Back in March, my husband and I thought that we had adopted a realistic view of the pandemic. Unlike many, we though the precautions were likely to last much longer than a “couple of weeks”. However as things progressed, even we thought that we could move around relatively freely during August and September. We booked a trip to Eastbourne. We would have been there now. We are not. We have underlying health conditions such that we know that we would not respond well should we catch the virus and cancelled our plans. Yet again, it seems that we were just a little ahead of the curve and regulations have been tightened again.
One of the consequences has been that family history, and other, societies that were about to consider restarting their meetings have reversed plan. They are now starting to reassess their options. Some small societies have been struggling. They have had to find ways of maintaining members interests and sense of belonging. The organiser of a relatively new family history group has been producing a newsletter ever ten days. In my view, this is a mammoth task for one individual so I have produced a number of articles for her.
Other societies are moving to online talks using Zoom or other means. I have one provisional booking for this year and my one booking for 2021 is likely to be converted to a Zoom meeting.
Back in May, my UK book launch at the London Metropolitan Archives had to be postponed. They only reopened to the public last week. It will be a long time before my “book launch” can be reorganised and, by then, it will need to be repurposed. Back at the beginning of this year, my publisher thought that Jeopardy of Every Wind may have launched in Asia first. I even hoped that I may be able good in person. In the end, that did not happen but my book was one of the relatively few to be released into a locked down world and I have had some wonderful comments sent to me. [Although, that my publisher would prefer that they had posted reviews online.]
This week he emailed me saying:
COVID is causing havoc with book releases and publishers are desperately worried they might be releasing books into a void. The UK distributor has stock though, so whenever you do hold a UK Zoom meeting do mention that the book is available to order from all bookstores.
I will add that, if any of my followers have not yet purchased a copy, Amazon are currently selling Jeopardy at a discount.
The positive news is that Jeopardy of Every Wind will now be getting its Asia launch at the at the [virtual] Singapore Writers Festival 2020 taking place between 30 October and 8 November. I shall be there, also virtually. Another positive is that many more people should be able to attend than in a more normal world. Perhaps I will see you there.