It’s Friday

Having completed the judging for the SWWJ, I was able to get back to The Pile of full manuscripts this week but I am still behind! I will catch up soon but once one becomes an agent and has clients to look after, reading material for clients becomes a priority above reading submissions. As I only have one pair of eyes I’m looking for a reader or two (email with CV and rates if interested please).

Last week I made it to the RNA Summer Party in London where the Joan Hessayson New Writers prize was awarded to Allie Spencer. Watching the line up of debut authors waiting to hear the results announced reminded me when I was in that line-up back in 2005, and also how successful some of my fellow nominees have become with their literary careers since then.

Back in the office, Lelsey Cookman’s Murder in Bloom was published on 18th May and I’ve been watching it doing well on amazon. I was asked to do some one-to-one appointments at the RNA Annual Conference in July, so sent off my bio etc for the programme. Feedback from publishers has started to come through from my early post-Book Fair submissions, some of which is encouraging, and a large print sale of my own latest short novel to Linford Romance/Ulverscroft.

I’m looking forward to spending a couple of days away from it all over the bank holiday weekend. The weather forecast is looking good.

Jean Fullerton book launch

Had a super time yesterday at the book launch of Jean Fullerton’s debut novel No Cure For Love published by Orion at Eastside Books, Brick Lane. Winner of the Harry Bowling Prize 2006, with a handsome doctor as a hero, and set in the East End in the 1830s I was so looking forward to reading it I did my usual thing of starting it on the train on the way home.

I know Jean from the Romantic Novelists Association which is an excellent association to join for aspiring writers and authors of women’s fiction. Caught up with lots of author friends at the launch including Janet Gover only just recovered from launching her first novel The Farmer Needs a Wife the day before, and Fenella Miller who’s The Ghosts of Neddingfield Hall is also just out.

Also at the party, among the “literary friends” (as Jean called us) were  Maureen Lee, Gill Sanderson, Jan Jones, Louise Allen, Monica Fairview, Lynne Connolly, Sophie Weston and Julie Cohen as well as Jean’s editors from Orion and her agent Laura Longrigg from MBA.

Jean’s readings were excellent (always one of the most scary things for new authors) and Eastside Books was packed and so, unsurprisingly, the shop sold out of copies. A great start to what looks like a promising career.