Last year a Canadian book blogger by the name of Shawn Mooney (known online as Shawn The Book Maniac) bumped into my wee book 'With or Without Angels'. He held an online chat with a fellow book blogger Lindy of Lindy's Magpie Reads. I was so excited at their inspection of my book, not least because they both loved it. They had a good discussion about some of the finer points of the book and what I had written.
Then a couple of weeks ago Shawn contacted me to ask if I would be a 'mystery guest' on one of his Friday shows - just to chat about my writing and/or my reading. I am an English teacher by training and experience and if there's one thing that's true of many English teachers, they love to talk about books and writing. I leapt at this opportunity, even though I do find it hard to talk enthusiastically on ZOOM... needing the energy of the audience in the room with me.
On Thursday - 4pm our time in the UK and 10am Shawn's time, we had a zoom chat that was fun and easy and I got to be myself. Shawn said afterwards that I did not seem at all nervous... but I was!!!
On Friday Shawn posted the first half hour of this chat as part of his Friday Mystery Guest spot. He was so taken with everything I had to say - everything!!! - that he has decided at a slightly later date to show the full unedited chat on his Youtube page.
Thank you so much to Shawn - for being such an avid reader, for liking something I wrote and for extending an invitation to me to just talk... every retired English teacher's dream.
Oh and he announced in the zoom chat thingy that he and Lindy are going to read 'Blue Postcards' together and do another online chat about it... soon.
Here's the link to Thursday's zoom chat with Shawn:
