It's the start of August, which means, of course, it's also the start of... the August issue of the Shanville Monthly!! :-) The newsletter features the usual round-up of the best bits of everything and anything Darren Shan-related from the past 31 days, including details of what will probably be my only public event this year, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. I'll be popping along on Thursday 22nd at 5.30pm (having also done an event for schools earlier in the day) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Cirque Du Freak. We'll be zipping back in time for an hour and pretending it's January 2000, and I'll be doing some readings that I used to do back in the early days, when I toured a lot more than I do now. It should be lots of fun. There will be plenty of time to ask questions. And I'll be signing books afterwards. To find out more -- and to get up to date with everything else that's going on in my freaky little world at the moment -- head on over to the Shanville Monthly by clicking here: https://www.darrenshan.com/news/shanville-monthly/

The photo, by the way, hails from my 2006 appearance at the Festival, when I was promoting the third Demonata book and wearing an appropriately grisly T-shirt. I always try to match my T-shirts to the contents of my events. In fact, those who saw me in action back in those early years will probably be able to predict what I'm going to be wearing on the 22nd -- it's an old favourite that my American publishers made for my first tour of the USA in October 2001...