Author! Author!
Just to prove I really am an Author - moreover, an Author Of The Month - a friend of my son's (thanks, Mel!) sent me this picture of a display in Borders.
Meanwhile, I've finished my first week travelling around with the Books Alive! campaign. Except for Tuesday, I've been in tandem with the charming Toni Jordan, and it's been a hoot (Tuesday was a hard gig, and I am very grateful to Pellinor enthusiast Ann for providing a friendly face in the audience, lugging 15 kilos of books into Fitzroy for me to sign, and for laughing at my jokes...) I met another fan, Patrick, on Wednesday, and that was charming too. The real pleasure of this is the chance to meet readers.
Last night we were in Warrnambool, at the local library, and that was enormous fun. Despite Penguin sending the bookshop 15 copies of Book 3 - instead of the more immediately useful Book 1 - people bought it and asked me to sign it, promising they would buy the first two books. They even (yes) laughed at my jokes, and paid attention, and were all-round a friendly and warm audience. Toni has been on the author trail since February, and is a trooper - two weeks is, I suspect, my personal limit. I must be a delicate flower: it's very hard work doing this stuff! But the Books Alive people - on the Warnambool trip it was Fiona Lange - make sure we're well looked after and very well fed. Last night's treat was a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant, just down the road from the Warnambool Library. I consumed with great pleasure a chicken breast stuffed with chestnut and a rocket and pear salad, rounded off with some roquefort washed down with a botrytis wine. If being an Author means this kind of thing, I'm all for it...
Update: the Sydney date on Monday night has been cancelled (see comments) - my apologies to those Sydney readers who might have been there - maybe we'll catch up next time!
