Pride Bristol, 2011

After an epic bus journey (six hours is nearly epic on our little island), the Bristol Pride event was hugely enjoyable, not least because of the enthusiasm and warmth of everyone I met. Real pride in their people, their Pride week, their friends, their city. Good pride. I ate a delicious supper in Cafe Kino upstairs, then went downstairs to the gig. I’ve done readings to very small audiences, and that’s fine, but it was terrific to see every seat filled, and the audience was brilliant: funny, attentive, engaged, challenging even. Everything you could want.

I shared the platform with two really talented young writers, Amy Mason and Beatrice Hitchman. Amy read a funny and touching first kiss scene from her draft novel; and Beatrice gave us a disturbing scene and beautiful scene, both ordinary and exotic, from the Paris of 100 years ago (I think?) showing how closely ordinary intimacy and unspoken grief can run together between a couple, and how lives can unravel this way.