March Madness: Uncanny on the Road

It's taken a while to get around to writing this post, because I've spent more time than usual on the road over the last month. Book launches, panels, festivals and conventions are part of the writer's (and editor's) life these days, but in my experience that tends to come in waves. Sometimes it's attached to a new release, but this time it appears to have been nothing more complicated than Spring finally poking its head around the corner, and the festival circuit getting back into gear. 

At the end of February, I appeared at Leeds Lit Fest alongside Catriona Ward, Lucie McKnight Hardy, Mark Morris and Alison Littlewood, for a day of Contemporary Gothic-themed events. I'd helped curate this thread, so it was particularly exciting to see that both workshops sold out, and we had good crowds for the panel and my interview with Catriona. The Gothic resurgence clearly isn't showing any sign of dying off yet.

Next up was York St John University on 6 March, and an industry panel on getting published. Joining me on the panel was Una McCormack, as well as agents Donald Winchester and Ciara McEllin from Watson Little. The format for this one was driven entirely by audience questions - and what fantastic questions they were! Having travelled 210 miles to be there, I hope my answers made sense...

If you missed both of these, I'm pleased to say that I have one more event coming this month. On Saturday, 25 March, I'll be back in York for York Literature Festival, on a panel with Jeremy Dyson and Lucie McKnight Hardy discussing the Uncanny - what it is, why it's relevant today, and how we write it. You can still get tickets here: Writing the Uncanny at York Literature Festival.

I'm always in two minds about doing live events. Most of my time is spent tapping away at this laptop, so the opportunity to get out and meet people is too attractive to resist. At the same time, though, my imposter syndrome runs rampant. Why should anyone listen to what I have to say? Will I even have anything coherent to add to the conversation? Thankfully, the events so far this month have calmed my fears - and it's been great to connect again with other writers and readers. 

As for the coherency of my answers - come along on the 25th, and I'll do my best...