I AM A PEN!!!

I am loads of pens!

I can now do my own writing stories (when I've learned to spell and stuff) and I don't have to rely on that batty woman any more.

Wheeeeeeeee!

I went to Ireland again

I did. I went to a place called Cork (I thought those were what stops wine coming out of wine bottles?) because there was a festival called FRank O Connor.

Remember? He's the nice man who said I could go and gave my batty writer a few days there as an early Christmas present. Actually, I met his daughter, who was a really lovely lady. I wish SHE had written me. She's much nicer than my batty writer. I wish she hadn't come to Cork, really. I am a real party animal, and she only spoils it.

Still.

There were lots of me on a table every day, and we moved about. One day I was next to Jhumpa Lahiri's book, (Unaccustomed Earth, the one that won the big prize) and the next I was with An Instruction manual for Swallowing, by Adam Marek. He's great. Looks like a film star. I must grow up fast. He bought moi, actually...so there.

There were loads of readings, and they were really good. My batty writer talked to a lot of the writers, and drank far too much Corona which is not pop, like it used to be when she was a girl, but is beer.

One day, my batty writer went for a walk with Mrs Salt (a lady called Jen Hamilton Emery). They went all round Cork, and into this park where there was a Peace Festival. oooo-er. It was full of tents, and music, and clothes and dogs and children and drums and hats and the air was full of sort of blue smoke. My batty writer was dancing, and I was sooooooo embarrassed.

When we came out, my batty writer said 'I feel a bit light headed'. Mrs Salt said she did too.

I doont think it had anything at all to do with the blue smoke.

But anyway. I had lunch with Jhumpa Lahiri who is dead famous. Only even though she is called Jhumpa, mine is better.

My writer takes loads of photos. Only they are all of walls. I SAID she was mad....

LOVELY MESSAGE FROM A READER

My batty writer got this letter today:

Dear Vanessa,

Hello, hope you're all keeping very well.

I just wanted to send you a note to say how much I liked your book. Thank you.

I think that your writing is very intense and compassionate and also very brave in that it deals with painful subjects. I found the stories gripping.

I hope you go from strength to strength and book to book.

Nice innit?

BUBBLES DOWN UNDER!

I am now big in Australia.

Well, sort of. There is one copy of moi in a library in a place called Perth.

So if you want to see me, yuu can call by but I'm not on loan, you can only sit and read moi. Upside down.

"DOING WELL..."

I dunno. My batty writer decided to ask how I was doing. So instead of asking moi, she asked my publishers, Salt.

Well, I suppose it is six months coming up since I was borned. So, like you take other babies to get weighed and have things stuck in their ears and things, and injections... yerk... I can have an MOT via how many peoples are buying moi, and things like that.

(I am very pleased that I don't have to have injections. My batty writer hates them, and it's genetic. I hate them too even though Ive never had one. I have been glued together though - a painful procedure - and I have been folded in half and sliced in a guillotine. YOU try it. It's not nice.)

Anyway. There is a widget on Amazon, and my batty writer can see where I am relative to sales of other stuff on there, and so far so good... but it doesn't tell you how many of me are whizzing around out there in identical pink jumpers.

Anyway, Mrs Salt-person who is called Jen, was packing to go on holiday and she works hard and needs one, I think. So she couldnt do all the calculations, but sent an email to say:

"Your book's doing well."

I suppose that is what writers of things like moi want to hear.

SPOTTED AT CHICAGO AIRPORT

It's true! I have been seen at Chicago Airport (which is not here, but a long way away, I'm told), being read by a woman.

And a friend of my batty writer's saw me, and went up to the woman reading me, and said something like Hey, are you a friend of Vanessa's, I know her...

and the woman looked like she was being accosted by a lunatic, so my batty w's friend said I mean Vanessa G, the writer of your book... that one...

and the woman didn't reply at all, just closed moi and wandered off...

coo.

SHORT FUSE READING

I had a great time at Short Fuse in Brighton, on 17th July, but my batty writer forgot to post, and I can't spell yet.

There were four reads, me being one, and my writer's friend called Jo Horsman (who is skinny and wears sparkly tights) being another one. It was a fun party.

My batty writer had been asked to read Dodie's Gift out of moi, because it fitted the theme of the party.