Whew – what a Festival of Romance

November 11, 2013

So, the Festival of Romance is over for another year. First, I want to thank Kate Allan, the organiser, and her wonderful team for the hard work they put into making the UK’s only Romance Literary festival a huge success. This was the third year it has been held, and it’s grown into the major reader romantic fiction event of the year.

Proceeedings kicked off on Friday with an Art and Romance Evening at the Higgins Gallery but I didn’t arrive until Saturday morning when I read from ‘It Happened One Nigh’t at the Coffee and Cake morning. Over a dozen authors took part and the Lane Coffee Bar was packed with readers and writers.

Then it was straight onto the Romance Fair where about 30 stalls were set up in the Corn Exchange – this was the chance to get books signed by the author. Here’s my stash:

At lunchtime, I joined a panel of authors who had won awards at the 2012 Festival and we did a Q & A session on our books and writing process for around 60 readers and writers. It was chaired by Lou Graham, who kept us all in order! One of the most illuminating parts of the panel session for me, was hearing about other authors’ writing processes – and that we all share many of the same doubts and fears about writing and finishing a book. It was strangely reassuring and if I could pick one message from the session it was to Keep Writing and ignore the self doubts.

After lunch, I headed for a lie down at the hotel before meeting my husband, author Hazel Osmond and my agent, Broo Doherty for the Awards Ball. Everyone pulled out all the stops for full on glamour, with the guys in black tie and lounge suits. I didn’t take my camera – which was a bad decision – but we did have proefssional photos taken so I hope they’ll be on the Festival site soon.

My book was nominated for Best E book category which was won by Carmel Harrington. I’m hoping that a list of all the award winners will go up soon on the Festival of Romance site any moment.

Hazel had also been nominated for the Best Romantic read and my agent was up for Literary Agent of the Year – and – hurrah – she won! I’m afraid we went on celebrating into the small hours, eventually demanding tea at the hotel bar…

We know how to party.

And now, it really is back to reality. I have a new book to start!

Comments

1. On November 12th, 2013 at 5:52 pm
   Stevie Carroll Says:
   

   It was great to see you at the weekend.

2. On November 15th, 2013 at 7:35 am
   Phillipa Says:
   

   You too BUT I missed you at the Awards do – are there pics of the Psychobilly outfit???

3. On November 18th, 2013 at 2:23 pm
   Stevie Carroll Says:
   

   I completely failed to get pics. Must do better next time!