I might be going banaas here but you are certainly a lovely bunch. Thank you all for taking the time to reply. When nervous I do tend to rabbit on; lettuce hope I buck the trend and doe -n't do too much of it on air.
My interview is live on air in the studio. Seems Nessie you'll be coming write on after me. Shame cos everyone will have switched off in their thousands by then. Deep breaths eh? As long as I don't start the heavy breathing on air ....Jo Phillips would not be amused.I'm now going to skim read bits of Pets in Prospect as I've forgotten quite a a lot. I suggested I read a few extracts and they seem to think that a good idea. My mum-in-law is the model for the one-eyed but hawked eyed receptionist in the novel whose false eye swivels back to front when she's frightened by a snake in the fridge. If she hears me read out my description of her I'll be dead meat.
Again many thanks to all of you. I'm tongue-tied. Just hope I've unknotted it by the morning.
Malcolm

I have no advice, having never been on the radio before, but congrats and good luck to the two of you.

Love
Sarah

SO - how did it go?

Katerina

<Added>

That question is to both of you.

Hilarious!

I was phoned, asked to wait until I was spoken to.

I had to listen to a song by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and danced round the kitchen for a bit in my slippers.

Then...

There was me, a cuppa in one hand, chatting away to someone called Gordon Astley, who runs the show in the mornings.

He announced me as winner of the Guildford comp, a nice man read 42 seconds of the story, and then Gordon and I just nattered about what I do apart from writing the occasional short story.

'Editing,' I said, and told him that I have my own magazine.

'Journalism,' I said, and told him about doing features for Brighton and Hove Life.

'Teaching Creative Writing,' I said,and said a bit about teaching drug addicts, and the homeless and young mums among others.

"Do you think you'll try to get some of your stories published?' he said.

'Already are,' I said...'quite a few, here and there.'

'I've got a friend who works in prison with drug addicts,' he said. 'Lots of them can't read, you know. Don't you think it must be really hard to drive a car if you can't read? How do you know where you're going?'

'er... quite,' I said.

'And tell me,' he said. 'Do you think you'll ever do this writing thing seriously? So thats it's not just a hobby?'

'Oh, probably,' I said, after a pause.

We said goodbye.

'Thank you Vanessa Gebbie, winner of this years Guildford Book Festival International Short Story competition', he said. 'Now... back to the music.....'
--------------------


my three and a half minutes of fame.

Hope yours went far far better, MWman!!!
still it was fun.

Hi Katerina.
Not so bad. Got stuck in a traffic jam on the way in so that was mentioned prior to my arrival - thus an extra plug for the book. Jo Phillips was excellent with the lead-in questions;chuckled in the right places;and mentioned the title of the book several times. My daughter taped it so I was able to analyse the recording when I got home in the hope of improving on it next time round. You forget what you've said. I do remember starting to panic as I found myself rambling - desperately trying not to dry up. Hearing the tape I now realise Jo cut in just at the right moment to rescue me. Such is the skill of an interviewer.And I did forget to do those deep breaths so I came across as a bit breathless with some short pauses where it was obvious I was collecting my thoughts. But managed to avoid doing any ums and ers. I was allowed to read an extract from the book and that was the most successsful part. I've since had a phone call asking if I could be an after dinner speaker at a charity function next March so I can't have been too offputting for people.

Oh well done both of you.

You never know what might come of these interviews, as you have found out Malcolm, hope it brings lots more interesting things your way.

At least you didn't dry up completely - see it wasn't that bad was it!

Katerina