If you are wondering where I have gone on Facebook, so am I. Last Monday I discovered that I had been suspended for infringing their community standards and pretending to be somebody well known. Very confusing as Facebook on my IPhone and desktop are displayed slightly differently – one gave me thirty days to appeal but when I tried to answer their questions and confirm who I was that proved impossible and I had the curt response that the decision was irreversible. So much for thirty days. From what I can gather there are probably no actual people involved in this. More likely some trawling malignant algorithm has decided that I am impersonating myself. My passport and driving licence are in my married name and so no use as identification. Several million books published world wide are no use as they were apparently written by someone else. 

 I am feeling rather as I did when we were burgled – an – overwhelming sense of disbelief and loss. I didn’t write a huge amount myself, I confess, but I have in an instant lost touch with countless far-flung friends and family and readers, with no way of contacting them to explain what has happened. Many of them live too far away for us to have exchanged phone numbers or addresses. It never occurred to me that Facebook would suddenly no longer be there. I can no longer access my publisher’s author’s page either, nor local community notice boards.

 I am hoping that my pubisher, HarperCollins, can find a way of sorting this out for me, and various people have given me bits of advice - some good, some not so - as to how to proceed. Most say just wait for a while. It is not as though I wade into controversy and court arguments. That is not me. But I am harbouring dark thoughts about having been hijacked in some way. There was someone six months ago who pretended to be me and used my photo. Perhaps this has something to do with it. Perhaps this is his/her revenge. Perhaps they were actually me and I am an apparition. I see a book plot hovering there, so maybe things are not all bad!

Anyway, I’m still on Twitter, folks, if you want to contact me and of course if anything exciting happens on the work front I will tell you here.

 The Lady of Hay Book Club webinar last Monday was a great success; I’m beginning to get the hang of the technology. And you can follow me via Barbaraerskineofficial on Facebook. Luckily that is actually run by HarperCollins not me.

 Plans go on apace for online events around publication of The Dream Weavers. Less than a month to go now.