On account of a herring gull, I took train and ferry from Bath to County Wexford for an autumn night to read a short story at the literary festival in Kilmore Quay. How short? Five minutes. Worth it? Oh, yes. Brilliant people at Write by the Sea, and not just because they gave me their flash fiction prize. The mood felt spot on, a strong love of the written and spoken word, and the wit to laugh and sigh in all the right places, thank God.
On the ferry back from Rosslare to Fishguard, a couple of lorry drivers mistook me for a vicar. Dressed in black and scribbling something in a notebook on a Saturday, I had to be.
And the gull? Read my What Does a Herring Taste Like? and the other prose and poetry winners here.