Novels, Nomads and Shadows

I have my diary out, making sure there are sufficient gaps for the above literary festival, The International Forum on the Novel, which kicks off here in Lyon at the end of the month. Wow, what a great list of writers attending (the full list is below). This year's theme is: The Novel, What An Invention! I hope it will inspire me to bulldoze ahead with my own novel - if bulldoze is the right word to use!

Really, my feet aren't touching the ground at the moment, amid lots of travelling, work, visitors, sunshine. I just haven't had the time for the internet of late, which explains why it's been quiet here and why I've not been visiting my favourite sites as often as I'd like. There is so much going on, and it's all good, but I wish there were more hours in the day. I'm not home often, and that looks likely to be the case until after the summer. Just call me Mr Nomad.

I'm probably going to be a shadow member of this on-line writing community for a while, I'm afraid. I hope to be able to post the odd thing, so please do check in on me, but my non-cyber life has elbowed its way in and is refusing to budge. Something has to give. On top of everything else, like many of you, I am trying to put aside more time for my creative writing. The year is slipping by fast and I really want to make more progress!

I suppose you could say that I will be here, but won't be here ... if you know what I mean.

Here's the list of the writers attending the literary festival:

Nelly Arcan (Canada)
Geneviève Brisac (France)
James Cañón (Colombia)
Jean-Yves Cendrey (France)
Upamanyu Chatterjee (India)
Rafael Chirbes (Spain)
Hélène Cixous (France)
Karen Connelly (Canada)
Dennis Cooper (USA)
Rachel Cusk (UK)
Duong Thu Huong (Vietnam)
Rachid El-Daïf (Lebanon)
Péter Esterházy (Hungary)
Monika Fagerholm (Finland)
Nuruddin Farah (Somalia)
Nicolas Fargues (France)
Alain Fleischer (France)
Rodrigo Fresan (Argentina)
Alberto Garlini (Italy)
Xiaolu Guo (China)
Yannick Haenel (France)
Aleksandar Hemon (Bosnia/USA)
Jacques Henric (France)
Christophe Honoré (France)
Arthur Japin (The Netherlands)
Thomas Jonigk (Germany)
Etgar Keret (Israel)
Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Sweden)
Fatos Kongoli (Albania)
Dany Laferrière (Haiti/Québec)
Jonathan Lethem (USA)
José Carlos Llop (Spain)
Nicole Malinconi (Belgium)
Daniel Mendelsohn (USA)
Joseph O’Connor (Ireland)
Ludmila Oulitskaïa (Russia)
David Peace (UK)
Annie Proulx (USA)
Éric Reinhardt (France)
Pedro Rosa-Mendes (Portugal)
Olivia Rosenthal (France)
Suhayl Saadi (UK)
Elif Shafak (Turkey)
Tarun J. Tejpal (India)
Adam Thirlwell (UK)
Dimitri Verhulst (Belgium)
Anne Weber (Germany-France)
Alissa York (Canada)