12-3pm, The Lodge Grounds, North Berwick, EH39 4HN
There will be lots of fun things going on and it is a free event so why not come along and bring the family.
There

SocatotsMini RugbyMusic MakersJo JinglesGymstersLa Jolie Ronde French for kidsLittle Diggers (archaeology experience for ages 4-11!)North Berwick Pipe BandRaces and gamesIce cream vanPicnic area, homebaking, soft drinksFace paintingBaby play areaRaffle

The  raffle, to raise money for your local NCT branch has some fantastic prizes, including Family passes to the Scottish Seabird Centre and East Links Family Park and an Annual Family Membership for National Museums Scotland (which includes East Lothian’s National Museum of Flight).

Signed copies of the Hamish books will also be on sale.

Thankfully, unlike Brigadoon,  the book festival lasts for just over two weeks and comes back again each year.  It is a haven for booklovers from the madness that is Edinburgh during Festival time!  Don’t get me wrong I love the Edinburgh in August it feels, sounds and even smells different; exciting and cosmopolitan ,with voices in every lanugage you can imagine to be heard at every turn.

The street theatre is almost as fascinating as the variety of shows that spring up  in any available space, all over the city.  You never quite know who you are going to see around the next corner, or what, for that matter.
You can find out what is happening at the book festival this year on their website

This year I am delighted, and privileged, to  be appearing at the book festival for the 10th year running!

This year my event is a workshop, on 26th August, on Writing for Younger Children. Places for this filled up very quickly and it is fully booked, but there are lots of other great events and workshops on offer.

I will be signing books in the children’s bookshop in Charlotte Square after the workshop,  at around 12.30 on Thursday 26th  August, so if you would like to come along and say hello, please do!

This has been a great year so far for my teenage/YA books with the launch of Dead Boy Talking at the end of the summer term in North Berwick High School,

It has gathered some great reviews and you can find links to these  on my blog Writing the Bookwords

Spider has also been doing well this year being one of the finalists in the Red Book Awards which took place in February and it was also on the long list for the Lancashire Book Awards. Spider is currently on the shortlist for two further awards, the Catalyst Book Awards (October 2010) and the Dumfries Burgh Book Awards (February 2011)

There are also some interesting things happening with regard to Hamish McHaggis series so to all Hamish Fans, come back soon to find out more.

I was there with  my good friend and co-tutor Cathy MaPhail, a great writer with an amazing sense of humour which kept us all smiling all week long.

But Cathy is also an inspiration when she talks about the way she writes, often a very different process from the way I  write.

GRASS is one of her latest books.

The course was about Writing for Children  of all ages, from picture books to teenage and YA, and we had  16  enthusiastic adult emergent writers. who worked incredibly hard.  They were lovely and talented people.  Mid week the guest speaker was an agent, in fact my own agent Kathryn Ross from Fraser Ross Associates  and she was well grilled by the students! It was sad to leave at the end of the week it is such a lovely place and feels as if it is so far from the rest of the world .

You can read more about the week and see some pictures on my blog Bookwords

While I was away my Writer’s Choice appeared on Normblog where I write about a favourite book.  My choice was Laurie Lee’s The Firstborn.

With the recent launch of Dead Boy Talking I have also been doing a bit of a blog tour and keeping a lookout for reviews of the book, too.

There is a guest post on The Bookette and I will be following it up later this week on Scottish Book Trust’s blog and Wondrous Reads. There are some great reviews of the book, and  for now you can find the links on my Bookwords blog but soon I will be putting them up on this website, too.

from North Berwick High School with English teacher Susan Conway (3rd from right at the back) and Linda Strachan, showing off their 1st edition signed copies of the book

The afternoon launch was held for the entire 3rd year group at the school and featured a drama based on a scene from the book.  I was interviewed by Neil Wilson, one of the PPPP organisers,  and this was followed by  a talk about real life knife crime by Superintendent John Hawkins of Lothian and Borders Police.

The evening book launch was also completely organised by the teenagers  from PPPP from designing and distributing invitations and posters, to the layout of the room.

When they arrived the invited guests were welcomed by members of the PPPP and refreshments were served.  The drama was performed and I was interviewed and spoke a bit about the book and the characters.

And there was cake!

and a chance to get books signed.

Thanks to the wonderful teenagers from Platinum Pages Print Promoters the evening was a great success. See their blog Deadboytalking.blogsop.com

-  is the company name for a great class of 13/14 yr olds from North Berwick High school in East Lothian, Scotland. They have been working hard to publicise and organise the launch of my new novel  DEAD BOY TALKING.

They have a started blog about the project (http://deadboytalking.blogspot.com) – why not have a look and follow the blog.

There is also a Facebook page for Dead Boy Talking and they have all sorts of exciting ideas for the launch which will be in the school at the end of June.

PPPP  have been learning  about publishing and publicity, increasing their skills in IT and communications.  The project has also encouraged them to think about design of posters and invitations and they have been organising competitions and other exciting things for the launch day.

I spoke to a variety of classes from the little ones in the kindergarten right up to the older students in Grade 5.   I read from What Colour is Love? and the Hamish McHaggis books and here I am reading  The Giant and the Frippit,

We also discussed  my new novel Dead Boy Talking.

We talked about how the design for the cover had  gone through several changes  and they gave  the final cover design a thumbs up!

Getting back to my desk I feel the urge to spring clean my desk and my computer files and start with everything cleared away.  April is that kind of month for me and I have a much less punishing schedule in the next couple of months  and I plan to keep it that way for a while to allow me more time to write. But I am not sure if that will actually happen because there are some very exciting things planned with the publication of my new book DEAD BOY TALKING in JUNE.  More about this very soon!

March was very busy with lots of  school visits right up to the last week when I was visiting all ages, from tots to teens during the Craigmillar Book Festival, speaking to adult writers in Port Seton, East Lothian and a last minute invitation to North Lanarkshire’s St Margaret’s High school and Greenfaulds High School.

]]> http://www.lindastrachan.co.uk/back-to-my-desk-2/feed 0 http://www.lindastrachan.co.uk/world-book-day-celebrations http://www.lindastrachan.co.uk/world-book-day-celebrations#comments Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:40:57 +0000 linda http://www.lindastrachan.co.uk/?p=742 Already we are almost in March and that means World Book Day. It is wonderful that there is so much enthusiasm around the next few weeks to celebrate books and words of all kinds.

I will be in Gullane Library, East Lothian, on Monday 1st march with classes P5-7 from Dirleton Primary school.  On Wednesday I’m off to Dunfermline High School for their WBD celebrations, speaking to S1 about SPIDER and telling them about my new book, DEAD BOY TALKING which is out in June this year.

After this I am heading further north (hopefully there won’t be too much snow) to  to Speak to Kingswells Primary school, Aberdeen, about HAMISH McHAGGIS, (Hamish himself may just make an appearance) GREYFRIARS BOBBY and THE TROJAN HORSE AND OTHER GREEK MYTHS.

Still in Aberdeen I am visiting the Central Library on Friday 5th March to speak to some invited schools about HAMISH.

So a busy start to the month.  Later on in March I will be focusing on adult creative writing , again in the north around Turriff, and then in East Lothian’s Port Seton Library, but more on that soon.