The Cheltenham Literature Festival began last Friday and we have plunged into it. Last Friday, the entire family went to see Mal Peet and Meg Rosoff. Mal Peet wrote two sports-related books, Keeper and The Penalty and his newest is Tamar. He was quite impressed at the book signing that we had brought a hardcover American edition. Meg Rosoff wrote How I Live Now, Just In Case and her newest is What I Was which I am reading right now mainly because one of the main characters is named Finn. They had a very interesting discussion about writing for teens. We had dinner at one of our favorite pubs, The Beehive, and then Craig and the boys headed home while I went to see Anita Shreve. She was muy fabuloso! So very well-spoken and a nice breath of fresh American air. Her newest is Testimony which was inspired by the Duke lacrosse team sex scandal and sounded very intriguing. Be warned that the first chapter is graphic but after that, it's all novel.
On Saturday, Craig took Owen and Finn to a comics workshop. It was two brothers who made their own weekly comic called The DFC. They had a great time watching how the brothers concoct ideas and characters.
On Sunday, we were all excited to see Eoin Colfer, the great author of the Artemis Fowl series as well as many other books for kids. He was the best! He definitely had the kids hooked from his first sentence and he was just hysterical. He also has a son named Finn (weird!) and told a story about his Finn being obsessed by Pinocchio as a young child and Craig and I shared an OMG moment because our Finn was obsessed by Pinocchio as well. So much so that we went to Disneyworld and booked a character breakfast with the (un)real boy. When I was pregnant with Owen, Finn used to say that he has "a baby in his tummy too named Pinocchio donkey" and his favorite part of the movie was when Pinocchio smoked and turned green.
This week, I have gone to see Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half a Yellow Sun ~ fabulous ~ and Purple Hibiscus), Simon Armitage reading his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and I just got back from seeing Geraldine Brooks (March and People of the Book) and Katie Hickman (Avery Gate) all of which I plan on reading. All of the women have led amazing lives and Simon Armitage said "poem" exactly like my Mom does ~ "poim" except with a more English accent.
The best part of the festival was going to different venues around town and looking at the architecture of the grand ballrooms in the Everyman Theatre (think Hippodrome) and the Town Hall which we think used to be a collection of spa rooms for "healing water" treatments. The literature festival is every year in mid October so plan a visit during that time if you are interested. There's also a big jazz festival and science festival. All of them can be viewed at www.cheltenhamfestivals.com.
Happy Reading!
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