Seamus Heaney

 Sadly, Seamus Heaney died this morning after a short illness. A huge loss. 

This is his humorous, humble and wise birthday speech from the RTE celebration four years ago, Heaney At Seventy

The End Of The World...

Janet Cameron is a Canadian writer living in Dublin. Her first novel, Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World, was published by Hachette Ireland and was also one of the 2012 winners of the Irish Writers' Centre's inaugural Novel Fair.

Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World has got amazing reviews - astonishingly good....a juicy coming-of-age story...an important read.Witty, devastating, with a melancholy humour... It tells the story of a small town kid coming of age in the late 1980's against the backdrop of the beautiful Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. You can hear Janet read from her book at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin on Saturday at one o clock, its a free event and everyone is welcome. And I'll be there too.


I'm over at Janet Cameron's Literary love Fest today talking about zombies and the opening credits of my (imaginary, as yet) movie The Herbalist. Let me know what you think of my music choice :) You can read the Love Fest Here

Louise Phillips Interview

 

Today I'm chatting to Louise Phillips about her second novel The Dolls House. In The Dolls House we enter the fascinating arena of childhood memories and repression when one of the characters Clodagh, seeks the help of a hypnotherapist to unravel her past. Phillips leads us, step by step, into the murky world of memory. I really enjoyed this book. I have a gripe about endings in novels, many good books are wonderful at building tension only to fall flat at the end - this novel doesn't, instead it builds to a riveting climax in the last chapters. It's an excellent psychological crime thriller with a very satisfying end. I had loads of questions but I whittled them down to three -

You tried out hypnotism yourself Louise while researching The Doll’s House -  and those scenes are particularly vivid, and quite hypnotic of course! - but were you nervous about doing this? How did those sessions go?

No, I wasn’t nervous, but it was a long battle in the end. I didn’t realise that my conscious mind would put up so many obstacles. In part, I was a victim of knowing too much about hypnosis, having researched it for months. I kept second guessing the hypnotist at every turn. I am also what hypnotists refer to as an ‘analytical resistor’, and therefore it was more difficult for me. In the end, Keith Barry referred me to Tony Sadar, and although I haven’t yet successfully regressed to an earlier memory, I have managed to experience hypnosis.

The scenes in the novel are quite vivid, and really seem to have captured many readers in a very special way, which is amazing.


Do you enjoy the research part of writing? Can it be difficult to know when to stop researching and start writing?

I love the research, and I think it’s an important part of the process, especially in a crime novel. I tend to do a lot while the story is germinating in my head, then once I start writing, more avenues of research arise, and in the main, I do these concurrently with the writing process. I think once I start getting information together, I reach a point where the story is bubbling over in my mind and I have to start writing it. I’m an organic writer. I don’t plot, even those my novels are both character and plot based. It’s an adventure for me, and when you’re in the thick of the story, and you need to go on another information gathering exercise, that’s part of the adventure.

What has been your most nerve wracking experience in terms of research over the course of both books?

Hmmm… interesting question. It was probably the whole area of child abduction and murder in RED RIBBONS. As a parent, I had to face my own worse fears, but in both novels, I’ve tackled difficult subject matters, and as the writer, a responsibility comes with this. You are writing fiction, but readers enter your fictional world, and are influenced by what they read. Hand on heart, I can say, I haven’t run away from difficult issues, or used them purely for shock factor, but they are part of our world, and there’s a need to explore them with balance.

Thanks Louise for that glimpse into the world of a crime writer, and here's some more about the book, which has its very own trailer....

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Middle-aged male, multiple stab wounds, found drowned in the canal. You have my number. Call me.”

This is the message criminal psychologist Dr Kate Pearson receives one cold Saturday morning from Detective Inspector O’Connor, spoken in his usual curt manner. The middle-aged male in question is Keith Jenkins, the host of a popular TV programme, and as Kate and O’Connor begin their investigation, they find themselves faced with more questions than answers.

The past . . .

Following her mother’s recent death, Clodagh has begun to explore her past – her memories of her father, who died in a mysterious accident, and the dark tragedy that seeped through the cracks of her childhood home. When she begins to visit a hypnotherapist, scenes from her childhood begin to take shape, with interjections from a sometimes sinister cast of dolls.

. . . is waiting . . .

As Kate continues to investigate the disturbing details of the vicious murder, she is drawn closer to Clodagh’s unsettling family history. What terrible events took place in the Hamilton house all those years ago? And what connects them to the recent murder?

Time is running out for Clodagh and Kate. And the killer has already chosen his next victim…

THE DOLL’S HOUSEhas been described by crime writer, Niamh O’ Connor, as ‘chilling, mesmerising. Gets under your skin and stays with you,’ and by Myles Mc Weeney of the Irish Independent, as, ‘A gripping, suspenseful story, peopled with well-drawn characters…’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Dublin, Louise Phillips returned to writing in 2006, after raising her family. That year, she was selected by Dermot Bolger as an emerging talent. Her work has been published as part of many anthologies, including County Lines from New Island, and various literary journals. In 2009, she won the Jonathan Swift Award for her short story Last Kiss, and in 2011 she was a winner in the Irish Writers' Centre Lonely Voice platform. She has also been short-listed for the Molly Keane Memorial Award, Bridport UK, and long-listed twice for the RTE Guide/Penguin Short Story Competition.

Her bestselling debut novel, Red Ribbons, was shortlisted for Best Irish Crime Novel of the Year (2012) in the Irish Book Awards. The Doll's House is her second novel.

www.louise-phillips.com

@LouiseMPhillips

www.facebook.com/LouisePhillips

Bossy Post

The deadline for the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair is October 16th. 

Writers are often overly critical of their own work and keep putting stuff like this off, at least until every sentence is a work of art. If you recognise yourself in that description, just take the plunge and submitt your work! I was pushed to enter in 2012 and it led to meeting the publisher of my debut novel. So, in the spirit of paying that pushiness forward...

Go on, go on ! All they need is a synopsis and 10,000 words! You have nothing to lose. Being selected for the fair means by passing the slush pile and increasing your chances of publication, how bad is that?

I posted an interview with Carrie from the Irish Writers Centre last year-  it can be read  HERE 

And another thing...

NUI Kilkenny Campus (St Kieran's College, Kilkenny)are having an open evening this Thursday 29th from 5.30- 8pm - they run the wonderful Creative Writing For Publication Course, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Its perfect for anyone who wants to take their writing further, with accessible fees and a one weekend-a- month schedule.

Ok. End of broadcast :)

Interview, Creative Writing for Publication & Floozies

Mary Healy

Happy Saturday! Only three more sleeps till school opens! Looking forward to getting my writing hours back. I love autumn and the change of seasons, after a horrible dry spell of writing drivel, ideas are now throwing themselves at me like floozies - I'm dreaming in my settings and waking up in character... Anyway, today I'm over at Mary Healy's Blog answering questions such as... Where does creativity come from? You can read my answers here!

All About Mary:

Like me, Mary is a graduate of the NUI Maynooth of Creative Writing for Publication Course, a one year part time course (one weekend a month)  based in Kilkenny and taught by Suzanne Power and John MacKenna. Published in anthologies, Mary's work features on the RTE Ten website. She has also won the UCD Masters Anthology Competition and prizes in The Irish Writers Centre in 2011 and 2012. Highly commended in the Bryan MacMahon Competition, she was also in the top ten of RTE Guide Penguin/Eason’s Short Story Competition. And her blog is called Mary Healy Books

Abridged - In Blue

Yves Klein

Abridged 0 – 34: In Blue Submission Call

Abridged, the poetry/art magazine is looking for submissions for its In Blue issue. 

A maximum of 3 poems may be submitted of any length. (I love that its any length, the usual 40 line limit can be a pain for the long winded amongst us.)

Art can be up to A4 size and can be in any media. It should be at least 300 dpi. 

Submissions can (preferably) be emailed to abridged@ymail.com 

or posted to: Abridged c/o The Verbal Arts Centre, Stable Lane and Mall Wall, Bishop Street Within, Derry BT48 6PU. Closing date for submission is 30th September 2013.

'This issue encourages the consideration of the vital connotations of the concept of ‘blue’ to the human condition and the individual’s contemplation of place, purpose, self and essence. The strong association of the colour blue with the natural (the sea and sky), the broken (melancholy) and the forbidden (pornography) have led to said colour concurrently evoking ideas of apparent wholesomeness, failure and seedy delinquency. Blue runs underneath us and domes above us; it is what bore us and what we aspire through imagination to return to: another dimension, another means of perceiving, breathing, moving, experiencing… It is the colour of the most subtle moods of pain, not burning with the disarming immediacy of horror or despair but throbbing in mellow multiplicity and tonal diversity, slowly moving through the depths of reflection. Blue dances with dappled light, altering perception and renewing reflection. In creative discourses we take it from outside us and hold it as our own, making our subtle moods of humanity material by weaving them through its soft, swelling diversity. Blue was our home, to blue we long to return. We wish to wallow in its mellow discontent hoping for a return to the good old days. Days that never did or could have existed: days that define us.

You can find out more HERE

The Lady Loves

 The Herbalist is reviewed over at Jennifer Ryan's gorgeous website The Lady Loves Books today, you can read what she thought HERE

The Herbalist spent eight weeks on the Original Fiction Top Ten bestseller list here in Ireland, and has just gone into reprint. It's due to be published in the UK on September 26th (and is also available in Canada.) In the meantime, I'm finishing the first draft of a new novel and trying to write stories, but until the kids are back in school its difficult nigh impossible to get a clear run at things, it would be nice to be more productive but I'll make do with being patient :) Roll on September!

Could you be Kildare Readers Festival's Official Blogger?

 

Joesph O' Connor at the Kildare Readers Festival

The Kildare Readers Festival are looking for an official Blogger for the duration of the 2013 Festival. You will be covering the weekend of the 11th to the 13th October, including Fringe events in the lead up to the weekend. Last years line up included Ann Egan, Dermot Bolger, Joesph O Connor, Martina Reilly, Paul Durcan among many others.

Access will be given to all events throughout the Festival, and a fee will be provided for expenses! All you have to do is email a link from your blog, with a brief bio to krf@kildarecoco.ie 

Closing date is Friday, August 30th & best of luck if you submit

Lunch Time Reading

Janet Cameron

I'll be reading at The Irish Writers Centre  alongside Janet Cameron on Sat 31st August at 1pm.

Its at lunchtime, its free and everyone's welcome.

'Join us at the Centre for another Lunchtime Reading. This afternoon we have two new writers who's debut novels have both been met with a great deal of fanfare. Niamh and Janet secured book deals following the Centre's inaugural Novel Fair competition.

Both writers will read from their work and muse on the challenges facing new writers - in particular how one sets about promoting their own work.'

The Temple Of Isis

Th

with Donagh

Having a great bank holiday weekend, combining writing research and fun, these photos are from The Temple Of Isis in Huntington Castle, Co Carlow. Happy Bank holiday Weekend :)