What's it like to take part in a Literary Festival as a debut author? Daunting, would be the first word that comes to mind, particularly when I saw the brochure and the fantastic lineup of authors who were also attending - page 3 Daisy Goodwin, page 4 Victoria Hislop, page 7 Martin Wolf and page 8 Me! What on earth am I doing among these writing giants, I thought briefly? And then I reminded myself that they too had attended their first literary festival at some point in their careers and probably felt just as nervous as I did.
I had prepared a Presentation to help the audience understand where my inspiration for 'Eagle Sister' came from and what my writing journey looked like. I showed some great photos of Kyrgyzstan; its people, landscapes, food, culture, yurts and, of course, the berkutchi and their eagles. I also talked about my writing journey - how does someone go from failing their A'levels (a D and an E) to Directing live news and current affairs programmes for the BBC, to writing a novel? Luckily, I had my Publisher at my side to interview me when the slides ended and we talked more about the content of the novel and then she handed over to the audience for some great questions. This was followed by a book signing, a radio interview and finally, a cup of tea.
Buckingham Literary Festival was set up in 2015 by a small group of friends dedicated to their mission to bring something completely new to the beautiful market town of Buckingham. It was such an honour and complete delight to be part of this year's festival and I look forward very much to being invited to other literary festivals in the future.
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