Authors Electric

 It's that time of year again when crime authors and readers gather together in Harrogate for the Theakstons Crime Writing Festival. This year was special as it was the twentieth year of the festival, proving the popularity of crime fiction. For me, it was my fifth time and I think my favourite. I travelled up a day early to beat the train strike. It was quite eerie walking round an empty site at The Old Swan on Wednesday evening. Peace didn't last for long though and the place quickly filled up on Thursday. I opted to go to a few panels but I also took part in Grill A Killer, organised by former Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett, where I got to put my police procedural skills to the test! Working in pairs, we had ten minutes each to try and catch out our murder suspect. I was about to ask a crucial question when our time ran out and we had to hand over to the next pair. But I was proved right at the end! I also attended a Christmas party! Really! It was a launch for Janice ...

As I write this, a week has passed since the Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, but it feels more like a month. It was my first experience of Harrogate, and any kind of book festival, and I’ve had a major comedown from the amazing event.  I booked up late, only  securing a B&B in April (most people attending had booked the previous year as soon as the dates were announced), and now I’m so glad that my ‘fear of missing out’ bug kicked me up the butt just in time. As a very new author, I was feeling quite daunted as the day to travel to Yorkshire approached. However, I pulled on my big girl pants and had a good talking to myself – this was a great opportunity to meet other authors, bloggers, publishers, publicists and people I’d spoken to online for over a year. If I’m honest, I think I embraced the experience more as a reader than an author, because once I was there my nerves took over on more than one occasion. But I don’t think it altered my experie...