Monday 22 Feb 7pm UEA

I’ve enjoyed the continuing positive reaction to Becoming Drusilla, but we’re still spreading the word.  On Monday 22nd Feb Dru and I will be in Norwich at UEA to give the LGBT History Month Lecture.  There is a full month of events in Norwich and we’re providing some, though not all, of the T.

It is very nice to be invited, and these opportunities to keep going with the book remind me of a misunderstanding I had with Dru on the walk.

When we go walking we drink a lot of tea, which means that we’re often overtaken by other walkers while brewing up in a cosy hollow or on a friendly flat rock.

As the more earnest walkers struggle past I used to shout out ‘Keep Going!’ in what I took to be my jovial, even convivial voice.  As the days went by, Dru grew increasingly gloomy.  This surprised me, as she would usually support any attempt to make the world a more jovial and convivial place.

A family of Germans march by in the rain.  ”Keep going!” I say, and Dru smoulders me a look.

‘What’s wrong?  I thought you liked it when we talked to strangers?’

‘Yes,’ Dru said.  ‘But you keep on telling them to keep going.  How rude.  You should try asking them to stop.’

not enough information

I had an email from Dru that wasn’t from Dru.  It was her daughter, ambushing Dru’s email account like a policeman at the door  – Dru had spent the night at A & E, she was being kept in hospital, she had to have an operation. 

This news came across like smoke signals from the young:  the smoke was bad but the  signals were cheery.  The message ended: 

P.s dru’s mobile is out of charge so don’t try to ring it L

What were the Indians trying to say?  How bad is L?

I wouldn’t say I panicked, but I googled Bristol Hospitals and started with the Royal Infirmary, thinking I could work down from there.  Right first time.  They did indeed have a Drusilla Marland on the wards, and yes, I could speak to her on the old-fashioned telephone.

Except Dru wasn’t exactly on the wards, she was somewhere north of Planet Nebula.   She was on the wrong side of most of Bristol’s Royal painkillers, but at least they’d done their job.  Those gallstones were sending out pain that was no longer reaching the brain.  Dru tells me (because she is still in there) that an operation is imminent. 

She came back to earth just once, to report that the Trav was parked outside and had a ticket on it. 

I did what everyone does with health problems and looked gallstones up on the Internet.  They are very painful, the internet says, and the condition is twice as likely to be suffered by women as men.  The operation is usually successful.

At Schloss Marland, I’m glad to say, normal transmission should shortly be resumed. 

Shout LGTB Festival - November

The news!  I always neglect the news. 

Thursday 7th October – Birmingham Books Festival

19.00 Birmingham Conservatoire

Tickets (5 pounds) and more information available here:

Richard Beard in conversation with John Boyne and Janette Jenkins

I haven’t seen John  and Janette together for fifteen years, since we were at UEA together.  When Malcom Bradbury died I wrote 24 Hours with Malcolm Bradbury for the Paris Review, but otherwise haven’t been a great revisitor of that time.  However, I’m looking forward to playing David Dimbleby to Janette’s Bolton Joanna Lumley and John’s John Boyne.  The last time I saw John he generously stood in at a Dublin reading when I came down with chicken pox hours before the event.

Wednesday 25th November – SHOUT Festival

19.30 Birmingham Library Theatre, Paradise Place

Tickets (5 pounds) and more information available here:

Becoming Drusilla at Shout

Shout is Birmingham’s Festival of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Culture.  Dru and I do a reading which is more a kind of double-act – we read from the book but we do our own dialogue.  Dru reads out the bits she wrote and I read out some other bits.  We then have lots of questions at the end which are nearly always exclusively for Dru.  As if I mind.

Dru recently discovered some unseen photos of the Becoming Drusilla walk.

 Saturday 21st November – The Writer’s Toolkit Conference

10.00-16.00  South Birmingham College, Digbeth

Tickets (29 pounds) and more information available here:

The Writers Toolkit

What it says on the tin: 

‘Subjects covered include Understanding Publishing, Pitching Ideas, Social Networking for Writers, Working with the BBC, Writing with Communities, Promoting Poetry, Working with Agents and Writing in the Digital Age. Other individuals and organisations involved include Arts Council England, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Arvon Foundation, National Association of Writers in Education, BBC Radio Four, The National Academy of Writing and Bloodaxe Books.’

NAW Readings, October

At these events I shall be introducing the highly talented writers from The National Academy of Writing, who will be reading from their work.

Entry is free but tickets should be booked:

Thursday 8th October

18.00 Birmingham Conservatoire

Postgraduate Poetry Platform – Poets in Performance

Wednesday 28th October

18.00 Birmingham Conservatoire

Emerging Talent – National Academy of Writing Showcase