NO LIMITS, by Saviour Pirotta

I'm holed up at a Premier Inn in Scunthorpe tonight (Saturday). My knees hurt from walking, my ankles are swollen to the shape of overripe courgettes but I'm blissfully pleased with myself. I've just done my first literary festival since the pandemic.  

It's the No Limits Festival at Normanby Hall in North Lincolnshire, organised by the incomparable Mel, Nick and Emma who run The Rabbit Hole Bookshop in Briggs. I normally say no to festivals when I'm in the middle of editing a wip but The Rabbit Hole team are so passionate about books and literacy, not just for children but for everyone, whatever their age, that I gladly came on board.  Besides, I have a new book and a re-issue to publicise. 

So I took Gino over to a friend's for the weekend, packed my bags and here I am.  I always think the worst is going to happen when I do a festival. There's going to be no audience, no queue for my book signing afterwards, I'm going to make a hash of things, etc. None of that happened, of course. It's been a wonderful day meeting teams from various SLS, readers, parents and fellow authors most of whom I'd only met on social media platforms.

I don't have anything deeper to say, really, only if you get invited to the No Limits festival in the future, say yes without hesitation. Oh, my new books, I hear you say?

Well, the first one is the second book in The Nile Adventures series. Set in Ancient Egypt as the name of the series suggests, it's called The Crocodile Curse and it continues the saga of brothers Renni and Mahu and their best friend the Princess Balaal as they try to make their way in life. There's lots of fights between the forces of darkness and the Egyptian gods and lots of facts about life in Ancient Egypt. It's getting good reviews. 

The re-issue is Turtle Bay, a picture book about marine conservation I originally wrote for Janetta Otter-Barry when she was still at Frances Lincoln. That was twenty five years ago, so the book was slightly ahead of its time. It's great to see it in the hands of new readers.

Well, that's enough bragging for one post. I'm going down to the restaurant to see if there's any good vegetarian options on the menu.  Oh, and scroll down past the little film clip of my books if you want to see a pic of Gino living it large while Cat Daddy is away.

Until next month...

Follow Saviour on twitter @spirotta, on instagram at saviour2858 and TikTok @saviour_pirotta