
Friday, 25 October, two days before British Summertime Ends when the clocks go back, and me and Wen will appear at the Rosewell Book Festival. We’re filled with a mix of excitement, nerves, and anticipation.
We’ve attended book festivals before, but never spoken at one, and, while we have a good idea what’s involved, we’re not entirely sure how it’ll all work out on the day. The festivals we’ve been to—Edinburgh, and The Borders—were both a splendid array of celebrity speakers, book stalls, artisan food, and drinks. We spent hours enjoying the ambience and emotion, but not the price of the refreshments. That’s a reasonable rant for another blog.
Rosewell is a small village in Midlothian, near Edinburgh. Once a mining community comprising around two thousand people, recent years has seen the village swell with several new-build housing estates and more under construction. Goodness knows how many thousands live there now, no doubt most making the daily commute into Scotland’s capital, yet another buzzing metropolis swarming with enterprise.


In the heart of Rosewell village is the primary school, the venue for the book festival. The event won’t be on the scale of bigger festivals, nor will there be any celebrities (except us, of course, lol), but we’ll welcome the occasion with relish. After all, every creative must start somewhere. Even successful bands had to gig in some backwater bar before discovering the bright lights and big cities.
We heard about the festival through a friend who’d seen it advertised on social media and set about enquiring. Said we were local authors and could we take part? One organiser came back to us, told us more about the event, and asked what we’d like to do. She suggested we could do a reading, a book swap, or have a stall. We had a serious think about it, Jon Windup style. Our MMC from The Windy & Darling Cosy Mystery Series never decides on the spot, but for something like a book festival, as small as it is, best not be hasty. After much thought, we decided on a reading and a book swap. Our organiser offered us two half-hour narration slots, so Wen will read extracts from Deadly Dough and Fatal Fungus, our feature-length debut and follow-up mysteries in the series.
The next stage was to figure out which chapter or chapters to read. We’ve plumped for Chapter Two from Deadly Dough, where our MMC, geeky Mapman, Jon Windup, has a dead fishy fright down in the cellar of the local pub, the Noose & Gibbet, in historic Honest Tor. Wen says she might as well start in the thick of the action, and will also read Chapter Three to fill the time slot. We’ve scheduled two rehearsals so we know exactly what we’re doing and how long it will take to read the excerpts. With her public speaking experience and voiceover work, Wen knows how to hold an audience. For the same reason, she’ll narrate our audiobooks when we find time to record them.



What of the reading from Fatal Fungus? Wen’ll do a Julie Andrews The Sound of Music style and start at the very beginning. The opening chapter shows Wendy May, our FMC, telling why she has a fragile relationship with Wednesdays, and proceeding, in her inimitable way, to blame a pesky wasp and odious onion for her funk with Woeden’s day. Wendy also has issues with the belligerent, rambling chair of the village committee and doesn’t the reader get to know it in flamboyant prose and dialogue. A quirky, humorous narrative, that along with details of a charity pie auction (pivotal to the subsequent first murder in the book) should fill the thirty minutes.
And so to rehearsals. We don’t want to turn up unprepared, looking like a proper pair of planks. The other reason to practice is to help with nerves. Before Wen reads, we must introduce ourselves and give a little background, then let Rosewell into the world of amateur sleuths, Windy & Darling. Of course, no amount of warm-ups fully ease the jitters, but should give us a head start. As Wen says, keep in mind the seven Ps. Perfect planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.
‘Anything else to add?’ I ask Wen.
‘Yep. Watch out, Rosewell!’
With that in mind, bring it on. We’re both looking forward to the festival and doing a little face-to-face hustling. It’s the best way to network.
That’s me away.
Ark.




Friday, 25 October, two days before British Summertime Ends when the clocks go back, and me and Wen will appear at the Rosewell Book Festival. We’re filled with a mix of excitement, nerves, and anticipation.
We’ve attended book festivals before, but never spoken at one, and, while we have a good idea what’s involved, we’re not entirely sure how it’ll all work out on the day. The festivals we’ve been to—Edinburgh, and The Borders—were both a splendid array of celebrity speakers, book stalls, artisan food, and drinks. We spent hours enjoying the ambience and emotion, but not the price of the refreshments. That’s a reasonable rant for another blog.
Rosewell is a small village in Midlothian, near Edinburgh. Once a mining community comprising around two thousand people, recent years has seen the village swell with several new-build housing estates and more under construction. Goodness knows how many thousands live there now, no doubt most making the daily commute into Scotland’s capital, yet another buzzing metropolis swarming with enterprise.


In the heart of Rosewell village is the primary school, the venue for the book festival. The event won’t be on the scale of bigger festivals, nor will there be any celebrities (except us, of course, lol), but we’ll welcome the occasion with relish. After all, every creative must start somewhere. Even successful bands had to gig in some backwater bar before discovering the bright lights and big cities.
We heard about the festival through a friend who’d seen it advertised on social media and set about enquiring. Said we were local authors and could we take part? One organiser came back to us, told us more about the event, and asked what we’d like to do. She suggested we could do a reading, a book swap, or have a stall. We had a serious think about it, Jon Windup style. Our MMC from The Windy & Darling Cosy Mystery Series never decides on the spot, but for something like a book festival, as small as it is, best not be hasty. After much thought, we decided on a reading and a book swap. Our organiser offered us two half-hour narration slots, so Wen will read extracts from Deadly Dough and Fatal Fungus, our feature-length debut and follow-up mysteries in the series.
The next stage was to figure out which chapter or chapters to read. We’ve plumped for Chapter Two from Deadly Dough, where our MMC, geeky Mapman, Jon Windup, has a dead fishy fright down in the cellar of the local pub, the Noose & Gibbet, in historic Honest Tor. Wen says she might as well start in the thick of the action, and will also read Chapter Three to fill the time slot. We’ve scheduled two rehearsals so we know exactly what we’re doing and how long it will take to read the excerpts. With her public speaking experience and voiceover work, Wen knows how to hold an audience. For the same reason, she’ll narrate our audiobooks when we find time to record them.



What of the reading from Fatal Fungus? Wen’ll do a Julie Andrews The Sound of Music style and start at the very beginning. The opening chapter shows Wendy May, our FMC, telling why she has a fragile relationship with Wednesdays, and proceeding, in her inimitable way, to blame a pesky wasp and odious onion for her funk with Woeden’s day. Wendy also has issues with the belligerent, rambling chair of the village committee and doesn’t the reader get to know it in flamboyant prose and dialogue. A quirky, humorous narrative, that along with details of a charity pie auction (pivotal to the subsequent first murder in the book) should fill the thirty minutes.
And so to rehearsals. We don’t want to turn up unprepared, looking like a proper pair of planks. The other reason to practice is to help with nerves. Before Wen reads, we must introduce ourselves and give a little background, then let Rosewell into the world of amateur sleuths, Windy & Darling. Of course, no amount of warm-ups fully ease the jitters, but should give us a head start. As Wen says, keep in mind the seven Ps. Perfect planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.
‘Anything else to add?’ I ask Wen.
‘Yep. Watch out, Rosewell!’
With that in mind, bring it on. We’re both looking forward to the festival and doing a little face-to-face hustling. It’s the best way to network.
That’s me away.
Ark.


