Gatsby in the garden

Here are a couple of beautiful photos taken by the lovely Catherine Padmore. See, as well as being a novelist and super-academic (that's Dr Catherine Padmore when she's wearing her university hat), Catherine is obviously a great photographer. She sent them to me in an email because the delicate forms of these little garden treasures reminded her of my Gatsby creatures. What a gorgeous thought.

I especially love the photo below, because it suggests a fragile being, poised on an even more fragile sparkling thread. And if that aint a visual representation of The Great Gatsby, I don't know what is!
Catherine and I met at this year's "World Matters" conference, an annual event run by the Eltham Bookshop (check it out - it's great). She was chairing a panel of three very different authors - John Charalambous, Antoni Jach and me, and somehow managed to find all kinds of connections and parallels in our work and keep the conversation flowing at a vigorous pace.

As part of her closing words to the audience, Catherine read out that amazing final page of The Great Gatsby, where Fitzgerald's magic just leaps off the paper. I have to admit that, even after having read them so many times, hearing those words spoken aloud brought tears to my eyes.

(Boy, I really should create a label called "I am a big sap"...)