meeting the audience

                      

I haven’t been a published author all that long but I’ve done a fair few appearances by now, and I’ve got used to how they work.  Jewish Book Week was a little different. Nice turnout - about forty people, I think.  I read a couple of chapters (one and four, if you’re interested) and discussed my novel - a humourous novel about Greek Gods living in modern London - in a reasonably straightforward way with the friendly compere.  Then we opened it to questions from the floor.First question - yes, from you, the older woman with the long grey hair.  Thank you. “Would you say that extreme orthodoxy in religion, Jewish or otherwise, is in fact a barrier to moral and ethical engagement with the world?”Well, it makes a change from “How did you get your publishing deal?”

Marie Philips is the author of Gods Behaving Badly