Books and the people who write them.

I will be appearing at Ryedale Book Festival in Malton, North Yorkshire, on October 8th 2016.

I’ll be reading from Life After You and chatting to the lovely Emma Cansick about books, bereavement and other things which don’t necessarily start with ‘B’.

There are loads of other cool people appearing too. Come, why don’t you? It’ll be right gradely!

All you need to know is here.

Last weekend, I was honoured to be invited to speak at the AGM of WAY Widowed and Young – a wonderful charity that supports anyone under the age of 50 who has lost a spouse or partner.*

(Here I am below, attempting to look intellectual.)

*more fun than it sounds. No, really.

Reading from LAY at WAY

It’s not the first time I’ve done a public reading from the book, but arguably, if I was going to be slain by a crowd, it was this one: 100 widdas and widdawers, all of whom had been through their own personal versions of spouse-loss hell, all of whom were in the unique (and entirely unenviable position) of having a real insight into the issues raised in my book. The passage I read was about disposal of ashes, coffin choices and thrifty funeral directors named Dennis. I worried that they might not see the funny side.

(Fortunately, they did. In fact, for a bunch of bereaveds, we spent an indecent amount of time belly-laughing.)

Coffins, ashes and Dennis’ economic advice aside, the central message of my talk at the AGM was about the act of writing itself. I had been asked to consider how writing helped me after losing Mark.

Thoughts turned from my beloved husband to my beloved computer keyboard – the keyboard into which I had pounded grief, rage, loneliness  -the keyboard who, like every good friend, had responded by listening and offering me space and a conduit for reflection.

I concluded how I felt about writing and grief with the following:

Writing helped me to examine my grief, to express it in a way that I couldn’t manage with the spoken word.

Writing allowed friends and family to see how I was doing, without them having to bring out the platitudes.

Writing the blog turned into writing the book, which turned into a sort of therapy all of its own.

Writing saved me in ways that guides to grieving never could. I highly recommend it.

Fellow WAY member and BACP-registered counsellor Nicki Walker and I are now running Writing Grief, an expressive writing course for those dealing with loss. It is fully-funded through the generous support of Tyneside Mind and the Linden Family Trust. Visit us here for further information.

A one-word review: “Disappointing.”

My biggest revelation on entering the world of published authorhood was that  people actually read my book. Some even took the time to comment on it. I’d spent months sweating raw grief into my keyboard; it didn’t occur to me that someone I’d never met might have an opinion on it once it hit the bookshelves.

When I read the first review, a lovely one in the Sunday Mirror, my instinct was to go foetal beneath my duvet with my fingers in my ears going ‘la-la-la’!

But more reviews came, and  still they come now. Most good, some plain ugly. (Including the Spinal-Tap-inspired one word review which haunted my dreams for weeks: “Disappointing.” The word took me straight back to that wretched hour I spent in the brown-walled office of Mr Wallace, where he used that word to describe my conduct in the lunch queue.)

As the book has gained an audience, (and a place on Richard and Judy’s Autumn Book Club list), I have had to come out from under the duvet and accept that reviews are part of the process. And actually, reviews are good. They mean that people are reading, engaging, taking time to consider your work, even if they find you disappointing at the end of it.

And lo! Me After You has a glorious new jacket for its mass-market paperback release in August!

Where I come from, in Geordieland, (don’t look for it on any map – it’s like Atlantis with a drink problem), we have a term of endearment derived from the word ‘petal’ – the diminutive ‘pet’ – and it was Mark’s favourite; not just for me, but for most of the ladies in his life and a couple of particularly unfortunate men.

In a vain attempt to make him part of my excitement and delight at said new cover, I hereby refer to it as the ‘Full Petal Jacket’, as I truly believe he’d love it.