Out on the campaign trail again: since Tuesday night I’ve been here in the wonderful borough of WIGAN, where I’ve been invited to do my stuff at schools in the area as part of The 5th Annual Leigh and Wigan Words Together Literary Festival. I’m always looking out for more event opportunities, that’s a huge part of my sinister masterplan to conquer the universe but, let’s face it, I haven’t been a published author for all that long (only since Sept ’06!) The festival scene is really thriving here in the UK just now, so the fact I’m starting to get invited to those is very exciting! YAY!

Ahem. OK: now I’ve stopped waving my tentacles in the air I guess I’ll tell you how it’s gone so far. 😉

This morning I did two talks at Westleigh High School. Here’s a pic…

At one point in the first session I was just taking a swig from the water-bottle, preparatory to tearing into a reading with my usual gusto, when a couple of young gents in the front row suddenly burst out laughing.

‘What?’ I asked, brilliantly. It was only then, of course, that I realised I’d managed to pour a goodly amount of the water straight down the front of my shirt. Ho, hum. Well, manual coordination has never exactly been my strong point. And stain invisibility, I’ve learned, is one of the great advantages of wearing a lot of black! ;p

This small mishap aside, both these sessions were a lot of fun. Being asked for more at the end of one of my readings was a particular highlight for me – and since the passage in question (from Tim) involved the total and utter destruction of Britain’s Houses of Parliament, I was more than happy to oblige.

The second session was followed by a slap-up lunch in Westleigh High’s LRC. Bearing the lovely food in mind on top of everything else, let’s just say I’m looking forward to returning to Westleigh for another session tomorrow morning. 😉

The third and final session of the day was at St Mary’s RC High School.

If you look carefully at the above pic, you’ll notice that the camera flash in my eyes has rather revealed my true demonic identity (see ‘THE ENTHOVEN IS DEAD’) But you’ll notice I wasn’t the only one in the room, HUR HUR HUR!

This was another terrific session. I was worried, going in, that having a mix of age-groups in the audience (about half Y7, half Y10) was going to make things awkward, but not a bit of it. Questions from both groups started flowing straight away, and were uniformly excellent. HUZZAH!

My thanks to everyone I met today for giving me such a warm welcome. Example: I’ve only just returned from being taken out by Gillian Forrester, one of the masterminds behind the Festival, for a restorative mountain of sausages, mash and mushy peas. All is right with the world. Or (urp – ‘scuse me!) this corner of it, anyway. ;p

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