The Bristol Festival of Literature is now underway. The first events took place last night. This is therefore a good opportunity to remind you of where I will be next week.

Tomorrow I’ll be popping into Bristol Museum to hear “Ancient Egyptian Storytelling”. A group of writers will be telling stories about Egypt in the Egyptian gallery of the museum. They will include Justin Newland, Piotr Åšwietlik and Amanda Huskisson, all of whom have read at BristolCon Fringe. It’s free and a 3:00pm start. Get there early, it may be busy than the museum expects.

On Monday I am chairing “Ageing in the LGBT Community” at Bristol University. That will feature Alan Clark talking about Rory’s Boys, his comedy novel set in a retirement home for gay men (something that may become a reality soon), and Dr. Jane Traies talking about her history book about the lives of older lesbians. With them will be Dr. Paul Willis of Bristol University, and my colleague Berkeley Wilde of the Diversity Trust, who will provide a local and practical view of the problem. There are (free) tickets available here.

Tuesday is my day for getting the day job done, and on Wednesday I’m doing a guest lecturer slot for a gender course at Bath Spa University. Then on Thursday morning I will be part of a panel discussing “Stories of Strong Women”. That is apparently sold out, but as it is a free event some people may not bother to turn up so if you have the time free you might drop by Arnos Vale and see if you can get in.

With me on the panel will be my good friend Lucienne Boyce. In the afternoon she and Mike Mason are running a workshop on writing historical fiction. I have signed up for this. So if you want to see me making an idiot of myself by trying to write, that should be some good entertainment. And you’ll learn a lot too. Tickets are £20 and are available here.

On Friday night and Saturday I will be at BristolCon. I’ll be reading at the Open Mic, and I’m on two panels: “SF&F On the Margins” will talk about using small presses to create diversity where mainstream publishing won’t go, while “It Takes A Village” is all about the journey of a book from idea to finished artifact. I will also, of course, be selling copies of Shadow Histories of the River Kingdom. Juliet will be on hand to sign your copy. And Pete Sutton will be selling Fantastically Horny which has my story, “Camelot Girls Gone Wild”, in it.

Sunday I start packing for Barcelona.

Of course there is lots of other good stuff going on. If you are in the Bristol area, do check out the Festival website for more information.