This year is the 10th Anniversary of my Literary Lunches and there is much to celebrate.
I first started these events in a bid to help educate my group in the ways of self publishing with a workshop and a small lunch for about 35 ladies.
Now the lunch has grown. It has spurred on dozens of ladies to put pen to paper. They come along, meet the authors, mentors, editors and book publishers and become inspired to write their own book.
Over the years we have had many wonderful moments too. Four come to mind which are special to me..
The Moment: At the very first lunch when two strangers (to me and each other) asked if they could help. Sian Elin Flint Freel and Sue Miller have been instrumental to the success of the lunches ever since.
The Moment: Christie Barlow making us laugh, reading from her first book which she self published .Now of course she’s a Harper Collins bestselling author with many amazing books under her belt
The Moment: Amanda Prowse told her story and had the whole room in tears.
The Moment: Suzan Holder told us about her quest to get her book published and how she came across my lunch in the social pages of Cheshire Life and contacted me. Now she is a best-selling author too .
This year I wanted to mark the anniversary with some small Literary Lunches so we held one at Peckforton Castle which was a great success. Then I decided to hold one in a Scottish Castle!
There was a valid reason, I desperately wanted the poet Donna Ashworth to speak. She lived near Stirling and would find it difficult to come to Knutsford. I decided to go to her.

I contacted Fiona Dalziel , a brilliant amazing lady who just happened to have her own networking group in the same area where Donna resided and she actually agreed to co-host.
So on Friday we held the lunch at Airth Castle Hotel and it was truly wonderful.
I brought Emma Guy The Menopausal Godmother to speak, Fiona brought Anna Bell and of course we had Donna!
I didn’t realise Donna had never recited her world renowned beautiful incredible poems to a large group before so it was a pivotal moment for her too.
This morning it was announced that she was no 3 in the Sunday Times Best Seller list. Donna will soon be speaking to large crowds everywhere but she came to me first!
Donna’s poems say everything a woman feels and she is set for global stardom. But however high her star ascends she will always remember this event too.
Everyone in the room knew we were witnessing something very special and the atmosphere was electric.
Some of my Cheshire ladies attended the event with me on Friday including Naomi Victoria who was a sponsor along with Aqueous Digital.
Naomi had a stall selling her new Personally Positive and Naomi Victoria Loves merchandise and it went down so well, she had a queue forming and ran out of some items.
So grateful to everyone involved with my Scottish event and we all loved it so much we came away determined to hold more, so if you have a castle, do let me know.

Sue France