Coventry is having its own Literature Festival - next week!

Excitement is gathering in the literary enclaves of Coventry as our very first Literature Festival approaches. Forget the Jubilee, forget the Olympics, forget even Wimbledon - Coventry is the place to be from 11th-16th June 2012.

Literally Coventry Book Festival will be hosting all kinds of literary-themed events, including a visit from 'The Fonz' - US TV star Harry Winkler, who was awarded an MBE by the Queen last year for his work for children with dyslexia and special educational needs.

Harry Winkler has also co-authored (with Lin Oliver) the New York Times bestselling Hank Zipper books. Their book Ghost Buddy, which features a boy with a super-cool ghostly room mate, will be published in June 2012.

Read more about the Fonz's visit to Coventry in the Coventry Telegraph here.

Other famous names who'll be appearing include actor John Challis from Only Fools and Horses, who will be talking about his new book Being Boycie. And look out too for bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater, plus many other writers and poets, including Ruth Eastham, Jo Nadin, Cathy Cassidy, Ann Evans, Anna McQuinn, Chris Hoskins and even yours truly, Rosalie Warren. (I'll be running a school-based workshop for children of 7+ entitled 'WIXI Robot in the Making' - on the theme of my new series commissioned by Phoenix Yard Books.)

There'll be lots of events for all ages taking place in schools, in local communities and at various theatres and other venues.

And finally, let me mention an event close to my own heart. The Coventry Writers' Group will be performing extracts from their prizewinning anthology Coventry Tales at the Criterion Theatre, Earlsdon, Coventry, on the evening of Monday June 11th, 6.30-7.45pm (tickets are free!)  As those of you who follow my blog will know, this book recently won first place in Writing Magazine's Writers' Circle Anthology Award 2011. We are very proud of our achievement and look forward to performing to an audience of Coventrians and visitors in this wonderful theatre. There'll be poetry, short plays, quizzes, prizes and lots more. Come along and share our enthusiasm for Coventry and the writing it inspires.

You can see the full programme of festival events at
http://literallycoventry.eventbrite.co.uk/

If you're anywhere near Coventry next week, please come along and join us for lots of fun based around books, poetry and the written word.

STOP PRESS: 'Coventry Tales' has won a national prize!

I was delighted to get back from a few days' break yesterday to discover that our Coventry Writers' Group anthology Coventry Tales has achieved FIRST PLACE (hurray!) in the Writing Magazine Writers' Circle Anthology Award! What an achievement and how encouraging for everyone involved.

As regular readers of my blog will know, we brought out this book of short stories, poems, historical accounts and humorous pieces as something of an experiment last November. The contributions were all written as entries in a competition held last summer, and we felt it would be a waste just to let them go. One of our members suggested we self-published as a paperback and an eBook - and as a result of his enthusiasm and expertise (thanks, Mike) - that's exactly what we did.

For some of our members, this was the first time they had seen their work in print. We all had a lot of fun and learned a tremendous amount about what goes into self-publishing a book. I was able to practise my skills as a proofreader and we commissioned a talented local artist who brought the book alive with her wonderful illustrations of Coventry.

From the blurb:

Coventry Tales is the new book inspired by the city and the people of Coventry. Fifteen local authors make up this colourful collection of nineteen short stories and poems, providing insights from Coventry's past and present, narratives that explore the fabric of the city life and what makes it unique, stories that celebrate the life of Coventry and the people who inhabit her.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to step back in time and live in the Coventry of yesteryear? Or yearned to discover the mystic powers of the Coventry Ring? Want to know what Lady Godiva was like to live with, or see the wild zebras of Binley?

Here you will find all these stories and more. Written by some of Coventry's finest writers, Coventry Tales provides a rich and colourful tapestry of stories and insights into our city.

Anyway, congratulations to all involved in the writing and production and publicising of Coventry Tales.


Downloads:

On Amazon UK: 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coventry-Tales-best-known-up-coming/dp/1907670149


On Amazon US: 
 http://www.amazon.com/Coventry-Tales-best-known-up-coming/dp/1907670149

'Christmas Tales'

Hot on the heels of Coventry Writers' Group's Coventry Tales, we have a new book out in time for Christmas, called, appropriately enough, Christmas Tales.

Once again, it's an interesting brew of stories and poems, some serious and reflective, others light and funny, and all on a Christmassy theme. Perfect reading matter for those times when you collapse exhausted onto the sofa with a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie, after a heavy day at work, putting the kids to bed and then decorating the tree.

I have a story in it called 'Carol: a Ghost Story for Christmas 2012'. The year is not a misprint - you'll see why. Has a banker in it, too.

It's available to download as an eBook, currently on Amazon Kindle at £1.72. Over at Smashwords it's available in a range of formats, free! So hurry over and download your copy here

You can download the book from Amazon here

Thursday 17th November - performance and launch party!

Just a quick post, this one...

On Thursday 17th Nov, I'll be joining my fellow writers from the Coventry Writers' Group in an event at Coventry Central Library - open to all, from 6 - 7:30pm. We'll be launching Coventry Tales, reading and performing our various pieces. There'll be nibbles, wine, soft drinks, quizzes with prizes... and the opportunity to chat with the authors (15 of us), buy copies and have them signed.

I'm also told there'll be some surprise visitors - your guess is as good as mine!

Hope to see you there. If not, our book is available through Amazon, both in Kindle form (£3.82) and as a paperback (£4.99), here

Nov 18th: Just to add that it all went really well - many thanks to everyone who came along and supported us!

I'm so proud to belong to the Coventry Writers' Group

They're a wonderful bunch of people - that's the first reason. Inspiring, quirky, independent-minded, crazy (well, some of them), creative, funny and very talented folk. All ages, nationalities, occupations, life-experiences. Well, not quite all, but you know what I mean. That's reason one...

Reason two is that they - we - have just produced our very own anthology - called Coventry Tales. I saw the review copies for the first time last night and they look absolutely wonderful. Many, many thanks to Mike Boxwell, who has been the driving force behind all this. And to all the group members who contributed competition entries back in June this year, those who read them aloud and those who did the 'judging'. Some big surprises there, when we discovered later who had written what.

Anyway, our book is now almost ready to go. It's already available for pre-order on Amazon, and it'll be stocked in a range of bookshops, supermarkets and other retail outlests in and around Coventry, and more widely across the West Midlands. Publication date is Nov 7th and launch events have been arranged in Waterstones and Coventry Central Library soon after that (further details soon).

We have a Facebook page, which it would be great if you could visit, please, and 'like'. Some of us will be on the radio in the weeks to come, and there'll be a video on youTube soon. TV and newspapers, we hope, will take us up. It's all great fun and very exciting, especially for those of our group who have never been published before.

Coventry Tales contains short stories, poems, memories, historical tales, and even instructions (of a kind) for navigating our notorious ringroad system, using the principles of quantum physics, sort of. Its strapline is 'Inspired by You' - the 'you' being our beloved city - and we hope to have done justice, in our efforts, to the fascinating place where we live.

PS As a writing group we are open to all who love writing of all kinds - fiction, journalism, poetry, etc - and whether you're a beginner, an experienced writer, or somewhere in between. Contact me below if you are interested in joining us and I'll give you details of when and where we meet.