Author readings: why do them? My first reading from “Seven Hotel Stories”

What’s the point of Author Readings?  Presenting your books to a live audience is a great way to connect with readers and explain what your writing is about.    

My live author readings

Pre-Coronavirus, I would regularly read from my books at live venues.  My first ever reading was at Cafe Korb in Vienna in March 2018 – you can see a gloriously pre-corona video at the link.

Other live readings included:

• A reading in June 2019 from my Berlin thriller “Blood Summit” at Shakespeare & Co in Vienna;
• A reading from my comedy “Seven Hotel Stories“, again at Cafe Korb;
• My October 2019 reading from “Seven Hotel Stories” at the City Library in Innsbruck
• My readings from my Berlin thriller Blood Summit at the Reichstag in Berlin and from “Seven Hotel Stories” at Shakespeare & Co in February 2020.

An evening at Cafe Korb, Vienna

By way of an illustration, here are some pictures from the June 2019 reading from “Seven Hotel Stories” at Cafe Korb.  It was a wonderful evening. The hosts were the fine Vienna Storytelling Collective: you can read about the event at their Facebook site.  If you are interested in writing, reading, or listening to new talent and live in Vienna, I encourage you to join them.

I started off talking about this blog, including the free Hotel Story, “The Two Rooms”, you can find here (links in bold italics are to other posts on this blog).

Then I read from my “Hotel Story”, Gents.  

All seven Hotel Stories star the world’s most brilliant hotel manager, Ms N (she is too modest to wish to be named here).  She has strict methods of dealing with badly-behaved hotel guests, and indeed colleagues.  The stories are narrated by Ms N’s beautiful, intelligent but naive colleague, Tatiana.

In Gents, sharp-elbowed, misogynistic alpha-male and visitor of dodgy nightclubs Mr Buddy Knox seeks to defeat Ms N in her bid to become manager of their hotel chain’s new Ultra-Platinum branded hotel in London.

This is a bad decision by Mr Buddy Knox.  To find out more, take a look at my post The Hotel Stories – 7 reasons you should read them.

An interview with Keith Grey

Following the reading the well-known YA author Keith Gray interviewed me about writing, and some of the audience asked questions.  Someone asked about how to get in the habit of writing.  I said some people were target driven, as I was.  But I was generous to myself (“why beat yourself up?”) and tended to include in my measure of “writing” eg my blogs, my social media activity around writing (you can follow me on twitter and instagram) – or doing a reading.

Author readings: talking about blogging

Someone said that this blog showed varying tastes, from 50 Shades of Grey and Lee Child to Trollope and Black Panther, Oscar Wilde, and of course PG Wodehouse, the subject of numerous posts.  I encouraged people to read 50 Shades if they wanted to know what a brilliant piece of commercial fiction looked like.

I also spoke about my attempts to publish a blog every week for three years or more.  Indeed, I am today hoping to write two posts to schedule for the next two Saturdays as I am away at a writing course next week.  Do explore the hundreds of posts on this site and let me know what you think.

I’m grateful to everyone who attended my author readings and listened without heckling and asked a series of great questions.  Thanks also to Keith for doing the interview and to everyone else from the Vienna Storytelling Collective.  Their open mic nights are terrific.

Writing resources

If you would like to know more about my thoughts on writing, you might like to look at my posts:

• How to write a novel: plan in advance, or not?
• How to write gripping fiction: scenes, sequels and cliff-hangers
• Writing a novel: five ways to get in the habit of writing.
• How to write a novel: edit as you go along, or not? (“How to edit your novel part 1”)
• 7 ways to improve your manuscript (“How to edit your novel part 2”)

P.S. If you enjoy fresh, original writing, please subscribe to my weekly newsletter (you can unsubscribe anytime you wish).  I’ll send you a free “Hotel Story” to say thanks! Or I would be delighted if you would like to follow me on Facebook.