Sally Jenkins

There’s an opportunity to ‘Meet the Authors’ tomorrow night (apologies for the short notice) in Birmingham’s Library Theatre.  Lesley Pearse, Sam Hayes and Barbara Nadel are going to provide an evening of mystery, suspense and emotion. It is a free event but you need to book a place. Full details are here.

Looking further ahead, now would be a good time to get yourself on the Birmingham Book Festival mailing list to ensure that you receive your program for the event. It runs from the 6th to 16th October 2011 and usually offers a cornucopia of author talks and writing workshops (last year’s Find Your Blogging Voice workshop run by Jo Ind gave me the kick-start to get this blog off the ground). Volunteers are also needed to help the whole thing run smoothly.

Another date worth putting in your diary is the Writers’ Toolkit held in Birmingham City Centre on November 19th.  This is an annual event of panel discussions on various subjects to do with the business of writing – tax, digital media, getting published, higher education opportunities etc. It attracts both established and new writers from a wide area and is great for getting to chat to other writers (take your business cards).

If the East Midlands is more accessible for you, the libraries around Derby offer a large number of events. In particular I’ll be attending The Novel Writing Booster Kit with Martin Davies at Mackworth Library. Other events are listed here.

Apologies to those of you outside the area – but why not have a root around your own council or libraries websites and see if there’s anything going on near you? Writing can be frustrating and lonely but an afternoon listening to an author speak or chatting with like-minded people will do wonders for your enthusiasm!