#74 A Slow Sunday Scroll ☕️
how about a Substack supper club?
Hello all—happy March! 💐
I’ve decided not to have a launch party for my new novel (publishing in April.) It’s taken me until now—aged 35 and a half—to properly admit to myself that I actually don’t like parties. (I like the idea of them.) People tend to assume that if you’re an author or have any sort of ‘public-facing’ job then you’d surely quite like being the centre of attention. (Quite the contrary: I actually like writing books because I like to be typing alone in a room, in silence, for hours on end.) Looking back over my previous launch parties, I think I had fun, but most of the time I was just hovering above myself, slightly out of body. A book launch is like a mini wedding except you can’t deflect any of the attention onto your partner.
I am always excited to launch the book itself and the material into the world, and it’s important to mark occasions, but I find the job of hosting a room full of people rather overwhelming. At my first book launch, one of my best friends still laughs about the time I signed a book for her and spelt her name wrong. Then I signed a book for another friend and signed my own name wrong. Clearly, I just find the whole thing a bit much.
When my first novel Olive came out in 2020, it was during the pandemic, and at the time you could only dine with a group of six people. Me, my husband, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law went for dinner at Boqueria in Brixton and it was delicious and comforting and joyful to be with a small close group. I checked my Amazon rankings on my phone under the table and it had broken into the top #100 in all of books. I walked home with a huge gold balloon that my publisher had sent me (alongside some fairy cakes with mini replicas of my yellow book cover made of icing) and even though I felt upset to have all my plans derailed, the truth was, I’d had the perfect night.
Two years ago, I had a launch party in Daunt Books in Holland Park to celebrate the publication of my book The Success Myth. I knew I wanted something intimate and couldn’t handle the pressure of a ‘party’ so I invited some family, friends, and writer pals to have some wine in a bookshop and just ‘pop by’. I was still healing from my burnout, and cried during my speech. I so badly wanted to enjoy myself, but I didn’t really get to have a proper conversation with anyone for longer than a few minutes.
So here’s the thing, I might not love parties, but I do love dinner parties. Some of my favourite evenings in my twenties when I lived in Hackney with my best pal was attending supper clubs. We’d go to the Pale Blue Door, a drag cabaret supper club, and The Clapton Pot, where two Hackney locals would cook you a hearty meal. Meeting locals around a dinner table, where good food and drinks and conversations were flowing, it was my kind of heaven.
So, this time, to celebrate my book (and it’s very on-theme for the book): I’m opting for a small dinner with family and—drum roll please—I want to host a separate dinner for you, my dear Substack readers. Table For One has a striped red table cloth on the cover, and I’ve been sending some tablescape inspo through to the team that is helping me plan the dinner. It will be hosted in London, and you never know, if all goes well, I might be able to bring more to different places.
The question is: if I were going to arrange this special dinner, would you like to come? I will be ticketing the event, there will be about 30 places available (on a first-come first-served and paid subscribers get first dibs.) This isn’t a money-making exercise btw; the price of the ticket will simply cover the costs of the venue, food, staff, and it’ll be a beautiful bespoke menu, three delicious courses, a welcome drink, and a free signed copy of Table For One.
If it sells out, I will probably do more—(what’s better than bringing people together?)—so please give me an indication if you would be interested in the comments or via the poll below, and I will get the ball rolling. Hope to sit around a table with some of you soon!
P.S. I’m hosting a creativity retreat in Tuscany this year. There’s been a cancellation for my retreat this year so a spot has opened up for my creativity retreat in Tuscany (5 nights, 30th April to 5th May.) If you’re interested in spending a week in Italy together learning all about how to make life more creative and joyful with like-minded people, then you can book directly here. I cannot wait for the tranquility.
For anyone new to The Hyphen newsletter: this is my ~Slow Sunday Scroll round-up~ below the paywall. (It’s behind the paywall because it take me hours to compile so it’s a reader-supported feature.) It’s a bi-monthly list of my favourite books, links, podcasts, things I’ve bought of the week, all handpicked by me — that thousands of paid subscribers enjoy reading every other week ✨ It’s one of my most popular features and I’ve been doing a version of these lists since 2015!
Now over to the Sunday Scroll… in this issue below, I share a debut novel I’m reading, a very good documentary and a new book club podcast I’m enjoying.
