World Book Day

It’s the 25th Anniversary of World Book Day this year. I visited Raunds Primary School on 3 March 2022, and had the pleasure of meeting 100 enthusiastic young readers, teachers and teaching assistants. I signed books for the winners of the free raffle and hope they enjoy reading them.

After a quiet time for author visits in the past two years it’s lovely to be out and about meeting people in three dimensions, and seeing their happy faces. I visited Staverton Women’s Institute recently, and was warmly welcomed by the 25 women who attended. The village hall is a little gem in a narrow, unlit country lane. So charming to see the members of the WI walking there, with torches in their hands. I’m sure there’s a story in there somewhere.

I hope to meet many more readers of all ages this year, and to enjoy a few literary events. Sometimes the best thing is to be incognito, and meet other authors I admire. It’s always fascinating to find out how they write their books.

I was looking through some photographs recently and came across a blast from the past: me and Katy Fforde, who is now a well-known and extremely successful writer. Both Katy and I were unpublished at this time. We were “the hopefuls” interviewed by Gloria Hunniford during an item about the winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Award for that year. Maybe it was a lucky omen — we’re both now bestselling novelists!

That’s all for now…