Romance- and the word

Last weekend I spent a day listening to writers talk about romance and how they write about it. I should say immediately I am not a huge fan but I attended in my role as treasurer of Tamworth Literary Festival Group ( LitFest for short ). The all day event was the most ambitious we have staged and was at two venues, St Editha’s church ( St Georges chapel ) and the town library.

The church was the venue for the talks while a range of authors had tables in the library and sold and signed books and chatted to the public. The attendance at the talks was disappointing while the free “meet the authors” was much better attended. We had a moment of panic when no-one had turned up for one talk. Our chairperson saved the day by asking some of the authors in the library to come over. In the event it was perhaps as well the audience was small as the authors had little notion of public speaking using  just a conversational voice. I had great difficulty in hearing them. I am rather deaf but even so they spoke too softly.

Unfortunately we had a bad start when the church caretaker couldn’t get the computer projector to work. I sympathised as I have only used a projector once in a presentation- usually I used an overhead projector. The projector was borrowed and I practiced diligently beforehand. It all worked well unlike another speaker at the same event whose system failed. The irony was that seeing I was a newbie he had offered his help.

Our final author was completely unlike the others. Whereas they were of the slightly superior Mills and Boon type ( one has been invited to take on the Catherine Cookson mantle ) the final speaker had stories from the dark side of romance. He read a short story which appears as though it is a middle aged man  picking up a girl for the evening. Right at the end it is revealed they are in a suicide pact and need each others company for it.

This final speaker aroused some amusement. Among his audience was an elderly clergyman who remonstrated that the author read too quickly. The author remarked he had never been heckled by a clergyman before.

One of the features of the day for me was meeting some local folk whose names I had often heard but had never met before. I was quite astonished that one knows my cousin quite well. It has become very apparent that there are a group of organisations and people who live locally and know one another well. So there are Civic Society, History Group, Writers Group, Heritage Society and no doubt many more. Now that the town library has undergone severe cuts there are various volunteers there.

It is about time I became more lighthearted. Here is a limerick I came across on the day.

The builder was filled with dejection
At the end of the council inspection
For he’d started his mission
Without planning permission
And now he must lose his erection