In which the AUTHOR most Treasonously crosses the Pennines in search of an audience; encourages a LOUCHE tendency to pull #coffeefaces; Bamboozles an innocent merchant, Master W. Henry Smith; and invites an Emperor to Dine.
Leeds, Yorkshire: Art, Coffee and a History of Extreme Violence
A great day out: first, visiting the Royal Armouries (pictures above, the knight on the bottom right is called Mo) and then to the Munro Gallery, run by the entrepreneurial and generous Ellie and Matt. A coffee-themed exhibition, a short reading by yours truly, and then Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes… Inspired!
#Coffeeface Heroes: CupNorth and Glasgow Coffee Festival
Having been a bit of an “eventrepreneur” myself, I am full of admiration for the creatives who are launching coffee festivals. On the left are Hannah Davies and Ricardo Gandara, who ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to launch CupNorth, the brilliantly-named Manchester festival I was lucky enough to do a reading at last weekend. It was cool, it was professional and it was (forgive the pun) very buzzy indeed. And they are super-nice guys. Congratulations!
On the right, too busy roasting the finest beans to actually bother looking at the camera, is Lisa Lawson… who has launched the Glasgow Coffee Festival (6 December) in about 8 weeks flat. Amazing - I hope you can come! And I am VERY happy to invite you to Instagram in your best or worst #coffeeface to GCF - what do you look like when you are REALLY wired? Or if you hate coffee, what face do you pull when you taste it..? I have persuaded Lisa to let me choose the silliest face to receive a signed copy of The Bitter Trade. Whether you like it or not.
Bookseller Hero: Matt Bates, WHSmith Travel Fiction Buyer
I met Matt at the Historical Novel Society Conference and gave him a slightly frayed copy of The Bitter Trade. He took it, read it, and now it’s in WHS’s airport stores worldwide. The Bookseller did a double page spread on it. It’s a huge opportunity for a new author and he did it because he’s a nice guy who loves history. Thank you Matt.
Footsore and blogtabulous…
It’s fair to say there’s been a bit of running around in cyberspace as well as in real life since we launched the book. Here are some snippets for you:
