Mary's musings

Mary Hoffman, author of over 90 children's books, including the Stravaganza series and Amazing Grace, has begun a web journal which will be updated roughly once a week. You can read more on www.maryhoffman.co.uk

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

City of Snow

A very eventful week since my last entry. I found my cookie fortune - it says "You will reap the benefits of your personal magnetism next month." I explained all my promotional initiatives at an SAS weekend in Coventry. These happen about once a year and about 30 people go but not the same ones every time. It was my second such weekend.

Very varied - from nice people running the Lancashire Children's Book Award to a charismatic English teacher to a pschoanalyst who gave us a Freudian view of possible approaches to success and failure, entitled "Who's been eating MY porridge?"It was all wonderful as was our dinner at a long table where I was able to chat to Susan Price about the Sterkarm books and hear about her cat, who turns out to be a Norwegian Forest Cat and not a moggy at all.

I have been preparing workhops on Creating Other Worlds all week, assisted by a session with Rhiannon. To this end I am re-reading Orson Scott Card's excellent "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy." This caused some hilarity at the Bloomsbury launch dinner for City of Flowers, which took place in Oxford last week. I arrived, in a flurry of snow, with said book under my arm, since I had come in on the bus and wanted to keep reading.

They gave me a wonderful package from the branch of the Santa Maria Novelle profumeria in London. It contained a heavenly scent of Florentine spring flowers - how appropriate was that?

And one of the nicest things that has happened apart from that, is that a new Diana Wynne Jones has arrived! Conrad's Fate. Since I have a lot of travelling ahead of me, it will be invaluable.

The search for Burmese kittens has begun.