Festival of book and imaginary 2024

I will be present this Saturday, June 15, 2024 for the Book and Imaginary Festival all morning.

You can meet me at Latour Bas Elne avenue du Tech, place de la Fontaine.

You can discover my books through several extracts or ask me questions. An event for which I can’t wait to meet my audience.

couverture from the duel book in Albi

Cover from the book Fantastic L.A.

Several artistic disciplines will be brought together (Literature, Drawing, Music). On this occasion you will also be able to discover games as well as role-playing games.
The Book and Imagination Festival is organized in partnership with the city public library and the Catalan authors’ circle. Free admission.

Here are the GPS coordinates to get there:

Latitude 42.6021

Longitude 3.0029
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Photos of the 15th of june 2024

view of the living room
Early morning in the book fair
The author valette céline
I sit in the shade of the trees
building
public library next to the book fair
advertising visual
On this insert is mentioned the comments from the readers of my books, there is also a poster representing the cover and a qrcode

 

 

The choice of characters

On this International Women’s Day, I reaffirm my support for all women. It’s a long fight for equality and although the progress is real, certain measures plunge it back into a certain form of archaism. Violence and discrimination have no place. And that for no one.
Writing, like any artistic form, reflects a part of the society that surrounds it and the impulse that an author gives in her story is a trace left.
For my part, the choice of characters was made in several ways. On the one hand, as I thought there were few female detectives in literature, I tried to create personalities along those lines. On the other hand, I made sure to maintain a certain logic to avoid falling into clichés.

Here are two excerpts from my fiction.

Beginning of the extract from Fantastic L.A. dialogue between the detective and one of the protagonists:

– Legend or not, what’s certain is that in the museum, there’s an indefinable presence that seems to protect what’s there.

– How do you know this?

– Gladys had mentioned it. All the employees knew that Fantastic L.A. had been set up in a building where a hold-up had been committed. Since the unsolved murder of one of the victims, unexplained events have been recurring.

– Have you seen or heard of a vampire kit acquired by the museum?

End of extract

Beginning of extract from Duel à Albi dialogue between the cinephile and a visitor:
The visitor stared at her intensely with a keen, deep gaze. Lydia in turn stared at him from head to toe, as if to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. She could detect no difference. It was indeed Gary Cooper, a Hollywood star of her childhood who had mysteriously crossed space-time to Albi.
End of extract

 

Hollywood classics and literature

The classics of Hollywood cinema influenced the writing of my fiction Duel à Albi.

In the story, I refer to several films such as:

– Morocco

– The Devil’s Garden

– Friendly persuasion

The script of some films is inspired by literature.

– For Whom the Bell Tolls based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel

– Peter Ibbetson based on the novel by George Dumaurier

I chose evocative titles in line with the sassy tone of the dialogue. They thus participate in creating the fantastic dimension in which I wanted to immerse my short story and the public.

For the documentation part, I made an appointment at a film library to read some extracts from books which gave me some information.

biographies about film actors and actresses

Thank you to the film libray Jean Vigo.

 

Inspirations and places

When I’ve written a story, go to the places that inspired meaning. And very often, my visit reveals supposed elements that I had not thought of. As part of “duel in Albi”, after a walk in the park and in the city, I discovered several historical monuments as well as two museums, one dedicated to Toulouse Lautrec and one dedicated to fashion. It immediately made me think of fairy tales and theater stage costumes.

Albi fashion museum picture
Costume in a private museum in Albi.
© 2025 Céline Valette – Tous droits de reproduction, d’adaptation et de traduction réservés pour tous pays sans le consentement de l’Auteur (titre, modèle, illustrations, photos...etc).