I was invited as a guest to Derby’s wonderful EdgeLit convention last Saturday and I had a blast.

I’ll admit I was frightened beforehand. I’d been asked to run a workshop when I’d never done such before. To my surprise the class was fully booked and I found myself standing before twenty expectant folk. I needn’t have feared, for they turned out to be as lovely as they were creative, and we had a nice ol’ natter about characters and dialogue. I learned quite a bit and I hope they did too. There’s so much eager talent out there; I’ll be on the lookout for their work in future.

My appearances culminated in the raffle in the main theatre. Luckily I had the dark king of Leeds, RJ Barker, with me and between us we raffled, read out one star reviews, questioned the colour puce and threw fun-size chocolates at the worthy.

All in all, EdgeLit is a fabulous institution and I highly recommend attending next year if you can. Great to see old mates I hadn’t met in meatspace for some time and new pals made. Super!