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Friday, September 11th 2015 : "Moths and Starlings and other stories"
The past week has been pretty exhausting but involved meeting with old friends and interesting strangers. It ended last night on a real high with the launch of The Moth Catcher, the seventh VERA novel.
Last Friday I travelled down to the Wirral to spend the night with Margaret Murphy, founder of Murder Squad and writer most recently of two books under the name AD Garrett. She's a scientist by training and her books are meticulously researched (and very scary). The following day we joined other squaddies and friends for the launch of Starlings and Other Stories, a collection of short stories based around beautiful black and white photos of Pembrokeshire. We were sent the photos by Nicola, an editor at the small publisher Graffeg, and asked if they might provide inspiration. They certainly did! It was fantastic to meet the other contributors (each squaddie invited an accomplice to provide a story)and David the photographer in Waterstones in Wrexham.
At the launch party: Ann in conversation with actor Charlie Hardwick (and Alison Graham, TV editor of the Radio Times)
On Wednesday evening I was in Darlington to speak to readers about The Moth Catcher I love doing library events and it was a great way to start The Moth Catcher tour. Then last night we celebrated the actual publication of The Moth Catcher with a party at the Baltic Art Gallery. The Baltic is right on the banks of the Tyne, the sun shone, and lots of my friends and family turned out. The group Ribbon Road provided the music to set the tone and the sense of place, and my son-in-law Dave did a short reading from the book. We had some starry guests from television and a whole gaggle of lovely librarians. The whole things was destined to be a success, perhaps, because the Butterfly Conservation Society had decided to call September 10th Moth Night, and ITV was filming the adaptation of the novel at the same time too. A series of wonderful coincidences.
And now I'm on the train to Glasgow, where I'll be starting my Moth Catcher adventure. I'll be in venues throughout the country in the next few weeks. Please check the events page of the website for details.
Posted by Ann at 12:53 PM GMT
