Image Credits:-
Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were photos of Salisbury. Book cover shots are from Chapeltown Books.
I’m delighted to say I’ll be taking a lovely trip on our local train service to the fair city of Salisbury on Saturday 5th September 2026. It’s a great run from Chandler’s Ford, and a direct one, and you see some wonderful scenery but why am I going?
If you’re thinking along the lines of she’s not just doing this for the fun of it, you’re spot on.
Book Signing – Seeing The Other Side
I’m thrilled to be holding a signing event at Salisbury United Reformed Church for my Seeing The Other Side (though naturally I’m taking along copies of From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic as well).
I have connections with the church here and indeed family members have led services there. The church holds a monthly bookstall and I’ll be joining in with that on this occasion. They use this to also help raise funds for their Spire coffee shop (and I can confirm the tea and cakes there are fabulous. The tea and coffee are all Fairtrade products too. I hope to sample more at my book signing event, naturally once the signings are done!).
If you are passing by in Salisbury, do call in and say hello. The United Reformed Church is easy enough to find as they are at 30 Fisherton Street. As you walk down from the railway station, you effectively come straight into the city and right on to Fisherton Street.
Salisbury is a great place to walk around. Everything is well sign posted and reasonably easy to reach. Can’t say that about everywhere. The church is almost opposite the old jailhouse. See the link for more about that. I know when I first visited Salisbury, I thought it was just a clock tower but soon found out I was wrong, though the clock itself still keeps excellent time.
I will be at the front of the church, facing the road, along with the good people from the URC manning their bookstall, so we should be easy enough to spot!
Meeting Potential Readers
It’s always a joy to meet potential readers at events. I plan to read some stories from Seeing The Other Side and I hope to share something of what flash fiction is simply by doing that. I like to mix up the mood of what I read at events so there will be something funny, something thoughtful, something darker etc.
I hope to put my card reader to good use too. It’s the first time I’ve had one but can see their usefulness. It will make holding events easier for me to do. Giving people the means to pay by card is a game changer and I hope this will prove to be the case for me too.
I also hope to give out plenty of business cards. I often have sales after an event thanks to people taking those. I remain convinced those and the pens are the two best things Vistaprint do.
It’s a joy to be able to hold in person events again and am most appreciative of the opportunity Salisbury URC has given me here. They also support the city’s Arts Festival. My last launch was for Tripping The Flash Fantastic back in the year we all prefer to forget, 2020, when everything had to be done online.
Those online launches were a lifeline and I hope to be having at least one for Seeing The Other Side. Am currently waiting to hear from my publisher when they will set one up – they are very good at these. I also hope to have at least one more on my own account at a later date.
Future Events
Will keep you posted on these but I will say I am open to giving talks about flash fiction, why short stories aren’t just for children, and the writing life. Mine has been a real rollercoaster ride. I’d never heard of flash fiction when I first started writing seriously for publication.
I discovered it thanks to CafeLit issuing their 100 word challenge.
My first thought was you’ve got to be kidding me, how can you tell a proper story with a proper beginning, middle and end in that tight a word count?
My second thought was Allison, they’d never issue the challenge if it really was impossible, give it a go, you’ve got nothing to lose.
Three books later, and with many other flash pieces of mine published online and in print, I am so glad I went with the second thought!
I share the links to their Read Our Stories page and a second one to my page on CafeLit. Seeing The Other Side was partially serialised in July 2025 and the link will take you straight to that. It’s a good way to test before you buy! (I would say the Amazon read a sample facility is also useful here. I’ve often used it and then gone on to buy the work in question).
Conclusion
Book events are always a bit of a gamble for an author because we can never know who will turn up, indeed if anyone will at all. So another way of helping author friends is to be a friendly face at their events. Seeing others about does encourage footfall. There must be some sort of psychological reasoning behind that. All I know is it is true. Someone visiting a book table will encourage others to take a look, while not necessarily being aware they’re doing that.
Having this event also brings back happy memories for when I held an event for From Light to Dark and Back Again at our local station. A huge thank you to the Three Rivers Partnership for their help here. Meantime, it will be a pleasure to be on the train from there to get to the delightful city of Salisbury.
Hope to see you in Salisbury! (And even if you can’t come to my event, do take a trip on the train from Chandler’s Ford station, it is a great run).
Related Posts:-
Update – Local Author News – Allison Symes – Seeing The Other Side – Publication News
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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