although recently there’s been a distinct pong from the wild garlic. (The figure in the water is by Anthony Gormley.)
Today we walked along the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal then took a turning back to Stockbridge along the Water of Leith.
Who knows what walking joys await us next week.
You can now pre-order a kindle or paperback copy of This Much Huxley Knows from AmazonUK, AmazonUS, Barnes and Noble or if you want to grab a bargain, order it through the Book Depository with a 10% discount and free postage worldwide.
Lovely reviews continue to be posted on Goodreads about This Much Huxley Knows. Do pop over and take a read – I’m really chuffed with the response to this novel. This Much Huxley Knows will be released on 8 July and I’m planning some social media activity to celebrate the launch.
Meanwhile, I’m continuing to write across genres and I recently had word that a poem I’d written during a workshop offered by Tolu Agbelusi will feature in the first Quay Words anthology to be published by Literature Works.
Onwards and upwards!
We are packing up our house, getting it ready to let it over the spring and summer. This will leave us free to wander about the UK and we’re aiming to spend time in Edinburgh and Cambridge. Meanwhile, we’re making the most of the things Dorset has to offer. At the weekend, we went on a 17km walk through the fields and here are some of the things we saw.
Dorset is a beautiful county. Did you spot the first bluebells? In the next couple of weeks there will be carpets of blue in the woodlands. It almost seems a pity to be leaving…
I’ve just worked out how to use a slider to compare photos. Thrilled by this discovery, I wanted to share it with you immediately. The photo on the left is the view from my writing room yesterday and the right shows this morning.
It’s so much duller today but but I’m excited by the possibilities of this new feature. Watch this space as I try to improve my photography, and explore the benefits of WordPress further.
Although currently in lockdown, we are allowed to take daily exercise. David and I are in the habit of running one day and walking the next. We don’t run together as he’s much faster than me. On walking days, we cover a 10km loop that takes us along Poundbury hill fort to the village of Bradford Peverell and then through Charminster on the outskirts of Dorchester to home.
Here are some of the photos I’ve taken on recent walks. From flooded fields, to early buds, lambs in the fields and cottage homes, an azure sky to rain afoot. I hope you enjoy these images of Dorset.
How are you coping during the pandemic?
the writer is a lonely hunter 