LH Confidential: Words of inspiration

Jun 5 2009 by Lorraine Howard, Irvine Herald

Words of inspiration

IT’S a very dangerous thing to meet someone who has inspired you and last week I had the opportunity to meet a former teacher turned literary star.

Janice Galloway, who has a host of awards for her writing talent, once taught me at Garnock Academy in Kilbirnie.

And on Tuesday night she arrived at Irvine’s Glasgow Vennel Local and Family History Centre to talk about her six books and her childhood growing up in Saltcoats.

It was an occasion where I could quite easily have turned too gushy as the excitement of meeting someone I admire gets too much.

But I managed to hold on to my dignity and tell her that I had been encouraged by her while I was at school to pursue my daft notion of writing one day.

Her talk about her prize winning first novel, The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, left me agog as it’s a book I know cover to cover and to hear her reading it was quite amazing. The book is set in Bourtreehill and I could now understand what areas she was talking about, compared to when I was as student in Kilbirnie.

An engaging and incredibly talented woman, it was a real honour to meet her again and well done to Audrey, Jill, Alison and everyone at the Vennel who organised the event.