Ali Sparkes, Mark Robson, Tommy Donbavand and I have returned from our show at the Lincoln Book Festival. One of us returned inside a monster. But all of us will bear the psychological scars of what transpired…

After an opening section in which the monsters allowed each of us thirty seconds to plead pathetically not to be eaten, we were hurled straight into a Word By Word Story Round. Two kind young volunteers from the audience did their best to keep our choices out of the gutter, but in vain: I think this pic below captures the exact moment I shouted the word “UDDERS“.

A cavalcade of humiliations followed. Mark made us fart. Ali made us run like girls. Tommy made us race to turn three more unlucky audience volunteers into mummies using special toilet paper that (as he gleefully explained) had ‘only been used once.’ For my round, we recreated the mind-controlling spider-like parasites from Crawlers using rubber gloves attached to sausage balloons stuffed down the backs of our shirts…

I invited the audience to take on the role of the Queen in the book, giving commands to her hapless victims that we poor authors had no choice but to obey…

Of course they were absolutely merciless. I think this (below) is us all obeying the order to ‘roll on the floor like babies.’

After a Q&A section in which we attempted to regain whatever limited authorial dignity we’d possessed at the start of the show, it was time for our closing statements – a last chance to beg for our lives before the audience was given the opportunity to vote for whoever they thought should receive the dreaded condiment of doom.

It was at this point that the drama of our predicament became too much for Ali, who – for reasons that remain unclear – suddenly burst into a spontaneous rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You.’ This was clearly a step too far for our audience, and – still claiming desperately that her Blue Peter Badge might scratch the monster’s delicate intestinal passages – Ali was dragged from the stage by our monster jailer Simon to begin her, ahem, Alimentary Adventure.

Maybe I was just relieved not to be sharing Ali’s fate, but the rest of the gig really was a lot of fun. Our listeners bought loads of our books…

…and we even got the chance to judge the fabulous entries of a monster drawing competition. Here are our three favourites (check out the ‘floating eyebrows’ on the right-!)

A MONSTER THANK YOU to Andy and Julie and everyone we met and spoke to. You know what? Considering that we suffered an ordeal of psychological torment that ended in one of us being eaten alive, we really did have a surprisingly brilliant time.

Poor Ali. Best of luck in there. We’ll be waiting with high-pressure hoses and emergency fudge whenever you emerge. ;D

Sam

PS: William Hussey, author of the excellent Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide, witnessed the whole thing. For an alternative view of how the afternoon went, check out his brilliant new blog.