St David's Day

Happy Saint David's Day!

And a very special greeting to all my readers and friends in Wales. I have a soft spot for that beautiful country - I spent five years of my life in Aberystwyth where I studied for my degree and my MA at this wonderful old seafront college and, more importantly, met the Babe Magnet in my final year of the first degree.

And as regular blog readers will know I spend many happy days teaching in Wales at both the Writers Holidays in Caerleon and the Fishguard Writing Weekends. Sadly, because of other commitments, I won't be able to get to either of them this year, but here's a bit of advance news if you're interested in writing courses - I will be at Caerleon in July 2009, running a 5 session course on Writng Romance , and I can now let you know that I have been asked to run the Novel Writing course at Fishguard in February 2009. And the extra added bonus there is that the Babe Magnet has been asked to run the Poetry Course then too.

Talking of Caerleon reminds me to send special St David's Day greetings to Anne and Gerry Hobbs who run those wonderful Writers' Holidays and Writing Weekends - and an extra special wave to the wonderful Liz Fielding who lives in Wales and whos fabulous book The Bride's Baby is one of the three fantastic books given as a prize in the Here Come The Grooms Contest . That contest has now closed and I'll be getting Sid to draw the name of the winner just as soon as he comes in from patrolling the garden to see what's been happening out there during the night (possibly a few uprooted bushes or battered plants after the high winds of the night).

So the winner will be announced just as soon as Sid does his job and when I hear from Anne McAllister and Liz who their winners are, I'll post the information here.

And talking of those contest prizes - as it's now March, then officially Anne's One-Night Love Child is out in America, and my Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife should be on the shelves in the UK. Actually, they're bopth there already in some places as Anne has seen Flynn and Sara's story in her local stores and the BM spotted Raul and Alannah in Lincoln yesterday. So they're out there.

Finally, here's a newspaper story that will bring hope to all those struggling for publication and getting nowhere - at the moment . It's always good to know that the famous and successful have been through it too!

Oh - and if you're reading this in the UK before 10 am then you might like to know that the BM will be on Radio Humberside this morning. He's talking about one of his grim and gruesome books Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Grimsby at around 1o past 10. And you can listen here.