Devon and Avebury for the Bank Holiday

It's going to be a busy weekend - and the sun will be shining! I'm really looking forward to it as I have two book signing events, and I just love doing these. The only sad thing is that Mr B is still really ill and won't be able to come too.

On Saturday I'm driving down to Bideford in Devon to the Health and Harmony Festival at Tapeley Park. I'll be the guest of Debbie and Steve of Mercury Rising Books. They sell a good range of different books, and have enthusiastically promoted the Stonewylde Series for many months now. I'm looking forward to meeting them both after all the correspondence we've exchanged. Tapeley Park is a great stately home set in beautiful grounds (there's a link to it via the News and Events page on my website) and looks stunning. It should be a very chilled out event there, with lots of interesting stalls and workshops.

I'm whizzing back to Reading that night and the next day, Sunday Bank Holiday, will be at wonderful, magical, unique Avebury!!! John Wilding has invited me to do a book signing at The Henge Shop, which I know sells a great number of my books. I'm excited about spending a day there as it's one of my very favourite place to be. I always go there for Beltane, so it's now a few months since I visited. I love the mix of people you see there, but most of all I love the atmosphere of the place.

I should be at both events from around noon to about 4pm or so. I hope if anyone reading this is near either place, that they'll come and say hello. It's always so nice to meet readers of the series.

Do take a look at the cover for Solstice at Stonewylde, which is up on the website now. I'm so pleased with it - very arresting. Let me know what you think. And have a great bank holiday weekend too!
Kit xxx

Jacqueline Wilson enjoys Magus of Stonewylde!

When Mr B and I went to New York for the Book Expo America back in June, we hoped to meet some interesting people and sort out the publishing of Stonewylde in the USA. It was a very successful trip, but one of the highlights was meeting Jacqueline Wilson outside the Javits Centre.
It was one of those chance encounters. We were standing outside in the hot sunshine, and I saw the unmistakeable form of Ms Wilson going down the steps to a waiting car, flanked by her "minders". I was star-struck, having always been a great fan of hers. My youngest son William first introduced me to her books when he was about seven or eight, as he'd just read "Double Act" and loved it. It was one of the first longer books he'd read, and soon I started reading it to my class of nine year olds (this is in the days when I was a primary school teacher in Weymouth) Over the next few years, I read many of Jacqueline Wilson's books aloud to my class, and my favourite was probably Bad Girls. I read it three years in succession to different classes, and never did manage to reach the end without crying.
Anyway, Ms Wilson was disappearing down the steps towards the car, and I was squawking with excitement at seeing her.
"I wish she'd read Stonewylde," I said.
"Well go and give her a copy then!" said Mr B, pulling one out of our bag.
"Oh no, I couldn't!"
But I did, running down the steps with my heart hammering. By this time she'd got into the car which was indicating to pull away. I pounded on the window and one of the minders glared at me. But the wonderful Ms Wilson told the driver to stop and opened the door. She was so sweet and not annoyed at all about being accosted in such a pushy manner.
"I've always loved your books," I said, "and would be honoured if you'd read mine."
"How lovely. I'd be delighted."
I forgot all about it after our return from the USA as it's been pretty frantic getting the American edition of Magus of Stonewylde ready for print, and also working on the final draft for Solstice at Stonewylde. But a couple of weeks ago a postcard arrived from the lady herself! She said she really enjoyed the book, and wished me all the best of luck with it. She also said that weirdly, two of the characters in her new book "Kiss" are called .... Sylvie and Miranda!! What a co-incidence!
You can imagine how delighted I was to hear from her.
Mr B is slightly on the mend now, and finally able to update the website. And today we're putting up the image of the third book!! Let me know what you think of this new cover. I'm delighted with it, and very grateful to my brilliant designer, Rob Walster of Big Blu Design in Bristol. I think it's pretty scary, but then so is the book. Be warned!

Lovely Lammas Fair

I've been meaning to do a post all week and tell you about the wonderful Lammas Fair in Eastbourne. But Mr B has been very ill all week (admitted to hospital, in and out of doctor's, rushed to A &E, etc etc before they discovered what was wrong - the dreaded shingles!) and I've been just running around frantically backwards and forwards to the pharmacy as they kept upping his dose of painkillers etc. What a terrible thing shingles is! I'd never realised. He doesn't have any of the nasty open sores (which is why six doctors missed the diagnosis!) but is in reallly severe pain. He's on so many tablets I have a special timetable to ensure all are taken at the correct time and in the right quantity. And I'm trying to work on Book Three!

Anyway, the Lammas Fair in Eastbourne was wonderful. We arrived quite late due to the awful traffic, but as we walked in I heard my name being announced on the sound system and felt quite important and famous!! I spent the next hour trying to eat a Cornish (or perhaps East Sussex) pasty that Mr B had bought me. Every time I took a bite, another person came to the Green Man Bookstall to talk to me about Stonewylde. I really enjoy these sort of events, and this one was very well organised. The morris dancing was fantastic. Hunter's Moon Morris Dancers with their blackened faces and black and silver tatters are amazing! And I heard Jerry Bird play for the first time - wow!!! He is such a very talented man (and looks so like Alan Rickman too - lucky Diane!).

We sold loads of books, and it was fantastic to meet with old fans who came up to say how much they'd enjoyed the books, and ... WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE OUT? Why don't people check my website and then they'd KNOW when it's out! Samhain, for those who don't know. It's a bit disappointing because Rob, my jacket designer from Big Blu in Bristol (and the most gorgeous hunk of a chap you could imagine) finally finished the design for Solstice at Stonewylde on Monday. I was dying to put it up on the website in that spot that at present looks like a gravestone. But with Mr B so ill ... I'm not a feeble woman at all when it comes to computers (absolutely love 'em) but I have no idea how to access the website - nor indeed any of our system here. It's all very complicated with a server and stuff, and having always been pretty computer literate and self-sufficient, I find now that I can't do anything without asking him to help. Or maybe it's just part of his dastardly plan ... But the cover for Solstice is fantastic. I do hope you all like it. Rather scary - in fact, very disturbing. But then so's the book. I had nightmares when I wrote the opening chapters!

Back to the Lammas Fair in Eastbourne. We met a beautiful lady who was to me the embodiment of the Corn Mother, or Lammas Queen. She wore a wreath of woven corn on her head, was dressed in golds and earthy colours, was stunningly pretty and best of all - she had brilliant red hair in great tresses of curls. She obligingly posed for a photo with me (was I mad? who in their right mind would pose next to such a woman?) and for some more photos outside for Mr B (yes, I am mad) and I'd hoped to put a photo on the website as she gave us permission. But of course I can't do that until he's a bit better. I'm going to put her in the Green Magic section under Lammas. More than anything, she reminded me of Miranda.

The highlight of the Lammas event for me was finally getting to hear The Dolmen play. They were fantastic! Nothing like I'd imagined (mystical and soulful - although maybe they do this as well when appropriate) but instead wild and raunchy and very lively indeed. It was great to meet Keri and Star afterwards, having conversed with them both on MySpace, and by e mail with Keri for well over a year now I think. Ridiculous when you think they're from Dorchester and I lived in Weymouth up until January. I hope to see them again soon - maybe at the Witches' Ball in Dorchester in September. I also had a long chat with their manager, Chris, who admitted sheepishly (with all sorts of lame excuses like never reading books, having too much work and too many children, etc etc) to not having read Stonewylde. NOT READ STONEWYLDE!!! I shrieked in horror. And you a local man interested in paganism!!! Fortunately he didn't point out to me that I'd never heard The Dolmen play even though I'd been a local woman for so long. But he's promised to read at least Magus, so let's hope he enjoys it.

At the fair, I bought a beautiful corn dolly which now hangs on the beam of our ingle-nook fireplace. We live in a very old cottage and the corn dolly is entirely in keeping. We went down to the beach afterwards to watch the closing ceremony. It looked good, but unfortunately the lady performing it didn't really raise her voice at all, so nobody including the slightly bemused tourists, had a clue what was going on. The man with the brilliant orange body paint was quite spectacular. At one point a trio of young yuppie type tennis players came up to me and asked, "What's all this then?"
I told them it was the Lammas Fair, and explained that Lammas was an ancient festival celebrated in pagan times. "What, so it's like ... for old hippies then?" Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. I can think of worse things to be!
Kit xxx
PS Next blog I shall tell you about the lovely postcard I had from JACQUELINE WILSON!! And the possible Channel 4 appearance later this year.

Whoops!

Thanks to Debbie of Mercury Rising Books for pointing out my mistake in the Lammas Newsletter. I got the dates wrong for the two book signing events over the August Bank Holiday weekend. It's Tapeley Park on Saturday 25th and Avebury on Sunday 26th. Silly me! All I can say is I was rushing to get the newsletter out before the festival, and also in the very final stages of preparing the text and cover to be sent to USA for the printing of the American edition. It was all happening at once (and I was tired after wading through mud at Womad!). Anyway, thanks Debbie!

Yesterday the hard copy of Magus of Stonewylde, the disc, cover proofs, etc were all sent to the printers in Michigan. It's amazing - you can track the parcel as it makes its way across the world. Right now, it's just left Memphis, Tennessee (spelling?) and hopefully is now headed in the right direction. Very exciting! I love the thought of that parcel travelling across the water and then overland - all ready to take the USA by storm (I hope!!). Funnily enough, there's a lovely lady blogger called DovegreyReader who writes a very good book blog every day, and I offered to send her a copy of Magus of Stonewylde a while ago. She agreed to read it, and on the Saturday of the release of Harry Potter 7, my parcel arrived on her doorstep. She wrote a fantastic blog entitled "Stonewylde usurps Potter", in which she said that she loved the thought of my one lone book travelling through the postal system overnight, jostling with all those millions of copies of Deathly Hallows. And she chose to read Stonewylde that day! Hence the headline of her blog - which if you google Stonewylde, is now popping up all over the Internet. I don't think there's any chance of anything ever usurping Potter - but it's a nice thought!

We're off to Eastbourne this weekend for the Lammas Fair, which looks really exciting. I just love pagan parades with all the amazing costumes, giants and dancing. This will be the third one we've been to this year (having never been to any before in my life!) as we attended the Jack in the Green Festival at Hastings, and then the Beltane Bash in London. We're also going to the Hallowe'en Festival in London (run by the same people who do the Beltane Bash) and hopefully I'll be doing a talk there, and will have a stall selling Stonewylde. And the plan is that we'll be selling the very first copies of the third book, Solstice at Stonewylde!! It's not officially published till October 31st, and this festival is on Sat 20th and Sun 21st October, so it really will be advance copies on sale. The weather forecast for this weekend (in Eastbourne anyway) is brilliant, which again makes a change from the other events we've attended this year. I was frozen and numb at Hastings and could barely hold a pen to sign books, and dripping wet and soggy in London. It'll be lovely to be back by the sea and surrounded by hills again - can't wait to walk up on the cliffs to Beachy Head on Sunday!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!