The Story So Far...

Dartington Hall

Hmm, August already... I know what you're thinking, what happened to July? Right, I know, it shot past. I had some fun, mostly in the guise of work. I also had a birthday, yes indeed I'm getting old. So back to this fun stuff.

In July I attended (which is code for worked many, many long days) the WAYS WITH WORDS literary festival. A ten day event, held at the beautiful Dartington hall.


 Yes, I was selling books, but this came with the bonus of getting to meet almost every Author speaking at the festival. My role at these events is a simple one, look after the Author, and their fans. Then when the Author has finished their signing make sure we have some additional signed stock. So, that was me for the duration, meet, greet, chat and ensure they leave happy. At times it may have started feeling a little bit like a conveyor belt. But then fourteen hour days will start to run you down. Thankfully, there wasn't so many of them.

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Day one started well, after several days of setting up I found myself looking after Michael Palin. I must confess to getting a little giddy at this point, my favourite Python shaking my hand. I had to fight the urge to give him a huge hug and lick his face. Oh, he was charming, I'm still smitten. Don't worry this isn't going to turn into a day by day, blow by blow account of how I met famous people, just some very edited highlights.

Emma Kennedy

Emma Kennedy was also very funny, we had a nice chat during the Jenny Eclair signing, and her own event with readings from her book "I Left My Tent In San Francisco" had me in stitches. The tears were smearing my glasses. Oh the whimsy!

I attended her event with Steve Boggan. Author of "Follow The Money". This his debut, following a $10 bill for a month, across 3400 miles of America. Well worth a read. Not to mention a great guy, who I'm sure will be very successful.

It's fare to say that I had the most amazing time, considering I laughingly called it work. If you have the chance, Ways With Words is a wonderful festival, and you never know, next year we could be sharing a bottle of wine, while sitting on the deck chairs at midnight. Now there was another story... It would probably start something like, "There was an American, a bookseller and a vicar!"

Maybe, I'll tell you the after hours stuff another time. Or not.

Until next time...