I have just returned from Festival America – a literary festival held in Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris, and what a wonderful, inspiring, energising and creative time it was. I was there talking about my novel Terre Fragile (aka Unsettled Ground) which was published by Editions Stock in France in January.

It’s the eleventh year of Festival America, which happens every two years. And this year for the first time, the festival also invited authors from Europe, bringing our total to 80. France does literary festivals differently to UK festivals. Firstly, French audiences are so engaged and enthusiastic! That’s not to say that UK audiences aren’t, but they are much smaller. Even for the events with authors who might not be today’s ‘literary stars’ (me included), the turn-out was always more than 100. There are no questions from the audience, but after the event the authors sit in the signing tent behind their piles of books, sometimes for up to three hours. (In the UK, books are sold and signed immediately after each event – sometimes in the bookshop; sometimes just outside the event room, and authors aren’t expected to sit behind their books while potential buyers walk past.) What I really love is that authors and books are selected for panels based on a theme, and that means that authors of my level are often sat next to the ‘literary stars’ talking about a particular subject. The picture above was a panel about ‘What use is literature to the world today’, hosted by a bookseller, with me, Colson Whitehead and Stephen Markley (and our amazing interpreters). I’m certain 95% of the audience were there to see Colson, 4% to see Stephen (sorry Stephen) and 1% me – but that meant lots of people bought my books who had never heard of me before, which is a wonderful thing.

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I got to thank Lauren Groff (and give her hug) for her wonderful quote that she gave for Unsettled Ground. I did three separate school events in one day. I got to meet the whole of my Stock publishing family. I met Donal Ryan for the first time, and we talked about silence in fiction with Antoine Wauters. I sat a seat away from Richard Ford in the signing tent (he’s also published by Editions Stock). I love his writing and I introduced myself and well, we mostly talked about the weather in Paris and Missouri. I was on a panel about families with Szilvia Molnar, and I was so interested in what she had to say that I bought her book (in English – Shakespeare and Co had a stall in the signing tent). And then same happened when I talked about ‘On the margins’ with Jakob Guanzon. I saw a dog on the back of a motorbike, wearing glasses. I met Matilde, my French translator who has been translating my books for eleven years, but this was the first time we’d met in person. I bumped into Susan Barker, who was there with her author partner Glen James Brown. (Susan’s brilliant and scary novel, Old Soul will be published by my UK publisher, Penguin Fig Tree next year.) I laughed about with Colm Tóibín – mostly nonsense – and we pulled silly faces for no reason at all.

Sorry – not sorry – for all the name-dropping. It’s exciting meeting your literary heroes (and have them live up to expectations), but it is even more wonderful to meet so many writers who are new to me and discover their books.

Thank you, Festival America, for the invitation, the fun and the hard work.