Vanessa Gebbie is coming to town!

I´m madly trying to tidy my souk and get the hearth warming. We´re expecting snow here in Vienna this weekend. And next week, Vanessa Gebbie from Wales is coming to stay upstairs – where it is all tidy and waiting for her. It´s just that a peep into my souk on the way out might be a bit of a shock. And anyway, I´ve completed a couple of projects, or parts of them  – more on this later – and it wouldn´t do for my writing place to be in too much of a mess, would it?

Vanessa will be giving a series of workshops on novel writing at the Writers´ Studio here in Vienna. She´ll be kicking off on Thursday, 1 November and continuing Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I´ve signed up and can´t wait for four days of writing immersion with her.

And on Friday evening, she´ll be reading from The Coward´s Tale, or maybe from one of her story collections, Storm Warning or Words from a Glass Bubble, and she might even top things off with a bit of flash.  (You may notice that Vanessa´s two story collections were published by SALT which also published a 2012 Man-Booker finalist, as well as Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story which was edited by…Vanessa Gebbie. And there´ll be a new version of Short Circuit with more fascinating essays out soon.)

Vanessa´s reading will be on Friday, 2 November at 7.30 pm at Shakespeare and Co in one of the oldest parts of Vienna. I really can´t wait to hear the real voice read the voices I imagine in her work, and voices there are! Why don´t you join me?

I´ve posted both covers of The Coward´s Tale because not only did I love the book, but also both covers. And you can read about Vanessa´s blogstop on this very blog. So excited to be meeting her in person! Yikes, the souk!

So my weekend´s going to be busy. And the next one, I´m sure, will be just great!