Felixstowe Book Festival and the Writer's Life

All of a sudden, we are living in extraordinary and uncertain times. I suppose it's true that throughout my life I've found reading and telling stories a means of escape from the real world, as well as a way of trying to make sense of it. So I'm absorbing myself in the reading and writing life at present, and what better way to so so than by attending a book festival in an agreeable and unfamiliar part of the country?

I was delighted to be invited to speak at Felixstowe Book Festival this year. The Suffolk resort is at the other end of the country from where I live and I've never been there before. A very long train journey culminated in my arrival, quite literally, at the end of the line, and I undertook a short reconnaissance of the resort before the day came to an end.

During the morning, I enjoyed visiting the town's very good bookshops, and walking along the lengthy promenade. past the old Martello tower, to Landguard Peninsula and the old fort there. It all seemed quintessentially English, and very pleasant. Then it was back to the hotel for a talk about Golden Age detective fiction with Rob Davies of the British Library. The organisers had done a great job in achieving as sell-out of all 50 tickets, and we enjoyed chatting with ace blogger Elaine Simpson-Long about the astonishing revival of interest in traditional crime fiction from the Golden Age. 

Saturday had begun with an enjoyable breakfast with Julia Jones, Margery Allingham's biographer,and Daniel Hahn, who was responsible for the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and is a former chair of the Society of Authors. One of the topics we talked about was the writing life - and how social media, and taking part in events,occupies so much time these days. My trip to Felixstowe,for instance, really took up three days in all that could otherwise have been devoted to writing. It's fun to do such events (especially for me, given that I could hardly ever manage such things in the days when I was a full-time lawyer), but of course one needs to strike a balance. 

Daniel said some writers do a hundred or more events a year,but I'd never be able to manage anything like that - it would interfere too much with the writing. But at least on the lengthy journey back home the trains were less like crowded cattle trucks than was the case on Friday, and I was able to get plenty of reading done - one book for which I've been asked to write an intro, and a yet-to-be-published Kate Ellis, of which more at a later date. All in all, an excellent week-end of escapism.

Publication Day - Acknowledgments

A major highlight of my year came at Crimefest in May when I won the inaugural CWA Margery Allingham Prize for my short story "Acknowledgments". Among other lovely things, part of the prize was the commitment of Bloomsbury to publish the winning entry in ebook form, via their successful Bloomsbury Reader platform. Bloomsbury has - in less than thirty years- established a very impressive reputation, not least thanks to the Harry Potter series and a Man Booker Prize winner. So I'm honoured to announce that today is publication day of Acknowledgments, an ebook that includes not just the story, but rather more.

It seemed to me that it would be desirable to offer readers some "added value", given that the story itself is short of necessity, because of the word limit in the competition rules. Luckily, Bloomsbury agreed. So the ebook includes two other stories of mine of which I'm fond, and which I felt would benefit from a fresh life. There is also an essay by me about Margery Allingham and her short stories, and a generous intro from Julia Jones, biographer of Allingham and closely involved with the Margery Allingham Society I had a lot of fun writing "Acknowledgments", and I hope it will entertain and amuse you if you read it..

Allingham was a very interesting woman and an accomplished writer. I've wavered, if I am honest, in my views about her books over the years, and to this day I haven't read them all. But I rediscovered her, in a sense, while researching her for The Golden Age of Murder, and I'm becoming ever more enthusiastic about her writing. I'm hoping, with Julia's encouragement, to go on an Allingham tour next year and explore some of the locations of the books. And I devoted the prize money to acquiring some delightful first editions inscribed by Allingham herself - it seemed fitting, and much better for me and my family than lots of chocolate...

I've quite often been shortlisted for prizes that were won by someone else, and my sympathies are at least as often with those on the shortlist as with the winners. All the more so this year, because my wife Helena was one of the runners-up. However, we still speak occasionally...and I'm thrilled to say that her story will be published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine before long. This will be her first taste of publication as a fiction writer, but another one (a contribution to an anthology of stories edited by Ann Cleeves) is already looming. This leads me to my final point - competitions can be Very Good Things for writers, whether experienced or inexperienced. The CWA Margery Allngham prize will be awarded again next year, and more details for prospective entrants can be found here.  

The Adventures of Margery Allingham

Some years ago, I read a very good biography of the accomplished Golden Age writer Margery Allingham, written by Julia Thorogood. The Adventures of Margery Allingham, which I’ve just acquired, turns out to be an updated version of that book, appearing under the author’s current name of Julia Jones. The publisher, originally Heinemann, is now Golden Duck, which I imagine is in effect a private venture run by the author, or someone based in her (and Allingham’s) neck of the woods in Essex.

The first edition appeared in 1991, and the 2009 version boasts an introduction by the best-selling novelist Nicci Gerrard (who also forms half of the ultra-successful writing partnership Nicci French). There is also an afterword, which tells the amazing story of how Allingham’s husband Pip (Philip Youngman Carter, a notable illustrator and occasional writer) was the father of a child borne by Nancy Spain, herself a detective novelist and tv personality of the 1950s, and something of a lesbian icon in the days when lesbianism was not as widely discussed and celebrated as it is today.

The book is so good, and the material so worthwhile, that I think it is a real pity that Julia Jones did not engage in a proper re-writing of the book for its second incarnation. The afterword is short and has an unsatisfactory ‘tacked-on’ feeling – it would have been better to have integrated the latest revelations into the Allingham story as a whole. I wasn’t really convinced that the money I spent on the book was worth it. But if you haven’t read the first edition, and you’re interested in Allingham and her work, the investment would certainly be justified, for Julia Jones is a good writer who definitely knows her stuff.

On a separate note, I send my thanks to that marvellous blogger Dorte H, for her ‘Grasshopper Award’. I don’t know how inspirational this blog really is, but I very much appreciate the comments and input of Dorte, and her own blog is a consistently delightful read.