Saturday, 21 March 2009

It's Been a Week of Successes

First, Sarah had one of her paintings chosen for the cover of the May edition of ‘Paint’ magazine. They are also doing a profile on her as May’s featured artist.
Wooh, I’m married to a cover-girl!
It’s been a hectic few days for her, putting together her answers to a question sheet that was emailed earlier in the week - and then, and here’s the thing, she had to find a photo of herself to go with it. This was the week that we discovered who’s the one, really, who spends most of their time on the viewfinder side of the camera. We have about a million pictures of flowers. We have maybe half a dozen of Sarah, most of them in woolly hats and walking boots. So I’ve been rushing home from work on sunny days, trying to catch a good one out in the garden before the moon comes up. In this I failed her. I’m not a photographer.
But Sarah’s Dad did the business. He took some good photo’s that I’m not allowed to show here. We’ll see. Here's one of her paintings instead. Second. We have a section of our Wirral Writers’ meetings each fortnight where the chair asks the question, “Does anyone have any news?”, and that’s when we all mumble and look down at our shoes. So last Friday, when Jon Mayhew says, “Well, yes, my agent’s just got me this three-book deal with Bloomsbury, for my book, ‘Mortlock’”, it kind of raised a bit of a stir. (There’s a link to Jon’s blog, Writing in a Vacuum, on my sidebar). His book is set to come out early next year. I’ll be first in the queue at Borders. Jon’s read parts of ‘Mortlock’ to us at WW and it really is something quite special. And it shows that, despite crunchy credit and economic downturns, real talent shines and still gets noticed. Jon, you dog, I’m envious as hell, but well done.

Sunday, 1 March 2009

Vintage Radio III

A quick follow-up. What a fun day. I know it's only a little radio station but it was so exciting. All the staff and presenters are volunteers and they are all pumped-up and enthusiastic.
I think it went okay. I was very conscious of it being live radio and I didn’t want to mess up. The Texan accent must have worked on some level because my Mum listened in and didn’t recognise my voice. Not sure if that’s a good thing.

Sarah did wonders recording it all for me. She used my digital voice recorder held up to the speakers, because the technology for recording straight from the internet eludes me. Everything’s gone all digital and hi-tech, and when it comes to a simple, old fashioned tape recording from FM radio we just don’t have the kit any more. It will be like this when climate change and global economic meltdown drives us back into the caves; the guy who can light a fire with two sticks will be king.