Short Story shortlisted in Cornish Writing Competition

My story, “Cornwall For A Change” was shortlisted in the Cornish writing competition and will appear on 19th July at 10am at this link: https://dracarya.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/cornish-writing-challenge-meet-runner-up-julia-macfarlane. Which Is Nice. (to quote The Fast Show)

The winner was my fellow writer from CHINDI, Christopher Joyce. I can see why, having read the story from him, but how interesting that 2 people from the same group in West Sussex were picked out. It is obviously just a sign of the talent in our self-publishing group. Birds of a feather…..

Chichester Ghost Tour

Chichester Ghost Tour

York and Edinburgh’s Ghost Walks are famous and an essential part of many people’s weekend visits to these cities. But where is Chichester’s? With its Roman history and beautiful old pubs that allegedly used to be part of a smugglers’ network, where are our ghost stories?

When my fellow authors and I looked into it, there just weren’t enough legends to make a truly entertaining walk. So, controversially, we made a few up to pad out the existing ones. Well, ghosts aren’t real anyway, are they?

The “Chichester Ghost Tour” was officially launched as part of Chichester Festival in 2017 from Hennings Wine Shop. It was repeated several times during 2017 and a 2nd edition appeared in 2018, with new ghosts and a new tour, again as part of the Festival of Chichester.

The book itself is a self-guided, tongue-in-cheek, optional pub crawl, version of the tour, with 10 ghost stories based in Chichester and written by local authors in the second half of the book, and already available on Amazon and Kindle. http://amzn.eu/g5nOyKP

The book has been produced in collaboration with Bognor Regis Write Club and CHINDI (Celebrating and Helping Independent Authors), and compiled and edited by me.

As the back cover of the book says:

“Every city should have a ghost tour. No long weekend visit to a British city is complete without a visit to a traditional pub and a wander around the city centre. So Chichester deserves to have all three combined. And here you have it! A guide to follow on your own or with your friends which will take you on an (optional) pub crawl as well as pointing out the quirkier bits of our beloved town. To be honest, we expected more ghost stories associated with the place than we could actually find. But not to worry, using the full resources of CHINDI and Bognor Regis Write Club, we have managed to pull together enough tales to entertain you for a few hours, while you stroll around, gawping and pointing. Enjoy and remember to drink responsibly. Try not to have nightmares, unless you want to, in which case eat cheese for supper and read this book at bedtime.”

If you would like to know more, please email me at bognorwriters@gmail.com.

More fame

Been very busy with the puppy since early January. Lulu is now 4 months old and gorgeous. I was invited to sit on a panel with 2 union people (Janet Henney & Caroline Fife) and Baroness Angela Smith, Leader of Labour in the House of Lords. I was the business side. It garnered a good bit of local publicity if a disappointingly small audience. If anyone wants to hear me advise them on how to ask for a pay rise, the whole 1 hour workshop is available here: https://soundcloud.com/user-567227795/how-to-ask-for-a-pay-rise-and-get-it. Enjoy!

Ah, the glare of the spotlight

Press mentions have been coming in thick and fast this month – if five mentions in the local papers counts as thick, and, er, fast. Here are copies of them all so you too can bask in my reflected glory. You might wonder why the worst photo of me is the one where I’ve just had my hair DONE – aargh! Clue: it’s the one where I’m sat in the hairdressers.