The Wynd. Actually, the name of the road is really Grannie Clark’s Wynd, which I prefer. Gives it a more cheerful and cosy outlook to the little side street, on the side of the 18th hole of the Old Course, St Andrews. In case you don’t know, that piece of grass is where the likes of Tiger Woods win a umm… game of golf. And if you don’t cross it carefully you might get a golf ball in the head. Seriously.

And I couldn’t agree more!

Linda Grant, the winner of the Man Booker Prize with her book ‘The Clothes on their Backs’, gave a talk yesterday at the University of St Andrews. The University runs a project with the Man Booker Prize Organisers where every entering undergraduate receives a copy of the Man Booker Prize book. And this was the year of Linda Grant.
It was an excellent event, that started off humorously with the University’s Principal not reading her notes properly and start claiming Linda had read History at University. She had read English Literature. And then Linda took over with a reading and then spoke about her book. And then at the end were some great questions, not the kind you would typically hear…. which is where Facebook comes into it all, and when she mentioned all her friends being authors and that they all act as a support group, just reminded me of what one author friend did recently.

All round, great event. And when someone’s friends with the wonderful Meg Rosoff, they must be good!

Yes, I’m afraid so. There are a lot of birthdays it seems in October, especially in the author world. But today’s birthday isn’t an author. At least, not one of such caliber as all of the brilliant ones I know.

It’s me. So…. Happy Birthday to myself..! I’ll see if I have time to celebrate after my Maths test…

A big merry Happy Birthday to Jonathan Mayhew… there’s no stranger, funnier or more disturbing writer in the business. Especially one who still acts like his age is a single digit. And yes, that is a compliment.

This photo was taken as he tried to convince a boy to come to his signing table. Since me and Bookwitch had been stood there, no one had come forward… even after I sneakily stuck his books in the recommended section of the bookshop.

But back to birthdays. Jon recently said that all the best people have their birthdays in October. I couldn’t agree more…
So Happy Birthday Jon!!

I have no idea who or what Nova Bair is, but they had a point. Almost as soon as October comes, you start to see the beautiful colours of the trees.
These leaves look beautifully alive as everything slowly starts to wither and hide from the oncoming winter.

So who says you have to go to New England to see the autumn colours…?

Sorry about the temporary lack of photos on this blog. Flickr has been umm… annoying and then I’ve been a bit busy packing, unpacking, running around St Andrews etc. But I fully intend to return to normal. I think.

And to start us off is the incredible Keith Charters at Gillian Philip’s launch for Firebrand at The Edinburgh Bookshop. I think we can all guess which bonkers author Keith is gesturing to. Yes Keith, don’t worry… we all know how bonkers Gillian is.

The EIBF comes to a close. All the authors have gone home (or ought to have by now) and I’m sure the tents are being packed up as we speak. Though, I wouldn’t know. I left on Sunday afternoon after more than a week running around what felt like most of Edinburgh, though it probably wasn’t.

So good bye Edinburgh…. and maybe I’ll see you again next year (where hopefully they’ll have invented the teleport meaning it won’t take about 2 hours to get to Edinburgh and back everyday!).

Here is Liz Kessler, a fabulous author of (mostly) girls books, and someone I’ve been following for probably close to 10 years.

Her event was brilliant, getting all of the audience actively involved by getting them to pick things out of her special writing box. I very much wanted to put up my hand, but thought the girls might prefer to pick them out instead.

And I feel sorry for biology teachers everywhere, Liz doesn’t think very highly of your subject, and then she realised there was a biology teacher in the audience.

Bookwitch had an interview (long overdue) with the fabulously, insanely, magically wonderful Steve Cole. Or Stephen if he’s in trouble.

He had fun trying to get the teapot to work, decide what he wants written on his gravestone and speak in a funny voice; you can understand why I came out smiling.

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And to see even more of what is going on at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, look further at other images and regularly check up on the blog as I’m adding more every day, all day.

Though we didn’t go to his event, seeing as it was the exact same time as Caroline Lawerence’s event, we did know that it was sold out. So we couldn’t have gone even if we wanted to. And the way people came running out of his event and into the signing tent afterwards, he clearly had a very good event.

I should read his books, or so I was often told by friends when we were in Year 7 and 8.