Crime Writing Festival.

Peculier crime

This weekend, 20-23 July, I’m off to Harrogate to take part in the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.
This is the 20th anniversary but will mark my first visit to the Yorkshire event. 
The venue is an old haunt of Agatha Christie’s, the Old Swan Hotel. There I’m hoping to rub shoulders with the UK’s leading agents, editors and publishers. Especially agents as I seek to advance the publishing prospects of ‘Slim Chance’, the cosy crime thriller I have co-athored with Sylvia Howe under the pen-name of Fallon Howth.


The festival will be chaired by Vaseem Khan, a multi award-winner who is celebrated for his Baby Ganesh Agency series set in modern Mumbai and the Malabar House historical crime novels set in 1950s Bombay. He steps into the chairman’s role previously taken  by the  likes of Ian Rankin, Elly Griffiths, and Lee Child. 

Elly Griffiths will appear among a number of great crime and thriller authors to discuss the genre and influences on their writing. They include Janice Hallett, Shari Lapena, Louise Candlish, Abir Mukherjee, Steve Cavanagh, Ragnar Jónasson, Clare Mackintosh, Mick Herron, Will Dean, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Chris Brookmyre. 

Special guests on this year’s programme include Val McDermid, Lee Child, Andrew Child, Lisa Jewell, Ruth Ware, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Lucy Worsley, S. A. Cosby and Chris Hammer.

 But I’m no stranger to Yorkshire which is my spiritual home having spent many happy childhood holidays with my grandmother in Ilkley. I look forward to revisiting Betty’s tea rooms and have been recommended to try the Turkish baths in Harrogate. That will take me back to happy hamams in Istanbul

While I seek tips and tricks from all these writers it will be important for me to hang on to my own ideas and beliefs about novel writing.

3 top tips
 

Focus on your characters. They and their relationships are at the heart of Fallon Howth crime novels. We have 3 sleuths – a retired female Detective Inspector from the Met, a Fleet Street crime reporter, and a young researcher.

Set stories in a community tos create a sense of familiarity and make the mystery more personal.
 
Include humour.  We hope the gentle humour in our novels makes them fun to read.