NEWS UPDATE:  Our fundraising event with Elizabeth Buchan was a HUGE success and we raised over £500 for the Surrey Air Ambulance.  Elizabeth treated us to tales from her early days in publishing and kept everyone enthralled with excerpts from her latest novel.

We are delighted to announce that, as part of the 2013 Haslemere Festival, celebrated novelist and acclaimed author Elizabeth Buchan will be talking at a special Literary Evening, to raise funds for our chosen charity, Surrey Air Ambulance.

On Monday 20th May Elizabeth Buchan will talk about the influences on her writing and her themes, as well as giving guests a preview of her forthcoming book, which she has just sent to her publishers! She will also sign copies of her current novel, Daughters.

Born in Guildford, Surrey Elizabeth Buchan spent much of her childhood in Surrey. She began her career as a ‘blurb’ writer at Penguin Books after graduating from the University of Kent with a double degree in English and History. She moved on to become a fiction editor at Random House publishers, before leaving to write full time.

Her novels include the prizewinning Light of the Moon and Consider the Lily – reviewed in the Independent as ‘a gorgeously well-written tale; funny, sad and sophisticated’. A subsequent novel, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman became an international bestseller and was made into a CBS TV Primetime Drama.

This was followed by several other novels, including The Second Wife, Separate Beds and most recently Daughters. She has just finished A Thousand Little Lies, a novel about the SOE operating in Denmark during the Second World War.

Elizabeth Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She also reviews for the Sunday Times, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes, and has also been a judge for the Whitbread (now Costa) awards. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and of The National Academy of Writing.

And her literary link also extends to her husband, who is a descendant of the author John Buchan, who famously penned The Thirty-Nine Steps, which was the basis for the celebrated film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

This promises to be a very entertaining and illuminating evening and we anticipates strong demand for tickets, so early booking is advisable.

Date: Monday 20th May 2013
Venue: Haslemere Educational Museum
Time: Arrive from 18:00, talk to commence at 18:30
Ticket price: £10 each (to include wine and canapes)
Where to buy tickets:  To be bought in advance from Haslemere Travel – either from the shop at 2/4 Petworth Road or by phone on 01428 658777.

All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to both Haslemere Travel’s chosen charity, Surrey Air Ambulance and the Haslemere Festival fund.