March Wrap Up Post

What I Did

March was almost entirely given over to Litfest. It was a mad scramble, running a literature festival always is, but this year there was so much more pressure by transferring it all online for the first time. But the tech more or less held up, all our authors and artists were utterly fantastic and on the whole it was a roaring success. If you were interested in any of the events, everything is available to catch up on on YouTube for 30 days after broadcast, and if anyone’s interested in seeing me reading whilst looking like I’m stuck down a coal hole due to my laptop webcam (I’m also chairing all the poetry double bills) I’ve got a poem in the Places of Poetry Northwest finale here at about 35 minutes 20 seconds.

March has been utterly hectic at the library as well, the end of the financial year resulted in us renewing 4,000 books by hand and checking in nearly 70 boxes of books that had been stored at our library whilst another branch was shut. We got it all done but I felt fairly seasick by the end. Thank goodness for keyboard shortcuts!

I also managed to stick to my resolution of submitting to poetry magazines and competitions now that my PhD has finished. I’ve sent a lot off, so now it’s just a waiting game…

What I read

Plus one short story: ‘A Witch’s Guide to Escape: a practical compendium of portal fantasies’ by Alix E. Harrow. Yes, I will break my short story moratorium for AEH. Always a delight!

So, this month’s total is 10 (1 short story, 4 novellas and 5 novels).

March was such a good reading month! And, considering I read most of this in the last week of March as I recovered from Litfest, I’m doubly proud of the tally. I’ve discovered new favourites, tried unfamiliar genres, confirmed my love of the novella and revisited an all time favourite.

I’ve spent March working out a plan for the blog for the future. I’ve got a stock of reviews waiting with plans for the ones I want to illustrate and I’m working up to Wyrd and Wonder which will be running throughout May as usual.

Good things are on the way…

images by Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com