The London Book Fair – Kira’s Story Part 13

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Kira Kenley

Kira Kenley will share her creative dilemmas and decisions every Friday over the coming months. You can read her earlier posts here

Orna is the lady in the sharp boots!

Kira Kenley is going to the London Book Fair! The invitation comes from the wonderful Orna Ross; novelist, poet, entrepreneur, creator, wife, mother and friend. Orna has been like an angel in my life, first appearing last August just as I was leaving my job to pursue a ‘creative’ life. Talk about synchronicity!

The meeting happened in the Queensbury Deli, a wonderful little haunt of mine where many a story has been born and many a friendship found. Orna was to become one such friend. I took a chance, diving head first into the creative abyss and the creative gods rewarded me by sending in Orna Ross.

Back then, Orna mentioned the ‘How To Go Creative’ blog and asked if I would consider writing a piece about my experience given I was attempting to do just that very thing. I said yes and like that I had my first writing assignment outside of school. The ‘piece’ became my whole life story and I sent it to Orna apologising for my runaway pen.

Much to my delight, she came back and said she would like to use the story and furthermore would I consider writing a weekly blog. Oh brother, consider I would! My first writing job!

Orna has been the instigator of many firsts in my life and now this recent invitation. So, what business does this singer songwriter have at the London Book Fair? Well there is a book, you see.

A few years ago, I began writing a ‘story’ about a boy in a man’s body called Sid. I had left Sid’s story, or ‘All The Way Back To Here’ to give it its official title, asleep on a memory stick until a recent conversation. A friend to whom I had given the book some years ago, and assumed her silence to be an attempt to save my feelings, had just started reading the book. She professed her love for the story and said I should do something. Filled with a newfound enthusiasm, I found my way back to the memory stick and began to read.

I was pleasantly surprised and decided I would ‘do’ something. When I mentioned the book to Orna, she offered to help me self-publish, you see Orna is also founder of ALLI, The Alliance of Independent Authors, an organization especially set up to support ‘indie authors’. Apparently, I could be one too.

Furthermore, Orna offered her editorial services and is helping me to get the story into shape so it is fit for public consumption.

So I go to the fair, and surrounded by the writing world, I feel like a little fish in a huge unknown pond. There is a wave of excitement as I dare to dream that perhaps ‘All The Way Back To Here’ might find its way onto a 2014 book fair bookshelf. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Orna Ross!