I started August at the Writers’ Summer School in Swanwick, the first time I’ve been since 2023. The picture (left) shows Sharon Cook and me in our posh frocks at the School Prom on the last night. It may look like we were partying but it was the end of a long hard writerly week (at least, that’s our story).

I finished the month in Paris, where I not only got to meet Alexa Bigwarfe, founder of Women in Publishing and one of my Pickle Jar buddies (IYKYK), but also picked up my Lifetime Achievement Award (middle picture). And, as it was a writing retreat, I got the plotting done for cozy number six and mapped out the family tree for a completely different book I’m thinking about writing at the same time.

The past two days have seen the second year of The Writers’ Hub, run by Word Kitchen as a fringe event at the Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival. With panel discussions, writing exercises, a poet in residence and lots of opportunity to network with writers at all stages of their careers, it was a great success. (And being able to sit in deckchairs in the sunshine in late September was wonderful too.) Pictured (above right) Sharon Cook and me, with Pippa Marriott and David Lloyd who run Word Kitchen and Orlando Murrin who closed the two days in typical riotous fashion.