A weekend in Cognac

A couple of weekends ago I went to France for an awards dinner. Twisted Wing, or Les Visages du Mal as it's called on the other side of the Channel, was nominated for Le Prix Polar International. Travelling on Eurostar for the first time (it's great!), we navigated the Metro and the French railway system to arrive in the pretty town of Cognac on Friday night.


I lost out to fellow Brit Lord Jeffrey Archer (above), author of the multimillion-selling Kane & Abel (among other works), on the night, but met some lovely and interesting people. Anne-France, my editor at Editions France, was utterly charming, as were her colleagues Isabelle and Chantal. Lord Archer (or "Jeff", as I like to call him) was very entertaining and encouraging. Journalist Bertrand Rosenthal told us fascinating anecdotes of his time as a correspondent in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq and Cuba. And French author Sire Cedric made me jealous as he told me he spent six months writing then six months partying! I currently spend five days working, half a day writing, half a day playing Xbox and the rest of the time asleep. At least I got to experience a brief weekend of glamour!

Le Prix Polar International 2009

I'm off to Cognac in France tomorrow to attend the Prix Polar dinner. "Les Visages du Mal", which is what Twisted Wing is called in its French translation (published by Editions France), has been nominated for Le Prix Polar International. I've got no chance of winning - look at the other nominees! - but I'm thrilled to even be included on that list. And I'm also looking forward to spending the weekend in France, meeting my French publishers, drinking lots of Beaujolais and Pinot Noir, and travelling on the Eurostar for the first time!

Hopefully I'll be able to update you next week with entertaining photos of me, tipsy, embarrassing fellow nominee Lisa Unger by gushing about how much I enjoyed "Blackout" (which I was coincidentally reading when I found out about the award nomination)... :-)