The seaside town of Filey, a former fishing village on the east coast of Yorkshire between Scarborough and Bridlington, held its inaugural literature festival in May this year. I had the pleasure of taking part. There were walks and talks and a film about the life of Hannah Hauxwell, solitary…
LD50 During the past two weeks my home city has been marking a special anniversary: 50 years of town twinning between Leeds and Dortmund, Germany. Twinning was set up shortly after the Second World War with the aim of encouraging friendship, co-operation and understanding between people, with…
On the Pennine Way near Stanbury, three miles from Haworth, stands a house with a history. A former farmhouse, Ponden Hall was occupied by the Heaton family from the mid seventeenth century until 1898. The Brontë family were neighbours. It’s said that the Brontë children liked to…
I’m recently back from a trip to Germany where I was honoured to be guest speaker at the 2017 Mörderische Schwestern Conference that took place over the weekend of 30 November to 2 December at Kloester-Schoental. Fenna Williams and Gitta Edelmann met me at Frankfurt airport. Gitta and I stayed…
Goodreads giveaway, open to entries until 23 September (UK and Ireland) Last November, I was in Whitby doing a little extra research for Death at the Seaside, the eighth Kate Shackleton novel, to be published as a paperback original on 6 October 2016. Whitby is a former whaling port, once…
Once again the weather was glorious for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival held the fourth weekend of July at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. For those of you who might not know, Old Peculier is a beer brewed in nearby Masham. A few months ago I visited the…
The sun shone on Harrogate as aficionados of crime fiction gathered at the Old Swan Hotel to meet friends old and new, chat about books and celebrate the genre across a weekend devoted to crime writing and reading but with time for a stroll in the Valley Gardens. Every year…
The launch of Death of an Avid Reader will be on Saturday, 4 October at 11 a.m. in the historic Leeds Library, 18 Commercial Street, Leeds LS1 6AL. The oldest surviving subscription library in the country, it was established in 1768 and has made its home on Commercial Street since…
Last weekend I had the pleasure of staying in Dinan, a medieval walled town in Brittany, France, during the biennial medieval festival. Having hired a costume from the West Yorkshire Playhouse wardrobe department (what a fabulous selection) I was able to enter into the spirit of the celebrations. The small…
The Malice Domestic Convention in Bethesda, Maryland provides a watering hole for readers, writers and fans and of the traditional mystery to gather, celebrate this broad genre and generally have a good time. It’s always a pleasure to meet readers and since mystery fans like to travel, there were friends…
