The desire to celebrate Murakami must have built up into something unbearable because when Zool Verjee (@cadmus08) started tweeting about the upcoming launch of 1Q84, I couldn’t resist urging him to organise a party at Blackwell’s in Oxford.

It turns out that another Oxford-based author, Dan Holloway, had been doing just the same thing. Also that Blackwell’s in Oxford is a hotbed of Murakami fans who were delighted at the chance to throw a party for the sheer joy of Murakami-love and shared delight at the appearance of a hotly-anticipated new novel (watch the trailer for 1Q84.)

So last night saw a bunch of Oxford folk gather in the shop for the We Love Murakami party. In honour of Haruki’s own obsession with jazz and cocktails, we had the pleasure of a live jazz pianist. And I mixed Cosmopolitans, Coolman Martinis, Sea Breezes and Shirley Temples, with help from newly-recruited mixologist, Steph.

We shared stories of how we came to love Murakami, what his writing means to us, there were impromptu readings of favourite passages from his books. We voted on our favourite books (mine s0 far is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). On pink and blue postcards, we jotted down thoughts of what Murakami means to us. There were pop quiz questions with book prizes (I won a copy of Norwegian Wood for our 19-year old daughter).

Euan from Blackwell’s recorded videos of the speeches. He’s sending footage as well as the postcard jottings to Murakami’s publisher who have promised to pass them on to Haruki. (and we believe them!)

Really a special night of great warmth and affection for a writer than I’m pretty sure none of us with ever meet, but whose inner world has touched us to our very core. That’s what readings is for, at its very best. I am but a humble entertainer, but even humble entertainers need sustenance to inspire our writing. Any writer that inspires me; Murakami, Junot Diaz, Pedro Juan Guttierrez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Kazuo Ishiguro, well, I’m forever in their debt.

Thank you Blackwell’s for such a wonderful evening!

I say ‘events moving so rapidly’ but mainly it’s down to one thing: naughty me, I still haven’t finished Joshua 5! My deadline is mid-May. My stretch-deadline is end of May. Cue a bunch of writerly excuses worthy of Ed Reardon himself. But basically, that’s the deal. If I’m going to avoid a late delivery then I need to write, write, write like the wind!

But, my dear blog readers, all blessed six of you, you all still want to hear about DARK PARALLEL, don’t you?

So watch out for the Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries! They start with the launch party and end with the very first time I showed off a shiny new copy of Dark Parallel in a school. College Du Leman, your photos will soon be here…

You can find photos of the Dark Parallel launch party on Flickr. Thanks to everyone who attended, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! The focus this year was on the friends and readers who helped me to make the live action sequence that appears in the Dark Parallel book trailer. We watched the ‘making of Dark Parallel’ film and oh, we did chortle. We also ate cake. There was an after-party at the pub, we sat outdoors!

April is a great month in which to release a book. Thanks to all at Scholastic for another great job with a shiny new book!

Once again, it’s cake time. Thanks to some lovely friends in Oxford and the wonderful staff of Blackwell’s bookshop, we were able to enjoy another round of cupcakes, Joshua cake and a glass of fizzy pink wine.

Scholastic Children’s Books were on hand with shiny new Joshua Files enamel badges and glow-in-the-dark wristbands for all, as you can see if you look closely on the photos in the slideshow below.

You can listen to a special podcast from Radio Litopia which features the panel discussion and Q&A session from the launch party, featuring me with Peter Cox of Redhammer Management and BBC Oxford’s Bill Heine. (Press ‘Play’ below)

So, to everyone who attended, which was your favourite cupcake? (I was very torn between chocolate hazelnut and lime cheesecake.)

Fellow author Mark Robson has also mentioned the ZERO MOMENT launch party on the Trapped By Monsters Blog, where he’s giving away a free signed copy of the neon paperback edition of ZERO MOMENT.

And Susie Day, lolarious YA author of Big Woo and Girl Meets Cake, also my partner-in-crime in bacon-sarnie-and-coffee consumption, has blogged about the ZERO MOMENT launch party at susieday.com with another lovely photo.

Early reviews by two of the top UK book bloggers are here:
Zero Moment reviewed by Mr Ripley’s Enchanted Books
Zero Moment reviewed by The Bookzone for Boys

Bill Heine talks to MG at the Ice Shock launch party

I’ve finally gotten around to editing some of the audio and video files I’ve had on the hard drive for months.

There’s now a page of collected MG Harris interviews, audio and written, from BBC radio as well as a podcast, book blogs, writers’ blogs and The Oxford Times.

It’s strange being interviewed. I’m clearly vain enough to enjoy it. Most of all though I like talking about the books themselves. Even more vain! Me and some other person or people talking about a story wot I made up!

Crazy, hey? I used to be a scientist contributing to Important Work on cell biology and vaccines and stuff.  Never got interviewed then. Now I make up stories and people want to talk to me about them.

It may be topsy turvy but you know what? I LOVE IT!

Thanks to staff and students at Oxford High School and St Gregory the Great, Oxford, especially librarians Elizabeth Sloan and Hilja Bassett, to staff at Blackwell’s Bookshop Oxford especially Natalia de la Ossa, to my publicist at Scholastic, Alex Richardson for supporting all these launch events and persuading the Oxford Mail and BBC Southeast News to cover the event at St Greg’s.

And to everyone who came along to all these events – over 600 people in total! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

Now…go out and buy ICE SHOCK and tell the world! Every little bit helps, honestly. Word of mouth is KEY.

Gorgeous party at Blackwell’s last night to celebrate the publication of ICE SHOCK. Children and adult friends, librarians and publishers my agent and fellow Litopian Richard Howse and the force of nature that is Bill Heine joined me and some wonderfully generous staff at Blackwell’s, Oxford to party.

Regular blog readers, FaceBook and Twitter friends will already be aware of my cake-fixation, so shouldn’t be surprised to see that I took the opportunity for a major baking session. Cup cakes and the biggest, fattest chocolate cake that I know how to make. With a filling made from melting Dairy Milk and Bourneville bars with a bar of unsalted Normandy butter. I had a piece this morning. Damn, it was good! That is the best recipe ever, ever, from a book that deserves its title: The Cake Bible.

Photos are now on Flickr.

Tomorrow, the Official Launch on World Book Day at St Gregory the Great School, Oxford. Where for the first time ever, I will read aloud from ICE SHOCK.

Elaine McQuade (Scholastic), MG Harris, Elv Moody (Scholastic) and Peter Cox (Redhammer) at the launch party for THE JOSHUA FILES

So finally, we threw a party for THE JOSHUA FILES at La Perla, a Mexican restaurant/bar in London. Team Joshua from Scholastic were there, plus many other wonderful people from that company. We were joined by influential children’s booksellers and people from the children’s media. I had some brilliant conversations, although all too brief. So many people to meet!

Elaine and I gave little speeches. Luckily for me Elaine went first. While she spoke I realised that I was in severe danger of forgetting everything I’d planned to say. It was all lost behind a tequila-and-lime-flavoured fog. I had to struggle to latch onto any aspect of what I was saying. Thank goodness I’d decided to start with blaming (totally unfairly )my sister-in-law for my skiing accident. I don’t have any trouble at all talking about that day. Nope, falling onto the Eggli mountain and snapping my tibia is a path quite well etched into my neurons.

Over the next few weeks there will be plenty of opportunities to buy TJF on promotion. It will be Book of the Week in Sainsbury and Tesco, and is on discount now at WHSmith, Waterstones and Borders.

It looks as though the next stage for me will be visiting schools. I’m really looking forward to doing this. Finally hanging out with readers! Might even find a way to combine it with school governor work…asking for 30 mins with all curriculum deputies to talk about 14-19 education initiatives or something. Hmmm.

My agent Peter Cox (pictured above) has been working with designers on a super, super cool new fan site. I hope readers will love it. Should be ready by Monday…but if you are clever at searching on Google you might already be able to find it.

A prize for the first one to locate it! I don’t know what, yet, but something token…