I do sessions to promote my books – as well as a few workshops and residencies – throughout the year, but it normally doesn’t get too mad except for round October, when Ireland is overrun by the Children’s Book Festival. Lately though, I’ve taken on a lot of sessions, and with World Book Day (or at least the one…
I was delighted to hear that, in a recent poll of readers in libraries in County Offaly, I was voted Favourite Irish Author, ahead of some serious stars. The list went like this: Me! Marita Conlon-McKenna David Donohue Eoin Colfer Dolores Keaveney John Boyne Roddy Doyle Judy Curtin (Joint Place) Derek Landy, Maeve Binchy and John Connolly Of the…
On election day, I joined the mass of people who turned out to put their stroke of a pencil on the ballot paper and turf our greedy, corrupt, incompetent, hopeless excuse for a government out of Leinster House. It wasn’t what you’d normally consider a revolution, but it got the job done, and got the tossers out. Even as…
So we did it. Actually, the ten barbers led by John McGuire did it, the rest of us just sat in the chairs and stayed still long enough for them to lay our heads bare. The Ray D’Arcy Show’s attempt at breaking the record for the number of heads ten barbers could shave in an hour, was an odd…
I’m taking part in a day of workshops for the Big Smoke Writing Factory, organized by Claire Hennessy. It’s entitled ‘Speculative Fiction Workshop: Writing Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror’. It’ll take place in the Writing Factory’s regular venue at 7 Lower Hatch Street, Dublin 2. Here’s the info: Speculative fiction, encompassing the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror,…
I’ve volunteered to have my head shaved as part of the World Record attempt taking place on the Ray D’Arcy Show, on Today FM. It’s for their Shave or Dye campaign, in aid of the Irish Cancer Society. Basically, they’re going to line up ten clipper-happy barbers and run a conveyor belt of heads under their blades, in an…
The run-up to the P-Con VIII – the eighth Phoenix Sci-Fi Convention – is now on. I’ve been going for a number of years and it always throws up some interesting talks and some great craic. Fans of all shapes and sizes will be descending on the Central Hotel in Dublin in March to talk, argue, heckle, laugh, buy…
Politicians. I have to admit, the very thought of them calling to my door to ask for my vote makes me grit my teeth. Not just the Fianna Fail ones, but all of the others who let them have their way for more than two decades, by offering too weak, too unimaginative and too divided an opposition. But it’s…
Here’s a first look at the cover of the French edition of ‘The Wisdom of Dead Men’. It’s going to be entitled ‘Féroces’, (‘Ferocious’), and I’m really pleased with the design. They’ve captured that ‘dark-gothic-mystery-and-violence-tempered-by-a-need-for-civilized-decorum’ feel very well indeed. You can see more versions of my book covers in my Cover Gallery. As I’ve mentioned before with the French…
I was contacted recently by researcher Milagros Torrado, from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, who has been looking into the myth of the evil eye in different cultures. He’d found my book and was interested in getting an Irish viewpoint, particularly as the book was aimed at younger readers. Balor of the Evil Eye is, of…