The good news on Fringe is that we are now very efficient. The June event was last Monday, and here we are with the podcast. Huge thanks to Tom Parker for being so quick with the editing.

The less good news is that the sound for June could be better. That’s partly because it was very hot (for the UK) and it was necessary to keep the air conditioning on. It’s also because we had a mishap with my microphone which mean that we had to record the evening on phones. A word of warning to anyone who has a Zoom mic: the on/off switch is very fragile and if you drop the mic you may end up with an expensive but useless piece of kit.

Anyway, our first reader for June was the multi-talented Kate Coe of Writing & Coe, and many other things. Kate read extracts from two very different stories: one set in a fantasy world with floating islands; and one an urban fantasy.

Our headline guest for June was Peter Newman. The third and final volume of his Vargant series, The Seven, has just been published. Pete read a short story set in that world which features my favorite character from the series, the goat.

Finally we did the Q&A. I asked Pete about goats and babies. I asked Kate about Salisbury and how islands float. We discussed tea, jeopardy and gaming; not to mention the important question of which animals actually care about the current state of human politics. Tom asked us for book recommendations.

The month Fringe will feature Virginia Bergin & Justin Newland, and a brand new microphone.