Roving Romaniacs – An Earthless Melting Pot anthology launch

14/06/201312/06/2013 The Romaniacs12 Comments

I was very happy to spend a lovely, sunny, writerly couple of days in London at the end of May, traveling up on the Friday for author drinks arranged by super-agent Juliet Mushens. In a busy bar in Soho, around twenty of Juliet’s authors gathered to drink and chat. It was lovely to spend time with an eclectic group of writers at all different stages of the journey to publication: Those, like myself, at the nail-biting editing/submitting stage, those who have the longed for book deal who are now awaiting publication, and the published ones – the writers on the Richard & Judy list, the bestsellers, the debut writers and the ones sweating over their second. All lovely, all inspiring – I’m already looking forward to the next Team Mushens outing!

Day 2 saw me back in Soho, this time in The Gallery at Foyles bookshop, for a private party to celebrate the launch of the Words with JAM short story anthology. My partner in crime for this do was fellow Romaniac Sue Fortin. The anthology is a collection of the prize-winning stories from the annual Words with JAM short story competition and I was thrilled to have one of my flash fiction pieces, Winter’s Kiss, included – my first story to appear in book form!

We weren’t expecting to see any familiar faces, so Sue and I were very happy to spot fellow RNAers Cathie Hartigan, Margaret James, Lizzie Lamb, June Kearns and Rosemary Gemmell amongst the guests. Cathie was another prize winner with her gorgeous story Scent of Lemons.

The anthology itself, An Earthless Melting Pot, was beautifully designed and produced and I still haven’t got over the thrill of seeing my name in a book…

As well as the anthology launch, the event was to toast Triskele Books first birthday and the launch of four books by Catriona Troth, JD Smith, Gillian Hamer and JJ Marsh. Each of the authors spent a few minutes talking about their books and we were also treated to readings of the prize-winning stories by Ruby Cowling and Ken Elkes.

Add to this an amazing buffet and lots and lots of sparkly drinks and the evening was just about perfect…

Vanessa x

12 thoughts on “Roving Romaniacs – An Earthless Melting Pot anthology launch”

Elle Turner says:

14/06/2013 at 8:57 am

Sounds like a fun trip, Vanessa! Well done for having your story included in the anthology, that’s great news. 🙂 xx

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- Vanessa Savage says:
  
  14/06/2013 at 9:02 am
  
  Thanks, Elle! I was so thrilled – not sure how I’ll cope if I get my name in a WHOLE BOOK… I’ll probably explode with excitement 🙂
  Vanessa x
  
  Reply
yasminselena says:

14/06/2013 at 9:01 am

Really lovely to read that, so many good things happening for you : ) I met Sue Fortin at the London Book Fair, it’s always nicer to meet people off social media, you can’t beat a living, breathing, flesh-made-real encounter 🙂

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- Vanessa Savage says:
  
  14/06/2013 at 9:05 am
  
  Hi Yasmin – yes, that’s definitely true! The Romaniacs all ‘met’ on twitter before we got together in real life and I always love meeting RNA and twitter and facebook friends in real situations 🙂
  Vanessa x
  
  Reply
Laura James says:

14/06/2013 at 9:59 am

So proud of you, Vanessa. You write such beautiful, heart-tugging stories. I have An Earthless Melting Pot on my coffee table – I read Winter’s Kiss first and was blown away by it. I recommend buying it, and here is a link to make life easy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Earthless-Melting-Pot-Collection-Prize-winning/dp/0957616414/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371200239&sr=1-1&keywords=an+earthless+melting+pot
Brilliant 🙂 xxx

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- Vanessa Savage says:
  
  14/06/2013 at 11:40 am
  
  Thank you, lovely Laura xxxxxxx
  
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  - Lorraine says:
    
    14/06/2013 at 1:34 pm
    
    I am so thrilled for you. Congratulations. Glad you had a lovely time.
    Lorraine x
suefortin says:

14/06/2013 at 6:33 pm

I felt like a proud mummy at the first nativity play – so pleased for Vanessa. It was a great evening and lovely to meet up with her too. Huge congratulations Lovely Vanessa. Your story ‘Winter’s Kiss’ is just fantastic, I’ve read it several times. xx 🙂

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- The Romaniacs says:
  
  14/06/2013 at 6:43 pm
  
  Thanks, lovely Sue xxxx
  
  Reply
Roving Romaniacs – An Earthless Melting Pot anthology launch | Love Reading, Love Books says:

14/06/2013 at 6:54 pm

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Lizzie Lamb says:

15/06/2013 at 2:24 pm

It was a great evening and I didn’t expect to see Vanessa, Cathie or any of the other RNA-ers there. That made it extra special. Good luck with the sales of your anthology ladies. I have just finish Tristan and Iseult and must get round to writing a review for it. Hope to see you at the conference.

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Cathie Hartigan says:

18/06/2013 at 9:45 am

Thank you, Vanessa! Wasn’t it a lovely evening? It was great to meet you and I enjoyed Winters’s Kiss immensely. Well done you. It’s a great anthology and I feel thrilled to in it too.

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