All the fun of the Fair

What a busy bee I've been this last month! There has been a lot more work on the website, which you should see the fruits of soon, more David, classes in Italian Literature and Art History, a book signing in Abingdon, an interview with a journalist about author support networks, a telephone interview to help a student with her dissertation, a Day School on Courtly Narratives of the Italian Renaissance and, Oh yes, a trip to the Bologna Book Fair!

Bologna began a day earlier for Rhiannon and me when we drove up to London to have lunch with our Japanese publisher from Shogakukan. We met Kyoko at last year's fair and have formed quite a friendship with her.

Then on Monday 22nd we launched with some trepidation on our journey. We'd known for a week that our BA flight had been cancelled, so were flying to Verona instead. At the far end we met two people from our literary agency, plus another agent, Sarah Molloy, and Rod Campbell, who had had their substitute Easyjet flights cancelled because of a baggage-handlers strike in Italy. We piled into two taxis to the station and travelled to Bologna together on the train. How glad we were that our hotel was right opposite Bologna station!

You can read all about the Fair on my Book Maven blog over on www.bookmavenmary.blogspot.com

I'm also writing it up for Armadillo and Carousel. But next week sees me off to London for the first two days: a meeting on Monday and a talk, with Rhiannon, on Tuesday at the Society of Authors on Social Networking for Authors.

Somewhere in the middle of all this Stravaganza: City of Ships was published in the UK!