Ali Sparkes, Mark Robson, Tommy Donbavand and I have returned from our show at the Lincoln Book Festival. One of us returned inside a monster. But all of us will bear the psychological scars of what transpired…

After an opening section in which the monsters allowed each of us thirty seconds to plead pathetically not to be eaten, we were hurled straight into a Word By Word Story Round. Two kind young volunteers from the audience did their best to keep our choices out of the gutter, but in vain: I think this pic below captures the exact moment I shouted the word “UDDERS“.

A cavalcade of humiliations followed. Mark made us fart. Ali made us run like girls. Tommy made us race to turn three more unlucky audience volunteers into mummies using special toilet paper that (as he gleefully explained) had ‘only been used once.’ For my round, we recreated the mind-controlling spider-like parasites from Crawlers using rubber gloves attached to sausage balloons stuffed down the backs of our shirts…

I invited the audience to take on the role of the Queen in the book, giving commands to her hapless victims that we poor authors had no choice but to obey…

Of course they were absolutely merciless. I think this (below) is us all obeying the order to ‘roll on the floor like babies.’

After a Q&A section in which we attempted to regain whatever limited authorial dignity we’d possessed at the start of the show, it was time for our closing statements – a last chance to beg for our lives before the audience was given the opportunity to vote for whoever they thought should receive the dreaded condiment of doom.

It was at this point that the drama of our predicament became too much for Ali, who – for reasons that remain unclear – suddenly burst into a spontaneous rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You.’ This was clearly a step too far for our audience, and – still claiming desperately that her Blue Peter Badge might scratch the monster’s delicate intestinal passages – Ali was dragged from the stage by our monster jailer Simon to begin her, ahem, Alimentary Adventure.

Maybe I was just relieved not to be sharing Ali’s fate, but the rest of the gig really was a lot of fun. Our listeners bought loads of our books…

…and we even got the chance to judge the fabulous entries of a monster drawing competition. Here are our three favourites (check out the ‘floating eyebrows’ on the right-!)

A MONSTER THANK YOU to Andy and Julie and everyone we met and spoke to. You know what? Considering that we suffered an ordeal of psychological torment that ended in one of us being eaten alive, we really did have a surprisingly brilliant time.

Poor Ali. Best of luck in there. We’ll be waiting with high-pressure hoses and emergency fudge whenever you emerge. ;D

Sam

PS: William Hussey, author of the excellent Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide, witnessed the whole thing. For an alternative view of how the afternoon went, check out his brilliant new blog.

Are you going to be anywhere near the city of Lincoln, Lincolnshire this coming Sunday the 16th of May?

Would you like to see me, Ali Sparkes, Tommy Donbavand and Mark Robson make utter fools of ourselves before one of us is eaten by a monster?

Click here for the website of the Lincoln Book Festival, where you can download a full brochure of all the events.

Click here for the Bishop Greaves Theatre Box Office, where you can book tickets.

Three quick pics from yesterday’s four talks at Range High and Formby High in Formby, near Liverpool.

What a great day. A huge thank you to everyone I met and spoke to for the lovely warm welcome they gave me…

…But special thanks have to go to the man on the left here:

Tony of Pritchard’s is an independent bookselling legend and a true champion of young people’s literature. It was a real pleasure to come back to Formby for events with him again. I’m already looking forward to next time. 😀

…OK, here’s that clip I promised of me talking about and reading from Crawlers last Friday evening at The Hackney Horror Show. My camera’s mic is tiny and the theatre is huge, so you may want to turn this up a bit. ;D

Sam Enthoven at The Hackney Horror Show, 23rd April 2010 from Sam Enthoven on Vimeo.

A giant monster thank you to Samurai Booksellers Simon and Tim of The Big Green Bookshop and Mark of Waterstone’s, awesome fellow authors William Hussey and Steve Feasey, and everyone we met and spoke to.

Some pics from those events I was telling you about on Fri and Sat…

Here’s William Hussey (author of the excellent Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide) putting the Jedi Mind Trick whammy on the first audience at Mossbourne Community Academy:

Here’s one of me attempting to mesmerize everyone with my demonic shiny eyes:

And here, from the evening show at the theatre of Stoke Newington School is Steve Feasey (author of the splendid Changeling series) gouging straight into the guts of the matter at The Hackney Horror Show.

From Saturday’s Waterstone’s signing, here’s this:

Maybe I’m still new to this ‘being published’ caper but the sheer delight at seeing stuff like the above doesn’t seem to be wearing off so far – as you can easily see from the expressions on the faces of William Hussey and I here.

Steve and Bill are wonderful to work with and both days were an absolute blast. I have some video from the Hackney Horror Show that I’m attempting (in my usual hamfisted way) to put together for you now. Stay tuned.

Very excited as I get ready for… this!

As well as the theatre event in the evening (and an impromptu appearance from yours truly at Stoke Newington School‘s assembly in the morning!) the three of us – that’s Steve Feasey, William Hussey and I – are doing two sessions at Mossbourne Community Academy. It’ll be my second visit to Mossbourne: last time was great fun, so I’m very happy to be coming back. 😀

Then on Saturday William Hussey and m’self are off to Waterstone’s in Colchester. We’ll be there from about half past two, signing books and chatting to whoever comes along.

If you, reading this, can make it to either of these events, then by all means please do. I’ll be very pleased to eat – I mean, meet you!

Two more quick things while I’m here.

First: here’s a link to a piece I wrote last week for the website of SFX magazine listing my current Top Ten Favourite Horror Books and Films.

Second: BEWARE of The Hackney Horror Show, a triple bill of chills from authors William Hussey, Steve Feasey and, er, me. It’s on Friday April 23rd and it’s FREE. Click here for all the details!

Friday’s launch party for Crawlers at The Big Green Bookshop was absolutely awesome. Here are a couple of pics (and a video-!) to give you an idea of what it was like.

First up, here’s the BGB Crawlers Wall…!

Seeing that many copies in one place put a massive cheesy grin on my face that basically lasted for the entire evening. But having a lovely turnout of mates and family and other kindly well-wishers helped make the party really special. 😀

Here’s a YouTube clip of the official launching ceremony, and the reading I did from the opening scene of the book.

An especially massive thank you to Big Green Booksellers Simon and Tim and Mark for their wonderful hospitality at their brilliant shop. I’ll enjoy the memory of this party as long as I live. HEE HEE HEE HEE!

Excuse me. Yes, you, reading this: Hello! I have a question. Will you be anywhere near the awesome independent booksellers The Big Green Bookshop this Friday 9th April from around 7.30pm?

If so, would you like to come to the launch party for Crawlers??

I don’t know how many people read this blog, and how many of those are anywhere in the area, but if you do and you are then consider this your invitation! No need to RSVP, but if you feel the urge and you’re on Facebook there’s a Crawlers Launch FB event page here. If you can’t make it no worries, I’ll probably post some pics from the night here on the News Page next week. But if by any chance you can get there, it would be great to meet you!

Meanwhile over on Trapped By Monsters a brand new and unusual collaborative story experiment has just begun. Prepare yourself, gentle reader, for The Unspeakable Horror! Episode 1 (by me!) is now live here.

My first finished copies of Crawlers have now arrived. The book is real, and it’s waiting in warehouses to be dispatched to bookshops and libraries and readers everywhere. One would think that I would be ready for this: after all, it’s taken me two years of work to get to this moment – but no. Over the last few days since the books got here I’ve been nervous as hell.

The early reviews for Crawlers have been unanimously positive. More importantly, I’m not going to war or having a baby or undergoing major surgery: I’m launching a book, not flying to Mars or being fired out of a cannon. But telling myself those things makes no difference. I’m fretting.

The big question for me is: What Will Young Readers Think? I’ve done my best: I’ve written the best book I possibly can. But this is a book for young people, so until some young people have got hold of it and read it and told me what they think, everything is up in the air.

Today I gave a talk at Peterborough Central Library, to a fantastic group of around 80 students from various schools in the area. My hands were shaking a bit; I babbled (yes, even more than usual) and a couple of times I had to remind myself to stop talking and breathe in! But the group listened to me with impeccable attention – especially during the readings – and I think the whole thing went well. Here’s a photo from afterwards with the biggest of the school groups. In the back row beside me you can (just!) see Bali Rai and Dave Shelton, two awesome authors also published by Random House Children’s Books.

I can tell you, there’s nothing like a roomful of people looking up at you expectantly to snap you out of worrying about stuff. I’ve got another talk to give tomorrow. Bring it on. 😀