The Grand Tour 1: can’t you hear that whistle blowing?

In 2017, my novel Speak Its Name was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize, for the best debut by an author under the age of 35. I was the first self-published author ever shortlisted, which was pretty cool. And it was a great prize to be shortlisted for, because everybody on the shortlist won a Betty Trask Award and three thousand pounds.

So what do you do when you’ve got three thousand pounds that you’re pretty sure you’re meant to be spending on travel? Go to that place you always meant to, of course. Do that thing you always meant to do. In my case, that was loads of places. That was InterRailing.

I asked my friends for suggestions of where to go, and what to do when I’d got there. They obliged. Stockholm. Nuremberg. I knew I wanted to see Prague and Vienna. I wanted to visit…