Midnight in Peking Comes to Chengdu this Weekend

I’ll be up in Chengdu at the Bookworm International Literary Festival there that’s running in March at the Chengdu Bookworm – details here. Nice place, nice people and I haven’t been up that way for a couple of years so keen to revisit and have a look round. I’m doing a couple of events – one on Midnight in Peking and another with Derek Sandhaus which is a workshop on getting published. Details below. If you’re in Chengdu do come along and say hello.

Midnight in Peking with Paul French 19:30 10th Mar / Paul French, Saturday

Paul French’s true-crime page-turner, Midnight in Peking, delves deep into Beijing’s sordid demimonde. On the cusp of WW II, the brutal murder of 19-year old Pamela Werner, a daughter of a British diplomat, shocked and paralysed 1930s Beijing. Join us for a special event as Paul takes us up close and personal to the seedy and fascinating characters of the Badlands and Legation Quarter. Plus, don’t miss a special display of archival photographs, recordings and more that French unearthed. Paul French studied history, economics and Mandarin in London and has an M. Phil. in economics from the University of Glasgow. He is now based in Shanghai as a business advisor and analyst. He is the author of multiple works of Asian History; Carl Crow: A Tough Old China Hand, North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula, and Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from the Opium Wars to Mao.

Getting Published Workshop: Paul French and Derek Sandhaus 17:00 11th Mar / Derek Sandhaus, Paul French, Sunday

What does it take to become a published author? Learn effective steps and techniques for getting published from two prolific China-based authors who have had several of their own titles published, and who have helped many other writers get their work into print. Paul French and Derek Sandhaus will offer their insights into the world of manuscripts, proposals, query letters, rejection letters, agents, editors, publicists, contracts, and other potentially perplexing elements of the publishing industry. Paul French (Midnight in Peking, Through the Looking Glass) has worked with the full range of publishers, from small independent labels, to university presses, to a major multinational publisher, Penguin, with his latest title. He is also a commissioning editor in his own right and is currently managing two book series, Asian Arguments and China Monographs. Derek Sandhaus (Tales of Old Peking, Décadence Mandchoue) served as chief editor/general manager of Earnshaw Books from 2009 to 2011, during which time he oversaw the publication of dozens of internationally released titles under the Earnshaw label.