I still take on illustration jobs and private commissions, but it’s rare enough that I get the time to do some decent painting, so when a guy I owed a big favour to asked me to do an A3 poster of a role-playing game he’d run with his mates, based in the Star Wars universe, I thought I’d record…
Children’s Book Festival has come to a close, and I’m starting to catch up on all the things that have piled up on the desk while I’ve been running around like a blue-arsed fly, and shouting at defenceless children. One of the things I’ve got to swot up for is the Green Inking Comic Event this Saturday. I’ll be…
My brother sent me this and I thought it was pretty cool, so I’m sticking it up here. Somebody’s built a life-size motorcycle that looks remarkably like Flash, one of the ancient, living machines known as engimals that appear in the Wildenstern Saga. You can see Flash on the cover of ‘Ancient Appetites‘. ‘Merciless Reason’, the third Wildenstern book,…
On the 10th of October, Phil Hogan, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, announced that the Library Council (An Chomhairle Leabharlanna) was being dissolved. Bad as this news was for the council, it was a far worse omen for the future of the nation’s libraries. Particularly given the burnt-earth policy that is causing libraries to close…
If you’ve been to any of my talks, you may already have heard me say that, for me, the definition of a ‘Young Adult’ book is something that appeals to both young and adult readers. Looking at it this way, you could say that most of our entertainment – whether it’s written down or shown on-screen – is ‘Young…
When it comes to technology, I often think companies with powerful new applications can fail to see the difference between ‘Can we?’ and ‘Should we?’. As private companies develop increasingly bottomless resources for storing our most personal information, we, their customers, should constantly be asking how much of this is really necessary, and how much we are giving away…
So I’ve been on the road a lot over the last couple of weeks. Children’s Book Festival kicked off for real with two days in Clare at the end of September, doing sessions in Ennis and Corofin, Ennistymon and Miltown Malbay. On the way back, I stopped at the Cliffs of Moher. I think I was there when I…
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…
This post is a tribute to my Power Mac G4, a machine with which I have had a long and tumultuous working relationship; a machine I have cursed almost as often as I’ve admired. Hold onto your hats, ‘cos this could get a bit nerdy. Despite the numerous break-ups (and one or two break-downs) this Mac and I have…
A few posts back, I mentioned a guy named Mike Matas and his new company called Push Pop Press. A former Apple employee, he and his team are developing some fairly snazzy interactive books for the iPad and iPhone. They’ve been getting a lot of attention, and it seems it has served them well. I found a link to…