Berlie Doherty - author

Our small reading group, Bolsover Townswomen's Guild Book Club, was lucky enough to be picked from a draw of reading groups in Derbyshire, to received a visit from Berlie Doherty a local Derbyshire author. She came to our meeting today and we really enjoyed her visit. She talked about books in general and her own in particular, giving a reading from one of her books, a children's novel called 'Street Child.' She has published around 60 books from all genres but concentrating mainly on children's books. She is currently Derbyshire County Council's Reading Champion, encouraging reading from primary schools into old age. Unfortunately, her tenure ends this month and no funds are available to renew the post. On a more personal level, as an as yet unpublished fiction writer, I found her totally inspiring and most encouraging. She has given me new heart to continue.

I have now submitted my social history article, Working in t'Mill, and sourced some suitable photographs. It is due to appear, I think, in the May issue of Family History Monthly. I will post on here any further news.

A most satisfactory day all round, especially as I managed to cut back my hellebore leaves to show the coming flowers to more advantage. I know we will have more cold weather to come but I thought there was a definite hint of spring in the air today...

Progress to date

I've been working hard on the rewrite and so far, so good. I do feel it's coming along well, still more work to do though. There's plenty of external conflict in Save The Last Dance For Me but I need to work in more internal conflict. That I don't find easy but I keep trying. 

Facebook has been keeping me busy, trying to find my way round the site. I bought a second hand copy of 'Facebook for Dummies' but unfortunately, my version of Facebook doesn't tally with their version! Still, there's one or two useful pointers so it's not been  a waste of time. One of the results of being on Facebook is that I know have more communication with my brother who lives in France and whom I haven't seen for over two years. Also, an American friend who I hadn't heard from for several years got in touch through Facebook. I can quite see that playing around on it could be addictive.....