Writing

Chris Evans is returning to the Hay Festival this year, and doing a Breakfast Show from Hay, as he enjoyed it so much last year. He's also organising a Children's Writing Competition - 500 words of story from any under thirteen year olds. He's got some wonderful people to judge the competition, including an old hand at the Festival, Jacqueline Wilson, Anthony Horowitz, Oliver Jeffers (who writes and illustrates some of Chris Evans' sons' favourite picture books) and Howard Jacobson. Winners will be special guests on the Breakfast Show, and will get book tokens and books for their school library. The Festival is from 26th May to 5th June this year.
When Howard Jacobson was on the Breakfast Show, giving authorial tips to budding writers, he said: "The less in control you are, the better the writing will be."
Anne Brichto would certainly agree with that. Inspired by Chris the Bookbinder's readings at Open Mic Nights, she has spent the last six weeks writing 85,000 words of her own novel! She said she wouldn't be doing readings herself though. "What, too much sex and violence?" she was asked.
"Well, sex!" And Dublin and Molly Bloom, apparently. She said that she's been reading all her life, and now all her creative instincts are coming out.

She's not the only Hay bookseller to write a book as well as selling them, of course. A copy of Where Can I Find Mrs Gaskell? turned up in Broad Street Book Centre this week. It's by Keith Gowan, who ran Arvona Gallery (now Haymakers) in the 1980s. Richard Booth is mentioned, of course, and so is Cotters, who worked for Richard at the time.
Cotters came on a visit to Hay the other day - this is sort of like a Royal progress around all his old friends - so I asked him about Keith Gowan. "Oh, he was a dear friend," Cotters said, and told me that he also collected British art. Cotters always regretted missing the chance to buy a particular painting from him "from one of the Cornish schools".
As he was leaving, he added: "I carry little bags now to carry the weight of my personality because I find the weight almost unbearable."
My very own Cotterism!