Here’s my week summed up in book photos:
1) Scholastic book fair at work. It’s amazing to know that young people are so passionate about reading; it was incredibly busy in the library. Borrowing books is one thing, but buying paperbacks involves commitment, so this was fantastic to see. Friday was so busy, in fact, that I needed to recruit a team of upper sixth prefects to help out, so that I could manage running the library as usual, and the additional book fair, which was only there for the whole week.
2) February author birthdays library display: an opportunity for me to promote a diverse range of authors and their books. This is a new display topic that I’ve started running this year to help promote books that haven’t been borrowed for a while. For February, authors include Charles Dickens, Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, Judy Blume and John Steinbeck.
3) Book shopping this week: I’m a big Bruce Lee fan, and with Chinese New Year coming up on 17th Feb, it’s a good time to read his latest biography. When I was an archaeology student at Queen’s University Belfast, I studied Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do and became hooked on both Bruce Lee’s martial art, and the man himself. I loved his philosophical approach to life, as well as his modern approach in teaching anybody who wanted to learn his modified style of Wing Chun Gung Fu, at a time when racial segregation was still commonplace. His teachings still resonate today, fifty years after his death.
4) This week was the one year bookiversary of Love you to Death, my collection of ghost stories for Valentine’s Day. Last year was a gamble to see how my spooky romance stories would be received by readers, but the gamble paid off; it has been my most popular seller of the past year. Always what an author wants to have happen: phew!
Leilanie Stewart 
Apologies to some readers and followers of my blog
Today’s post is a message of apology to some readers and followers of my blog. I only just realised yesterday of a mishap, where a number of comments had been left unanswered and pending approval on my website, and I hadn’t been aware of this. Some of the comments had been posted as far back as half a year ago.
The fault is my own; I had set notifications for my website on my phone, and was perhaps relying on this feature too much without actually checking for comments via my email notifications instead. It turned out I had missed many comments by folks who weren’t regular followers; a couple of these included invites to author events and I’m especially regretful about not only those missed opportunities, but the unprofessional impression that some people might have of me after receiving no response to their comments.
As an author, I’m also a business person, and I aim to respond to all legitimate comments on my website and social media accounts as a general rule. Rest assured I am working hard to get back to everyone who commented; I value your messages and I appreciate that you took the time to leave comments for me.
This blog post isn’t an excuse, it’s simply an explanation; what can I say other than offer my humble apology. Sorry.
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Posted by Leilanie Stewart on January 14, 2026 in Random stuff and tagged author followers, blog followers, blog update, reaching new readers, reader comments.
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