A Trans-Atlantic Tweet Sparks 'Romantic' Ideas
Posted by Ami Brough - July 12, 2013
Do you tweet? We do, in fact we love it! A funny thing happened a few months back while we were happily responding to some mentions on Twitter... we came across a tweet from an American author named Valerie Bowman - Valerie was talking about her new book 'Secrets of a Runaway Bride' featuring our very own Gretna Green Famous Blacksmiths Shop! We were impressed! We do like a mention in a book now and then... (see Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice for example). So we were rather excited to hear that we featured in Ms Bowman's new book and knew that we had to talk to her to find out more...
Over the next month, we found ourselves chatting to Valerie about Gretna Green and its impact on her novels and romance in general, and while Valerie was busy promoting her book in the states, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to ask why she chose to feature Gretna Green at all? Being on opposite sides of the Atlantic isn't as much of a drawback now-a-days and we arranged for Valerie to record a podcast interview so she could answer our questions and post her responses on You Tube.
And voila! You can see it here now and we will be uploading it on our Facebook & Twitter pages this week... Some of Valerie's author friends even joined in to tell us why they think 'Gretna Green' and 'Romance' are synonymous with each other... Fabulous!
All this talk of romance got us thinking and we stumbled upon a great idea and, after speaking to lots of romantic novelists, both here in Scotland, the UK and in the U.S., we've decided we'd like to plan a romantic novelist convention right here in Gretna Green in 2014. All the plans are still in their very early stages but come Autumn time, Gretna Green Famous Blacksmiths Shop and Smiths Hotel are hoping to welcome romantic novelists from all over the world to the our doorstep (or our Anvil in fact).
All this from one single tweet! Watch this space for more news coming soon & remember you can keep up-to-date with all our daily news on our Facebook & Twitter pages. If you're interested in attending this convention please contact Lynda Denton for further details: [email protected]