Life on Hold Until Further Notice - Jan Edwards


Food Safety and the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) | FDAAs the year of the Covid rumbles on we find more and more of those events we look forward to are falling by the wayside. 
At the weekend just past I should have been on a panel at EdgeLit in Derby (event cancelled). Likewise events where I was intended to be on panels, or give readings, or (wo)man a book stall for Alchemy Press, are Birmingham Lit Fest, Fantasycon, Novacon, Stokercon and several other one day Lit events.

Stokercon was the biggest loss for me. This had been scheduled for April and I had intended to launch my folk horror novella, A Small Thing for Yolanda, there, as well as the horror anthology Alchemy Press Books of Horror 2, which I co-edited with Peter Coleborn and Alchemy Press, and two other Alchemy titles, Les Vacances by Phil Sloman and Talking To Strangers by Tina Rath. But alas, it was not to be.

The only bright spot at that times was that Stokercon was rescheduled (optimistically as it turned out) for August. But Covid had not done with us. Stokercon is essentially an annual American convention that occasionally crosses the seas to the UK, we really thought 2020 was going to be the year!  We duly booked a celebration slot for the four titles at the August Stokercon and added in the  launch/publication of my next crime Listed Dead to coincide with it all.
Ha! As the Scottish Bard would have it, ‘The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.
So what then? Stokercon is an annual event and 2021 is already in planning; time was running out. Answer? Reboot ‘Stokercon 2020’ as ‘Chillercon’!  Aptly titled not just because it’s a horror event but also that the weather for any event in Scarborough in mid-January is going to be a tad brisk…
After all that I was left with two books floating around without a place of birth, so to speak, meaning that the last week has been spent playing catch-up looking for online niches the slot them into at very short notice. 

Ah. Me. Whoever thought this writing lark was going to be a restful occupation was having a laugh!
And of all that were not enough Misha Herwin and I have been trying to get our quarterly book café into play.  We slid under the wire with the March event but were forced to abandon June. What of September? Online - via Stoke’s City Central Library, Hanley on their Youtube channel ‘SOT Libraries’ on 22nd September to be precise.  The logistics are challenging but we shall get there.  And a good place to get Listed Dead on a map, if not the one originally intended.
Where there is a will, as the saying goes. Stay safe everyone!
***
Listed Dead:Bunch Courtney Investigation #3 is available for pre-order HERE and published in paper and digital formats on 6th August 2020
A Small Thing for Yolanda is out in paper and digital formats HERE

To find out more about Jan’s fiction go to: https://janedwardsblog.wordpress.com/bibliography/


Comments

Umberto Tosi said…
Good luck with your new works! A Small Thing for Yolanda and your anthology sound most chillingly appealing. Let's all get this COVID monster behind us so we can get back to what we do best.May Stokercon rise again from its 2020 coffin!
Jan Needle said…
Keep smiling xxx
janedwards said…
2020 will be the year of non-eventing. Easy to see why so many people have delayed publication dates. But hey ho, we do what we can :-)

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