Yesterday I woke at 5am with nerves. I was incapable of thinking straight and spend the time wandering round various forums, panicking.

Of course, the one day I need to get to Leeds, the trains are completely mucked up. I can’t go straight from my local station so I caught the bus into Manchester at 10am. When I got to Piccadilly I then boarded another bus to hop the short way over to Victoria and then, finally, I actually got on a train at 11.10. It was a long journey, I sat with my copy of Curvaceous in hand, reading through the excerpts I thought I might use.

Just as I came into Leeds I got a very encouraging text message from a friend, and then had a short conversation with Amy, the event co-ordinator who was meeting me at the station. It wasn’t long until she turned up and we were chatting away all the way up to the Sela Bar. It was raining and very, very cold, even for a Mancunian!

Scarlett Sanderson, Becky Cherriman and Miranda Forbes arrived only minutes after we got to the bar. I immediately got on with all these lovely women and with Amy we set about filling gift bags and setting out tables and chairs. The time flew, then and suddenly we were ready to do our thing.

There were not many people there, to start, but I think it was a matter of quality over quantity as those who did attend were lovely. We had a fantastic time, I read excerpts from Getting Physical and Naughty Rendezvous from Curvaceous and enjoyed listening to the wildly different excerpts read by Scarlett and Becky. Miranda gave us a very interesting insight into what publishers look for in submitted work and even as a published author I found the info she gave to be very helpful.

Miranda had to leave a little early, to make a long, long journey home, so we had some author questions and answers when she had left. It was fun and not as scary as I thought it mgiht be, no one asked a question I didn’t know the answer to!

To finish off the delightful afternoon, the official Leeds Erotica Festival Poet Laureate Alison Brumfitt read to us some of her fantastic poems. I was amazed by the sheeer vast array of emotions her poetry inspired in me, but I must admit I prefered the silly ones the most, I like to have my funny bone tickled!

It took me 3 hours in total to get home, I was worn out when I eventually got back but it had been such a good day I had to waffle on about it to my husband for ages before I actually went to bed. I am already planning to attend next year!

I have a few photos of the day up on my facebook, so if you have an account look up Victoria Blisse and see what you missed. :)