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What I've been up to lately

People often ask me, "What do you do when you're not writing?" So I thought I'd keep an occasional diary, less saucy than S. Pepys (probably,) and certainly much less frequent. When you notice an exceptionally long gap between dates, this means (a) I'm writing hard and not getting out much, or (b) I'm being lazy. July 21st: I took part in the annual Bodies in the Bookshop event at Heffers in Cambridge, a great evening in which authors and readers of mysteries mix, chat, drink a glass of wine...and occasionally someone even buys a book or two, and someone else gets to sign it! May 23rd: I signed books at Borders Books, York, and afterwards I visited the York Roman Festival. The Library Gardens had been turned into a Living History Camp, with people in Roman costume; some re-enacting military displays, some performing ancient crafts, and others selling Roman-style food. Both events were fun, and busy. May 14th-17th: I spent the weekend at CrimeFest 2009, an excellent crime convention in Bristol. It was really good fun, and I had the chance to meet many interesting people - some of them old friends and some of them new. See my blog, The Lady Killers, for my impressions of a first-class weekend. March 10th 2009: I gave a talk to a most interesting group of writers, the Airedale Writers' Circle in Keighley. My subject was writing historical fiction - something I'm really enthusiastic about, in case anyone hadn't notice - and I enjoyed the chance to talk about it, and afterwards discuss some of the technical points that face authors who set their work in the past.Blogs and magazines: Now and then I'm lucky enough to be asked to guest-post on  blogs, and contribute to magazines. On May 18th I was interviewed for the Internet radio show, "Murder, She Writes," which went out on the main channel of Blog Talk Radio, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ Sylvia Dickey Smith was the host, and the show was part of her series on women in mystery, both writers and their characters. It is now archived for listening any time, or downloading in MP3 format, so even if you've missed it so far, you have absolutely no excuse for not catching up with it now! The Spring 2009 edition of Mystery Readers Journal, which has the theme of holiday mysteries, includes a piece from me about Aurelia Marcella's very own holiday mystery, A BITTER CHILL, which takes place at Saturnalia. And in the January 2009 issue of Writing Magazine, I was featured in Lynne Hackles' regular back-page spot, "My Writing Day", where Lynne encourages authors to reveal all...about the way we work, I mean. (The rest of the magazine is an excellent read too!) Return to my home page