Travelling…

I almost only travel when I go to book fairs or conventions, lagging boxes of books. Last weekend I celebrated a good friend’s birthday. We had to do a bit of travelling for it, towards the Black Forest, almost to the French border. A party location that was perfect for medieval festivities. I had dressed accordingly. My wardrobe still holds a lot of things from the time when I was still actively attending fantasy festivals as my alter ego Gaoith na bhFharraige, the Bard. That was a lot of fun. Lately, I’ve been going less to such festivals, not because I suddenly dislike the people, but rather because of my health-related inability to sleep in double-decker beds or having to walk half a mile to the loo at night.

I had also made some garments for my Beloved, but as my talent for needle and thread is as good as non-existent, he didn’t want to wear the ‘garment’. To be honest, he didn’t look very flattering in it. Presumably nobody would look very flattering in it. Don’t ever let me sew anything for you .

We had a lovely evening, but it was quite unusual for me not to set up a book table and tell friendly people about my books. I really should go travelling again, without any ulterior – commercial – motives. I would like to. I’m going to visit friends in Bavaria in May. And then there’s still my trip to Cambridge. I wanted to go there when I wrote ‘Serpent of Malice’. It’s set there. But just then the pandemic hit and my plans were cancelled.

I had been to Oxford, but I couldn’t use Oxford as the setting for historical reasons. I had to use Cambridge since it was  Cambridge that had one of the first ladies’ colleges, where women could study from the late sixties of the nineteenth century. However, they could not earn a degree. They were allowed to take exams, but were refused the B.A. or M.A.  Men!  Always in a quake about female competition.

The book is available in German now .”Schlange des Bösen”( ‘Serpent of Evil’) was published last week. Next week I’ll be doing two readings. One in Delitzsch near Leipzig – the whisky reading and then at the Leipzig Book Fair. On the latter date, I have to say that I think the Leipzig Book Fair is already being overly economical about the announcement ‘Elinor has to assert herself against her male fellow students when studying the arcane sciences.’ One sentence. Just one. No place. No indication of time. Absolutely meaningless.

What do they do when they announce a crime thriller ‘Someone kills someone and the police investigate’ – that would be enough for every crime thriller and every thriller and could – hurrah! – could also be used for all programme items at once.

I sure know why I don’t like book fairs.
There. It’s out. I’m an author and I don’t like book fairs. At least not big mass events.

That’s almost a heretical opinion.