Thank you Halifax - and New Voices 2

I had a great time in Halifax for the Calderdale Writers' Roadshow. It was a nostalgic trip as well as a work event and I had a lovely time wandering around the streets of the town that used to be home to me when I was growing up and where I had my first ever married home.

My thanks to the group who came to my workshop, joined in, asked great questions, and generally made the 2 hours slip by so fast I barely realised we'd started.

Also Jayne, Christine and Catherine who booked one to ones - it was great to meet you, to talk writing with you, and I really hope that our discussions helped you see a way forward to creating your own novels in the future. Good Luck!

And Good Luck wishes too to the ten finalists in the New Voices Contest who have worked on their entries with the advice and input of their mentoring teams and have submitted their second chapters which are up on the site now.

Anyone who entered - and even if you didn't but you're interested in the writing process - should go and take a look at how these stories have progressed. Because, as I've said before and I'm sure I'll say again, it's the potential for such progress that the editors saw in them from the start and that now, with their editorial input, is being put into place. Personally I'm finding it fascinating to see what the authors have done to move on from that first chapter, how they've put the editor's comments into their stories, and what the result is as posted on the site.

The voting of course is the subjective part. The bit where you are asked to vote for your favourite - but being honest, I wouldn't know if I was best voting as a reader or as an author or as a trained critiquer. And in the end, it's the editorial opinion that matters most. They are the ones who will be working with the writers - probably many more authors than just the one who is finally declared the winner - in the hope of developing a dynamite book out of the unpolished diamonds that were first submitted.

It's intriguing and enlightening watching the 'work in progress' - something that we rarely get to see from any author, any book. But ultimately the real prize for any of those who have submitted will be to see their name on a book on the bookshop shelves. I really hope that they achieve their dreams.

And talking of books on shelves, today is the actual, official publication date for the Presents EXTRA edition of The Good Greek Wife? in America. But I've been thrilled to see it riding high in the Top Ten on Amazon.com all weekend. Many many thnanks to everyone who's bought a copy to create this great result. As I hope the winners of New Voices and others will discover - this is a thrill that never goes away.