Today I went to Glastonbury for the Write Fantastic event organized by Liz Williams at the Grail Centre (which she and T. now manage). They have a fabulous exhibition of original art by Anne Sudworth there at the moment. And the conference was good too.

Many thanks to Kari Sperring for picking me up in the morning, and to Jo Hall for the company on the way back. It was lovely to see Anne, and also Erzebet Yellowboy who had come all the way from Wakefield to sell Papaveria Press books. I am now the proud owner of a paper copy of Hal Duncan’s fabulous poetry collection, Songs for the Devil and Death.

Liz opened the day with a fine talk about Dion Fortune and her influence on the novels of Marion Zimmer Bradley. Kari spoke about the historical evidence for King Arthur (which she neatly illustrated by holding up a blank sheet of paper). I discovered that the Welsh habit of making up “ancient” Celtic legends is actually many centuries older than Iolo Morganwg. Freda Warrington, being the Guest of Honour, talked about her books. There were also talks about John Cooper Powys and about the Glastonbury Zodiac. Regardless of whether the zodiac exists or not, Katharine Maltwood appears to have been a fascinating person.

Glastonbury is, of course, as weird as ever. We had to go into town to get lunch and Jo bravely took on the task of preventing me from being captured by the gravitational pull of the bookshops, which is just as well as I can’t carry much these days.

I’m now back home, but will be heading out to London early tomorrow to catch Himself at the British Library.