Vera in Harrogate
I'm just back from yet another trip to Shetland. This time I was there to show some journalists the islands - but the fog came down and the planes couldn't get in on the day that they'd chosen. It did mean that I could watch some of the filming on location though and the croft house that Peter has chosen for Mima's house is perfect. It was odd to wander round Lerwick and bump into members of the production team and the crew. Like my two worlds suddenly colliding.
Now I'm home and looking forward to Harrogate. It's the crime-writing festival's tenth year. I'm proud to have been involved from the beginning, determined to shift the emphasis towards the readers whenever I could. I missed last year for the first time, because of a wedding, but will be there all weekend this year. On Saturday night I'm hosting a VERA-themed dinner for Come Die With Me. I've written a special murder mystery for the event, based on my novel The Glass Room. The script seems a bit tricky to me, but I'm sure our Harrogate readers will come close to working out the solution.
The characters have been taken from the book, but they'll be played by actors, some amateur (big names in the crime publishing world) and one professional! And we have some special guests who have been involved in bringing VERA to television. Elaine Collins is my fairy godmother. She picked up one of my books in an Oxfam shop in North London and now she's executive producer on both VERA and SHETLAND. Gaby Chiappe adapted Silent Voices for television and is working on other projects. And Prof Lorna Dawson advised on the forensic science on the screen version of Telling Tales. She'll also lead the audience through the forensic details during Come Die With Me.
I'm looking forward to this year's Harrogate very much. It'll be a chance to catch up with old friends and to make new ones. And I'll be interested to see if anyone can work out the very devious solution to Come Die With Me...
Posted by Ann on Monday, July 9th 2012 @ 09:22 AM GMT [link]
