Author spotlight – Val Portelli

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief overview of some of the talented authors who attended the Beckenham Book Festival last month. There was an intriguing collection of writers, covering a diverse range of subjects, both traditionally and independently published, newbies and well established, some with only one book and some with several. There were other …

Author spotlight – Q.T. Ria and Lucya

For those of you who have been following the brief introductions to the authors who attended the Beckenham Book Festival, these are some slightly out of the ordinary: Q.T.Porta In her own words ‘From fledging storyteller to a published author, it has taken a long time to complete a story buried deep in different layers …

Beckenham Book Festival 2023

Last year I became involved in organising a book event in the South London suburb where I live. Around a dozen local authors attended, the sun shone, and it was a pleasant afternoon. Several of the authors bought each others' books, and it was great to meet writers I had previously known only via social …

Indie Author week

I’ve been rather bogged down in organising a book festival which is why I didn’t get round to posting last week. Apologies. It also brought to light the fact my publishing blog has been sorely neglected, and needed updating. If I grovel enough, will you pop over and have a look? 😀 https://quirkyunicornbooks.wordpress.com/2023/06/11/beckenham-book-festival-2023/. Let’s do …

Positivity

For the past few months I’ve been trying to organise a book festival in our local town. It’s amazing how many authors live in a relatively small area, and as well as interested parties from the one I arranged last autumn, other writers have come forward asking about taking a display table. Everything was going …

Simply Spooky

I’m delighted to announce the release of my latest book ‘Simply Spooky,’ which is available now on Amazon in both eBook and paperback format. Links are at the bottom of the page for reasons I'll explain during the post. I’d been having problems with writing the follow up to ‘Story of a Country Boy,’ and …

The Murder of John Smith. Part 2

I thought it would be a quick short story to fill in a gap while I was working on my next book and organising the local book fair, but it seems to have taken on a mind of its own, so don’t be surprised if it ends up as part of a book. It’s actually …

Beckenham book event and The Murder of John Smith

Most of this week has been taken up with organising a book fair for the end of the month in our local area of South London. I assumed once the venue and authors were in place it would be a case of sending out regular generic updates to keep everyone informed, and turning up on …

Book signings, genres and covers

With Spring hopefully not too far away, and restrictions easing, I’m looking forward to the resurrection of local book fairs. The one I attended shortly before Christmas brought to mind my first book signing many years ago. I had no idea what to expect, but my publishers told me everything had been organised with the …

Waiting for Santa

It’s been a very busy week this week. As well as preparing for a forthcoming book fair, we’ve been rehearsing more intros for the audio productions of our podcast ‘Val’s Tales.’ The latest one is in two parts and is called ‘September Swan Song.’ You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PjEjbO243I I was delighted when …