Bookings...for the festival season www.hairyplugmonster.com

Dates for your diary

5th June                           Bury Waterstones     
10th July                         Oxfam Bookfest  Cheadle branch
22nd August                    Just So Festival  Stafford.

Its the festival season again, with an official invite from the "Just So" organisers coming in the mail this week.  They did ask me to specify any requirements that I may have....I was almost tempted to play "
 Prima Donna" and ask for Evian on the table ... with fresh cut flowers blah blah blah,  but as it will be the middle of summer - outside in a field, its probably wiser to ask for an umbrella more than anything else.

The Just So Festival looks like it is going to be well worth a visit www.justsofestival.org.uk - from what I can gather the weekend camping tickets sold out almost immediately which is not surprising given the wealth of talent that's on display.

 People who are not interested in me this year are the Edinburgh Book Festival..and surprisingly Lymm ( I thought I was in there), who passed me over for the highly talented Craig Bradley. 

So there are a few stars to aim for in the coming months.

The "Spooky Stories Collection" is coming on strong with "Miss Carr's Pies" getting the thumbs up from the gang on Facebook, and a couple of private readings over the phone gave me more encouragement.  Given the age group for the stories, I have decided to double up the content to eight tales as opposed to four - ( the main reason being that you cant fob an 8 year old off with as many pictures.)  This in itself has given me a bit of a dilemma because I need story matter for at least three of them.

I am toying with a friendlier style for the fifth called " Its Hard Being Brave When Your Only Eight", all about an evening walk in the park and all the "Monsters" that hide in the shadows.

Oxfam are holding their 2nd annual book festival in July 10th and have invited me to be the "guest author" as their store in Cheadle Village on the outskirts of Stockport.  From what they were saying it gets really "rammed" in the morning so they have booked me for 10 - 12.
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Finally Bury Waterstones are holding a "Big Kid's Day"  which has been billed as their biggest children's event EVER!!!! 

I am sharing the billing with Joseph Delaney who will be signing his book " Spooks" and the emphasis for the event is on "dark tales" so it seems like the perfect place to give " Spooky Stories " a test drive before it goes to print.