Live Q+A with Alex Milway
Talking all things books and Little Shop of Magic
The past month has vanished in the blink of an eye. I’ve been buried in a mound of illustration, racing to meet a deadline (which I’ve now pretty much finished) for the first of my new Captain Sunshine books.
I’ve now completed three full books over the past year (one of them through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign) and written another. Writing series books are the best way of burning through ideas quickly, not to mention burning yourself out, however, it feels a bit like I’m riding a wave and making the most of it. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that.
Most importantly, now that this latest book is finished it’s time to do a live event to launch my Kickstarter book The Little Shop of Magic.
(If you missed out on the Little Shop of Magic Kickstarter campaign, I have printed extra copies which are now exclusively available in my shop – along with a handful of art prints and some stickers.)
A date for your diaries
To celebrate, I thought it would be great to do an online live event and Q+A to answer any questions about Hotel Flamingo or all my other books. If there’s anything you want to ask me, do let me know by leaving a comment or replying to the newsletter. I promise to answer as many as I can.
We'll be going live on Sunday 8th June at 4pm GMT. You may have already been sent an alert to notify you, but here’s the direct link.
I’ll be using Substack to host it, so to see the stream live you’ll need the Substack app, but I will link to it here and post it on Youtube later. I’m so excited to finally be doing this! It’s the future, I swear!
What else have you been up to Alex?
Truthfully, not much. A bit of gardening (we have newts in our pond!) a bit of reading, lots of tidying. We now have a German family staying with us for a few months, which is lovely. My German is very minimal, but it’s magical trying to converse with a three-year-old who speaks to me as though I’m a native. Hopefully while they’re staying with us I can reach toddler level in German small talk. I have successfully already learnt the phrases for different kinds of British weather: mist, rain, cloudy, sun – in that order.
Do you play an instrument? I’ve been playing a lot of guitar to take my mind off things. I find fingerpicking an act of meditation and an hour passes before I know it. It’s easy to sit back and play the same old things over and over, so I’ve been trying to push myself and learn new songs. I’ve also been trying to learn lyrics, which I really struggle with. For some reason when I type, my fingers say the right things. When I speak, more often than not my mouth fails me. I think this is also true when it comes to playing the guitar, as I can finger pick a tune fairly well, but try to sing the words and everything goes awry.
But anyway, I’ve been lost in a world of folk and Americana, learning Bert Jansch techniques while reading books about The Band and Richard Thompson from Fairport Convention. There’s something about the brutal honesty of an acoustic guitar that I find thrilling, in much the same way as a dirty distorted guitar rocks my world. In the next phase of my life I aim to become a troubadour travelling from medieval village to medieval village, singing songs for coin. A lute would be nice, actually. I am on a quest to own every instrument ever made, which I feel is a perfectly acceptable and achievable task.
So then, until next weekend and the live event! Remember to send me some questions. I can’t wait :)