This is a bit of a mental week (I’m in eight different places this week alone – more, if you count individual libraries in a county), but I wanted to post a few things before I forgot.
First off, if you’re a budding new author – or indeed a frustrated old one – Irish PEN are hosting a panel talk on writing for children this Thursday (the 13th) in Dublin, featuring yours truly, but also properly interesting people such as leading agent, Julia Churchill; Puffin Ireland publisher, Paddy O’Doherty; and authors Sarah Webb and Anna Carey. You can find out more about it here.
I recently did a guest post for the Meath Libraries blog after running a series of comic-book workshops. You can read that here. 
I’ll be doing a few more in other places before the month’s out – I’ll link to them as they happen.
If you’re into science fiction and/or fantasy, I’ll be at Octocon, the National Irish Sci-Fi Convention in the Camden Court Hotel in Dublin. I can’t make the Saturday, but I’ll be there Sunday. Yes, there may be one or two nerds present, but they are mostly harmless, and often very entertaining (usually on purpose). Drop in if you can – it’ll be like Scooby Snacks for the brain.
And finally, my last post was a tribute to my old Mac, with which I have had a ten-year turbulent relationship, but whose design and reliability I have long been thankful for. The man who deserves the hero’s portion of that thanks died this week. Steve Jobs changed the way we regard technology, and though everybody talks about the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone, I got hooked a lot earlier than all that. Whatever issues I might have with Apple, I’m the first to admit that Steve Jobs and his people were among the first to make computers for the way human beings were designed to work.
Rest in peace, Mr Jobs.