I posted recently about the Dartmouth Book Festival, sadly it has now come and gone. What a fabulous event it was. Claire and I were entertained and enlightened in equal measure. It was very professionally organised and run, which is amazing because most of the people running it were volunteers, and it was the inaugural Dartmouth Book Festival. I don’t know why I thought it was a long-standing event, perhaps it’s just that Dartmouth feels like the sort of town that has a book festival.
The highlight for me, of course, was being interviewed with Tim Pears by John Suchet. I had been very nervous beforehand, but seasoned professional that he is, John had me feeling as though I was sitting in front of a log fire in the Fox and Hounds chatting with my college chums. The hour simply flew by. It was also really interesting listening to Tim talk about his writing. As John said, we have very different styles.
John seemed surprised when I told him that I had already written the ending of my current work in progress, even though I’m only around a third of the way through the first draft. I don’t know if it is the mingling with other writers, but I have come up with an addition to my ending. There was an aspect of it that was bothering me, and whilst enjoying some refreshment in the Dartmouth Yacht Club, I came up with a variation to it.
As well as getting some publicity for the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, I learnt a lot from the sessions I attended. There was an excellent talk on self publishing by Chella Adgopul of Honeybee Books. I know many now famous authors were rejected by the traditional publishers, but I didn’t know that John Grisham was one of them. Apparently it was only after his books were turned into blockbuster films that a publisher took him on.
I really hope that the Dartmouth Book Festival becomes an annual event. I’d accept another invitation in a heartbeat. It was so well run, but I would expect nothing less of the town which trains the officers of the Royal Navy. As a book festival it was ship’ shape and Dartmouth fashion.