Well, yesterday seemed to go quite well. We had around 40 people in the audience, and judging from the comments I got afterwards, both at the venue and on Twitter, people appear to have enjoyed my talk. The downside is that, despite having taken my voice recorder with me, I totally forgot to record it. Fail. I think I am getting old. I need a minder. Well, I need Kevin anyway. Sorry folks.

Still, as I said, people enjoyed it. Also I got to meet someone interesting. In the audience for the talk was Somerset writer, Jack Wolf. Jack’s debut novel, The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones, has been published by Chatto and Windus in the UK and will be coming out from Penguin in the US later in the year. It has also been sold to France and Spain. The folks at Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights have been enthusing to me about it.

The descriptions of the book suggest that it might not be for the squeamish (like me), but it does have faeries in it, and it is a fantasy debut so I’ve marked it down for Crawford reading.

Next Saturday Jack will be giving a talk at the M-Shed. The synopsis is as follows:

Jack Wolf explores characters and writers who were (probably or possibly) transgender and discuss his research into real life 18th/19thC women who chose to live as men. He will also discuss the challenge of writing a trans character in a historical novel whose experiences are as real as possible yet still make sense to modern readers.

I’d love to be there, but of course I have to be at Microcon. However, Jack has recorded an interview for ShoutOut which will be broadcast on Thursday. I look forward to hearing that (on podcast because I’m going to this).