Writing in Paris and Edinburgh

July is travelling for me. Over the weekend, I was in Paris, visiting the creative writing summer programme at the PAA (the Paris American Academy). I was invited by my ex-teacher, the wonderful Lauren Grodstein (author of A Friend of the Family), and I sat in on classes and hung out with the other students, one of whom was kind enough to let me sleep on the sofa, and all of whom were very welcoming to this briefly appearing stranger. We swapped “third glass of wine” life stories and reviewed each others’ work.

I also managed to take a quick walk around the amazing Rodin museum. This is Balzac, nude.

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This is “The Voice Interior”:

I came back to London, packed, and headed up to Scotland, to attend the Post Graduate Publishing forum run by the University of New Orleans. I was a runner up in their fiction contest, and so was invited to attend one of the events they organise in Italy and Scotland. So far it has been excellent. Us postgrads are here to work out a plan for our future careers, talking about publishing, the writing industry, and career development.

We also, in the dorms, sit in the programme coordinator’s kitchen until long after midnight, giving informal readings of our work. I’ve been here two full days, now, and I’m excited for the remaining week and a half.

This is the great hall of Napier University, where the classes are held: