Over the last months Peirene has started to generate an increasing amount of interest. The guest list for the salon is growing and journalists 
have started to reply to my emails. But even I hadn’t been aware of the real magnitude of the interest. Until Tuesday morning, when I got up as usual around 6.15. Lights were on in the office, lights were on in the kitchen, the living room, the downstairs loo. For a moment I was puzzled. I had worked late on Monday evening, until 1.30. Had I been so tired and forgot to turn off all the lights? Then my eyes fell on a open folder on the kitchen counter. It was the Bank and Tax Peirene file, which I usually keep in the study. A draft led me into the front room. And I discovered the open window. For a moment I stood still, then I panicked. I ran upstairs, into the rooms of the children. Both were soundly asleep. I rushed downstairs again, into every room and out again, trying to hold my sense of shock. We had been burgled! But it was a strange burglary. Nothing seemed to have been messed with, except that Peirene Bank folder, and my mobile phone was gone.
I called the police, barred my phone, rang up the banks and changed passwords. “But why did they look at the Peirene Bank and Tax folder?”, I asked the police. “It says BANK in big letters on the spine. You’re announcing to the world where your money is.” A thought suddenly crossed my mind and made me smile for the first time that morning: Perhaps these poor burglars thought they had hit the jack pot? Perhaps they even knew I was running a business? Perhaps they checked out the Peirene website, the books, took one good look at all this and thought wow, we are going to rob a multi million dollar company? I know my little nymph looks good. I am very proud of her. But that stunning and loaded with money?
The burglars’ feeling of disappointment must have been huge. I wish I could say my Peirene account is sporting big, beautiful round figures.
Not yet, I am counting on all of you to make that happen next year.
Have a lovely Christmas, hopefully without burglaries.
be hard work. But my weekends? Pure pleasure – first spreadsheet delight, now salon galore! I’m not joking. It was really nice. And it’s only now, four days after the event, that I really can grasp what a success it was. It was the first ever totally sold out salon. I managed to fit 40 people into my study/office where we hold the reading. Truth to be told it wasn’t an exercise in physical comfort. 40 adults in a front room sat on little primary school chairs. I don’t think people minded too much – or at least no one has sued me yet for bodily harm. Instead the audience felt intellectually, creatively and emotionally uplifted by the three stars at the front, 
cross at the bottom of your screen. Just click on it – and you’re there – in spreadsheet land. Cheaper and quicker than going to Venice or Paris– and just as exciting. In fact I was euphoric afterwards, in Seventh Heaven, dirty weekend plus Spa plus five star hotel all in one little beautiful grid. Who can resist.
recover my health and strength after the difficult birth. There it is – so utterly gorgeous – I could eat it.
trusted sources with extensive experience of the book market world. She has worked for many years in a big publishing house selling foreign rights. As of this week she has also become – rather surprisingly - a free-lance defender of literary agents.
had forgotten to write something on the cover. No – not the title - bad joke – the title was there alright. No, what was missing was the small reference on the inside flap announcing “Peirene Title No 1”. I like to number my novels. I like the idea that because I only will publish a few books a year Peirene will develop a core fan base who will make sure they buy all the numbers – like an up-market lit magazine really. And why not – as Peirene’s books are so slim they could almost be read as quickly as a magazines. That’s the idea anyway.
a family outing, too, last night – a birthday treat for our ten-year-old – and we watched a rather striking performance of the American rock band 
my dignity at the end.
I now also have something to do with typesetting – I am a publisher, aren’t I? – but until a couple of days ago I had never heard of Sabon and Bembo. I truly believed that a beautiful, readable text just appears on the page. Abracadabra – and that’s it!