The Hay Literary Festival: Heroes, Assassins and Dragons

The year before last, I received an email headlined: "Hay Festival." Terribly excited that at last I had been invited to speak at Britain's best-known literary festival, I opened it, only to find it was from a PR company telling me what the line-up was. So when, this year, I received another email with the same headline, I ignored it for ages. Luckily I eventually opened it, as this time round it was an actual invitation. I couldn't have been more delighted.

The train that I took from Paddington on a Tuesday afternoon was pullulating with people, most of whom seemed also to be doing talks at Hay. ("We live in a post-ironic world" was the general level of conversation.) On arrival at Hereford, I shared a car with two other authors, and was driven through impeccably lush countryside to my B and B, a charming house which belongs to an artist called Shan Egerton.

In the author's tent,  I ran into a friend who works for PEN and The White Review, and we had dinner and talked about Chilean anti-poets dancing at the age of 90, and how there's no time to read everything anymore.

Everything was muddy the next morning: hordes of people wearing sensible parkas and wellies were the order of the day, in contrast to my brogues and light summer jacket. I should have listened to Charlie Fletcher, one of the two authors I was doing my talk with (the other being Justin Somper), who advised bringing some seriously weatherproof kit. Still, I managed to make it through the day virtually unscathed, spending the time before my event sitting in the hospitality suite, and spotting famous writers gradually filling up the sofas: Sebastian Faulks was there in a smashing purple jacket.

I had an hour or so to look at the bookshops, and of course bought something in every one I went into. I would like to be able to spend a day or more there. What I love about second hand bookshops is the serendipity of things: there is no bullish marketing, or bestsellers thrust into your face, but you can turn a corner and find something beautiful. I came back with a version of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex for children, with startling Indian illustrations; a PG Wodehouse novel which introduces the excellent Psmith to Blandings Castle, and with a Chris Riddell cover , and a nineteenth century translation of the Greek Anthology.

The talk itself went well, chaired by the admirable Julia Eccleshare. We discussed making magical worlds; did some readings, and then went into questions. In the Starlight tent everything took on a  gentle glow, and, fortunately, nobody fell asleep.

All too soon I was back on the train, lugging my box of Berry Bros wine, and with a white rose in my lapel. A fellow passenger took me in and said, simply, "Why?" I shrugged. "Hay," I replied. It seemed to do the trick.

Sebastian Faulks to write P G Wodehouse novel: Woe is me

Neither Bertie nor Jeves are happy about this

As I marmited my toast this morning, the unwelcome news came that Mr Sebastian Faulks is to write a new P G Wodehouse novel. This naturally produced the sorts of qualms in my heart that the voice of one of my mastodonic aunts does. Here is my reaction, on that jolly old p., The Telegraph.

The Luck of the Moncrieffs by P G Womack

Some excellent books, and The Liberators by P A Womack (quite good)

A quick post: at a friend's house last night I noticed that her books had been arranged into alphabetical order: and there, glinting at me, was the spine of The Liberators, seated above P G Wodehouse, one of my literary heroes. Being a 'double-u' means that my books are, in bookshops, placed right at the bottom right hand corner, usually crowded out by the shiny, inanity of the Jacqueline Wilsons; my own copies at home sit next to Virginia Woolf. So it is a real pleasure to see my name next to Wodehouse's - and isn't that, secretly, why we all want to write books?

It's also marvellous that it's above The Luck of the Bodkins. It has always been a fantasy of mine that books communicate with each other, that characters walk in and out of each other's pages whilst we're not looking; I hope that young Ivo Moncrieff has some fun with the amiable Monty Bodkin in the Drones Club.