Portrait of the Chef as a Writer (taken on the terrace this afternoon by Mrs. Dwyer)

Sometimes I think I have just that.
You will all be aware at this stage that I am plugging away on A BOOK- (at long last ) this oeuvre is at the moment somthing less than half way through but I have been blabbing on about it on the principle that this will shame me into finishing it.
It is part memoir , part travelogue and part recipe book and so will probably disappear instantly between three stools.
It has a working title ; À Table ; An Irish Chef in a Village in the Languedoc.

I was contacted a couple of weeks ago , totally coincidentially , by Waterford Writers Week (which festival takes place at the end of March) to ask would I be part of a panel on an open forum on Cookery Writing (this from my bits and pieces of food journalism) , this I accepted , they further contacted me today looking for a picture and a bio for their programme and to tell me that the local paper wanted to do a spread on me to publicise the festival.
Could any writer (especially putative) ask for better pre publication publicity ?

The divils own luck I tell you.

And now I am certainly going to have to finish the thing!