BooksNI

Twisted Agendas

2011-10-22T22:18:00.000+01:00

THE second novel by Northern Irish writer Damian McNicholl is currently enjoying great critical acclaim.

In Twisted Agendas, Danny who is desperate to escape his predetermined existence decides to break out from life in Northern Ireland, and move to London. He then meets Piper, a friendly and outgoing American girl on a quest of her own.

Two very different worlds are thrown together as Danny is willingly absorbed into unfamiliar territory. However, the Hammersmith Bridge is then bombed, Piper disappears without a trace and Danny finds himself the centre of a police investigation, hounded by whispers of the IRA.

Dark, yet humorous, Danny and Piper’s story is one of dysfunctional parenting, clashing motives and twenty- something’s negotiating love and big city life.

‘Fast-paced, poignant, often humorous and consistently un-put-downable, McNicholl’s latest novel is the work of a writer at the top of his game,’ says Alexander Fitzgerald, Editor, Irish Tatler Man

‘A compelling and entertaining romp through other people's inter-tangled lives… From terrorists to lovers to meddling fathers, Damian deftly weaves comic misunderstandings with a larger more ominous theme of authority going slightly mad… Author Patricia Wood, author of Lottery (shortlisted for the 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction)

‘A thoroughly engrossing transatlantic adventure…' Irish World

‘Comic, courageous and often painful, this is a beautifully paced and balanced novel that will have an assured place in contemporary Irish writing,’ says Seamus Deane, shortlisted for Booker Prize

Damian was born in Northern Ireland and attended law school at University College, Cardiff. His first novel, A Son Called Gabriel, was an American Booksellers Association Booksense Pick, Foreword Magazine, and Lambda Literary Awards finalist. Film rights for the novel have been acquired by award winning Director Tom Collins. In addition to other media, he’s appeared on National Public Radio’s The Marty Moss Coane Show, Irish Radio Network's The Adrian Flannelly Show and BBC Radio Ulster's Arts Extra to discuss his work.

He maintains a blog at www.damianm.blogspot.com and can be found on Twitter at @damianmcn. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and is at work on his third novel.

New book by NI writer hailed as potential Bestseller!

2011-08-29T14:41:00.003+01:00

The Whore and her Mother

Raymond McCullough, from County Down, has been writing successfully for years. He began by publishing a magazine, Bread, which went to nearly every possible type of denomination in Ireland, and all over the island (from Catholic to Free Presbyterian and from Cork to Coleraine, and Galway to Dublin) at the height of the troubles. The mediating influence of this magazine certainly contributed more than can be quantified to the eventual ceasefires.

Raymond then moved on to having numerous articles published in computer magazines, while earning a living as a college lecturer; to having his thoughts on Ireland published by the Irish Times and the Presbyterian Herald; and to self publishing a book, 'Ireland – Now the Good News', excerpts from Bread.

Since those days, he has mainly concentrated on radio and podcasts (Celtic Roots Radio currently has nearly 14,000 downloads a month) but recent developments in the world around us, together with the serious urging of various friends, have now decided him to complete, and publish, the book he has been putting together for some time, with the striking title, 'The Whore and her Mother.'

This book takes a long hard look at the forecasts of the Hebrew prophets (respected by at least three of the major world religions) and it attempts, in the light of current events, to work out how accurate they have been up until now, how far we can therefore trust their future predictions, and how we should interpret their meaning.

At a time when the devastating events of recent years are forcing even the completely unreligious to describe them as 'apocalyptic,' and those who have some belief to ask urgent questions, here is a book which makes a serious effort to come to terms with the question of what will happen next, and how close we might be to the end of this world as we know it.

Unlike others, Raymond McCullough makes no attempt to prophecy himself, but lucidly, straightforwardly, with academic precision, but also with page turning excitement, puts the pieces of the jigsaw into some sort of order, and gives us his best guess as to what we should now expect, while inviting us not to swallow his ideas, but to read up his references and judge for ourselves.

This is a book which no one should miss. Buy it on Amazon Kindle for £2.99, or look out for the paperback, coming soon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whore-her-Mother-Babylon-ebook/dp/B005J0HL3U/
http://www.kingdomcome.org.uk/911
http://preciousoil.com/books/The_Whore.shtml

2011-03-07T09:52:00.004Z

Everything Else We Must Endure

Author: Brian McGettrick

Publisher: Sunnyoutside, Buffalo, NY

Paperback, 52 pages

Category: Poetry

Available From:

www.sunnyoutside.com

www.spdbooks.org

In Belfast At:

No Alibis, Botanic Avenue

Bookfinders, University Road

Synopsis

Everything Else We Must Endure allows the reader to peep through domestic doors not fully closed and see the varied interiors of the lives being led, introducing us to memorable characters who re- mind us that not all action takes place in the spotlight. In these poems, even the mundane sparkles and sometimes it’s the young who have wisdom to spare.

Author

Brian McGettrick lives a half life in front of the typewriter and a full life with his wife and two daughters in the north of Ireland. This is his first collection.

Praise

“Brian’s rich talent allows him to say so much with so little, to craft emotion and meaning with such simple, gentle, everyday words. This is welcome, accessible poetry; honest, generous, warm and wise. This collection is a deep-dive exploration into the simple distractions of life, and one which reminds the reader of the joy— and the uneasiness—which surrounds us all.”

—Jason Johnson, author of Woundlicker and Alina

“Sharp, often funny, sometimes world weary, always interesting.”

—Tony O’Neill, author of Digging the Vein and Down and Out on Murder Mile

“Brian McGettrick’s poetry stands out because it combines a focus on the reality of everyday life situations with an ability to excite surprise or wonder in the reader...these poems deal with themes that are everywhere around us.”

—Eabhan Ní Shúileabháin, poetry editor, The Stinging Fly

2010-11-30T10:21:00.004Z

Would you like Belfast Girls in your stocking this Christmas?

Award-winning Irish author, Gerry McCullough, releases her debut novel, 'Belfast Girls', on Amazon.com

The new full-length debut novel, Belfast Girls - from Ireland’s award-winning author, Gerry McCullough - has just been released on Amazon by new UK publisher, Night Publishing. This story of three girls growing up in contemporary Belfast captures the high life - and lowlife - of these post-conflict times, including drugs, high fashion, addiction and crime.

Gerry has been a successful short story writer for many years - with stories, poems and articles published regularly in magazines and anthologies in Ireland, UK and USA, and broadcast on BBC Radio. In 2005 she won the Cuírt International Literary Award in Galway, Ireland, for her short story, Primroses, and has been shortlisted/commended for other awards since then.

Says Gerry of Belfast Girls, “I’m bouncing off the walls! It’s something I’ve lived for and worked for my whole life, so I couldn’t tell you how happy I am. I’m hoping for a lot of support from the people of Ireland and beyond and I think the book is something everyone will enjoy.”

Her first novel follows the lives and loves of three girls from different religious backgrounds. In a city where such differences often separate, the girls manage to remain firm friends into adulthood. Their love lives are much more complicated, though. Sheila, the ‘ugly duckling turned beautiful swan’, becomes a successful super-model - dubbed the ‘ice maiden’ - but hides her unhappiness and dissatisfaction beneath the ice cool exterior.

Phil sets her heart on Davy, but he gets more and more entangled in the local crime scene, eventually dragging her down with him. Mary is wild and uncontrolled - until she almost overdoes it - then manages to re-build her life on a more solid foundation. John is all that Davy is not - solid, ambitious, serious, but also self-righteous, angry and conflicted. Drawn to one another, yet somehow repelled, John and Sheila’s love affair is more off than on. Where will it end?

Belfast Girls managed to make it to the top of the HarperCollins’Authonomy.com site last April, earning Gerry a review from this major publisher. But it was Night Publishing, a smaller UK company, which actually offered to publish her first novel - without forcing it into any particular ‘genre’ pigeon-hole. The result is a novel which has plenty for everyone - action, emotion, gunmen, kidnapping, glamour and despair.

This novel is a thriller, romance, comedy and drama, rolled into one - as Gerry says, “Like most people’s lives!” So, why not put Belfast Girls into your stocking this season?

Belfast Girls paperback/Kindle editions available on Amazon.com, Kindleedition also on Amazon.co.uk

The River and Other Stories by Seán Mackel

2010-11-24T21:21:00.000Z

GUILDHALL PRESS

launch debut novel

The River and Other Stories

Seán Mackel

Clarendon Bar Lounge, Strand Road, Derry

Thursday 25 November at 7:30pm

Guildhall Press is pleased to announce the launch of The River and Other Stories, a collection of short stories from local author Seán Mackel. This absorbing debut publication explores the intricacy of narratives between people and place, across time and territory. In the title story, an ageing house painter discovers the river to be the only true bridge. Elsewhere, a young couple reconciles the past through music, a dusty professor finds release working with a Czech puppeteer, and a surprise awaits the 1948 Tillies Shirt Factory Queen. The reader embarks on an intriguing journey beginning in 1920’s Donegal through Derry during WWII, from Australia to Poland and back again to a contemporary city on the cusp of cultural celebration.

Seán explains: “The thirteen short stories are thematically linked by a river, in this case the Foyle. In exploring these narratives, I was influenced by one translation of An Feabhal as ‘estuary of the lip’. And it was this link between life and language, which intrigued me. So the first story in my collection acknowledges the Irish language as the roots of our imagination. The collection then flows forward from the 1920s, through the forties, and addressing the Troubles, it continues up to the present day featuring characters from Australia , the Czech Republic , Germany , France and Poland . Given our recent history in the North, the title story, The River, explores the idea of truth. It is placed at the physical centre of the book. Like the River Foyle itself it has the capacity to divide and, more importantly, to unite.”

Seán added: “I’d like to give special thanks to Marilyn McLaughlin who was instrumental in the editing process of this collection and to Guildhall Press and the Arts Council for giving me the opportunity to have my work published. I hope everyone will enjoy my stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them.”

Included are stories previously short-listed for the Brian Moore Short Story Award 2003/04, Raymond Carver Short Story Contest 2004 and the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award 2008. In his foreword to The River and Other Stories, Derry-born author Sean O’Reilly writes:

‘These stories display a scrupulous sympathy for the characters and the small rewards they find in their attempts to keep on going. The writing is simple and honest and touched with wonder ... With great delicacy, these stories ask the question: What saves us all from drowning in the past?’

Seán Mackel was born in Belfast in 1957. He now lives in the North West of Ireland. His poetry has appeared in Cuirt Journal, Cyphers, HU, Poetry Ireland , Waterford Review and Four W, Australia . A chapbook collection of his poetry, Strangled Laughter, was published in 1998.

The River and Other Stories by Seán Mackel is published by Guildhall Press and supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Paperback. ISBN: 978-1-906271-33-6. £7.95. Available from all good bookshops and www.ghpress.com

'left of soul'- poems by Colin Dardis

2010-11-23T15:31:00.002Z

'left of soul' is the new collection of poems from Colin Dardis.

Originally from Omagh, Country Tyrone, Colin now resides in Belfast, where he currently edits the poetry e-zine 'Speech Therapy'. Previously, Colin has been a co-ordinator of Make Yourself Heard, a monthly performance poetry night in Belfast, and has worked as a Poet In Motion for the New Belfast Community Arts Initiative. He has also performed with the Belfast Poets. Notable readings include the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Between The Lines and the Castlereagh Verbal Arts Festival.

Colin is a poet who displays hunger for understanding of himself and the world around him. His poetry display an ever present sense of hope through times of love, sadness, death and joy, while sprakling with humour, honesty, modesty, and a touch of the absurd.

'left of soul'- available to buy now and preview via Lulu.com

Your chance to meet the Godfather of Punk.

2010-11-12T22:18:00.002Z

I'd the privilege this week of meeting and having a few drinks with a Northern Irish legend, the legend that is Mr Terri Hooley. What was planned as just a meeting for my wife to get his book 'Hooleygan' signed took a wee bit longer than I'd expected.She was also fortunate to have the book signed by both Terri and Richard Sullivan, Richard I believe put a lot of hard work into both persuading Terri to have the book written and writing the book.I reckon this book will be the Northern Irish bestseller this Christmas.

If you want to get a copy of the book signed both Terri Hooley and Richard Sullivan they will be signing copies in Waterstone's Fountain Street, Belfast tomorrow, Saturday 13 November, from 2.00pm.

If you haven't bought the book yet, buy it now! Did I mention it's called Hooleygan.

When Bedlam won't be.

2010-11-10T22:18:00.002Z

I shouldn't really tell you about this as I might miss all the bargains.Last year I was at something similar run by Jenni and it was impressive and I left needing to purchase another bookcase...

WHAT ? - For two days only, in the front foyer of the Old Library in Great James Street, local online Bookshop, LITTLE ACORNS BOOKSTORE will have a stall at Derry's innovative and most exciting indoor weekend market – BEDLAM MARKET.

With an overall stock of 7,000 books, stock has been specifically chosen for sale over the two-day period in keeping with the nature of the market and other stalls: vintage, retro, antiques, arts and crafts.

There will also be books on film, television, music (biographies, history, pictorial etc), literature (drama, poetry, study guides etc), fashion, arts, crafts, Irish/Ireland-related plus mixed fiction, alongside selected children's titles.

New and used books will all be discounted, many of which will be cheaper to buy than online and in the high street.

To compliment the books, a small selection of used and new CDs and cassettes – jazz, blues, film soundtracks, swing etc – will be on sale.

Other stock available:

As-good-as-new magazines on books, publishing, writing (Books Ireland, the Bookseller, Publishing News, the New Yorker, Writers' News etc). Plus arty postcards and second-hand film star prints/postcards (Marilyn Monroe, James Dean etc).

Local, hand-made, specially created gift cards and other small crafts from Marilyn McLaughlin.

And possibly a few other unique surprises – perfect for stocking fillers or Christmas gifts!

Please feel free to suggest or ask after any specific books/subjects in advance that can then be made available (if in stock) on the day.

This is a one-off Book Stall, so please do come along and feel free to spread the word!

Email: wonderfulworldofworders@yahoo.co.uk

Web: http://www.amazon.co.uk/shops/littleacornsbookstore

WHERE ? - Bedlam Weekend Market (Basement of Old Library)35 Great James Street, Derry, N Ireland

WHEN ? - Starts @ 10am this Saturday and finishes sometime on Sunday.

Promoting books, authors and publishers from and in Northern Ireland.

2010-11-06T15:31:00.001Z

I mentioned on YeWhat.Biz that I was feeling slightly guilty about this blog gathering dust over the last few months. It still has visitors even though the last blog post was in June. I've decided I'd like to open it up to authors, poets & publishers from and in Northern Ireland who want to use it to promote their books, book signings, appearances etc. Also if you've read a book about Northern Ireland or written by a Northern Irish author and you want to review it on here it's open for you to blog about that.It can be used to reblog blog posts or articles that have been written for other sites that can be reposted on BooksNI

I'm going to be sending out invites by email to people inviting them to start blogging here @ BooksNI. If you are one of these people please feel free to blog about, as it says on the tagline of the site, books written by authors from and in Northern Ireland. Sadly the blog/website can only have up to 100 authors, so if your reading this and want to post on this site email me soon so I can add you as an author.I'm afraid there is no payment for writing/blogging on this site, it's just another avenue for people to find out about your latest book.

Highlighting the people and places that make Northern Ireland...

2010-11-05T21:15:00.000Z

@YeWhat.Biz #booksni

2010-06-26T12:35:00.002+01:00

Taking a break from blogging here @ BooksNI and in the meantime read blog posts

@ YeWhat.Biz

editor's desk - 05 days 02:40:01 left...

2010-06-25T21:15:00.002+01:00

The clock is ticking and Owen now only has just over 5 days left to make it into the top 5. To encourage you to back the book, if you haven't already done so here's a review of The Time Warriors. It's reviewed by Christine who works as a civil servant in Belfast. She was told about Owen Quinn's book through a friend. Sci-fi is not her usual usual thing but she backed it on Authonomy and before she knew it she had read the first two chapters.

The Time Warriors is an engrossing read which took me by surprise. The scifi elements are well placed and the character of Varran is an intriguing one; a man who hasn't aged but doesn't know if he is immortal or not. As he tells Tyran, he has never had the inclination to throw himself under a bus to find out.
The book is made up of 17 different stories but all connected and building towards a series finale in Tempest where everything comes together in a rip roaring adventure that threatens Earth and more importantly, the Time Warriors themselves.
Without spoiling it, what shines amid the scifi and aliens is the human drama where Owen deals with bullies, unrequited love and bizarrely, makes losing your virginity a life changing event. I cried at the end of Homecoming as Jacke deals with the death of her grandmother and questions herself.
And this is another plus for the book. I actually care about these characters and what they go through and Owen has given each one a journey of self discovery, again cleverly using scfi adventure as a backdrop.
What I found a good device was, you think you know what is going on but Owen twists your expectations. He says they battle Bigfoot, Jack the Ripper and the Celts but each one subverts what you think and becomes something quite different and engaging.
The fact we now have a Nr Irish, black female lead is a brilliant idea as I could see Belfast and for once, the troubles are not the focal point of being Irish, living your life in this new Ireland is but with aliens and villains creeping at our doors here in the North, life just got a whole lot creepier.
The Time Warriors is a visual treat, such vivid imagery and breath taking stories that will take you by the scruff of the neck and throw you into worlds you never imagined.
If this doesn't put us on the map, then nothing will. Superb.
Remember, everyting happens for a reason! You have been warned.

To help Owen make it into the Top Five...

Register (simple) on http://www.authonomy.com
Search for 'THE TIME WARRIORS' and click on it
Then click on 'Back the book'

#FollowFriday @garrett_carr

2010-06-25T00:08:00.002+01:00

According to mashable.com #FollowFriday began with a simple tweet @ 5:53 PM Jan 16th, 2009 it went...

I am starting Follow Fridays. Every Friday, suggest a person to follow, and everyone follow him/her. Today its @fancyjeffrey & @w1redone.

The idea is to think of interesting people you already follow and recommend them to others.
Mykl Roventine suggested the hashtag #followfriday, and a few friends (Chris Brogan, Erin Kotecki Vest, Aaron Brazell and Jim Kukral) helped spread the word. On the first FollowFriday, there were almost two #followfriday tweets per second at its peak.By Saturday morning, there was no trace of FollowFriday.Then late the next Thursday night, suddenly #followfriday tweets began to appear in foreign languages! It seemed that FollowFriday was back. Now, every Friday, people suggest other people to follow.
As it's Friday I thought for all you tweeters out there and those who haven't yet started tweeting that I should suggest a #FollowFriday. Suggested because the tweeter puts a bit of effort into his poetic tweets. He isn't followed by or following thousands of people yet, but I'd reckon he has one of the best twitter pages I've seen yet. Tweets like...

- Wendy and I had the craic / on today's Talkback / Hope I kept my cool / and not blab like a fool - http://bit.ly/cjrO4l (@wendytalksback)

- You have an hour and half / to win a copy of my book / have a go, it's a laugh / a few others have partook - http://bit.ly/9tGeOk

- A change is as good as a break / But I’ll get both at Flat Lake - www.theflatlakefestival.com

- Me and Monsters in No Alibis / come along, or send your spies - http://bit.ly/aoHZed @young_at_Art @CultureNI @NI4kids

The twitterer is Garrett Carr who comes from a town in the west of Ireland. He has a background in illustration and has worked for governmental agencies in his native Ireland and for development agencies in Latin America. Now living in Belfast, he he contributes to the city's burgeoning literary scene with publications, exhibitions and readings.The books he has written include Lost Dogs a children's book due to be published in Nov. The blurb for it reads...

At last there is peace in the city. A shipment of vicious creatures will be exported , twitterfaraway. Their containers rattle, howl and smell of death. But not everyone is keen to see them leave. Shouldn't the place that makes the monsters keep them? Ewan has returned to the city for his father's trial. May has joined a school for special talents. Andrew wants only to keep out of trouble. But trouble is sure to find them. It has their scent.

The Badness of Ballydog published earlier this year is about May, Andrew and Ewan. Something is coming ...something big. May knows it, but no one will listen to her. She is an outcast due to her odd ways and freakish ability with animals. Andrew knows it, but he has his position as gang leader to maintain. Ewan knows it, but what can he do? The sea creature is the biggest living thing on the face of the earth. And it won't stop until it has destroyed Ballydog. Can three teenagers save the baddest town in the world from its fate? Is it even worth saving?

Thanks Garrett, for entertaining the big kids like me on twitter and I hope more people discover the hidden tweasure of your tweets. Yes , every word in the English language can be changed to a tweet word, hence treasure = tweasure. That reminds me Johnathan ~~Woss~~ Ross is on twitter and as it's Friday he maybe on TV later too.

The Twelve by Stuart Neville: Out now in paperback.

2010-06-23T23:11:00.001+01:00

For any aliens who've just landed on this planet or ex prisoners who've been banged up in solitary with only a Bible to read for the last year there's a book now out in mass market paperback you just have to read. I can't believe it's nearly a year since the book was first published, nearly a year since I enjoyed reading it. It's a book that I just might read again sometime.The book is entitled The Twelve and is written by Stuart Neville.
I've been reading Stuarts blog for a few years now and it's been great to see how the book started and progressed over the years. We even got to read snippets of the book on the blog. Like every good blogger Stuart found it hard to resist a blogging exercise.
Back in April 2007 he blogged...

A few weeks back, Sex Scenes at Starbucks posted an interesting exercise on her blog. The idea is to go to page 123 of your work in progress, go to the fifth line, and take an excerpt from that paragraph. At the time I was at page twenty-something, so did it with page 23. Now I've reached page 123 I'm having another go. Here it is (complete with my customary foul language):

Campbell grinned as Toner dragged him out to the street.
"What the fuck are you at?" asked Toner, his watery eyes wide, his mouth gaping under his thick moustache.
"He was asking for it," said Campbell.
Toner straightened his black tie. "Jesus Christ, Davy! Eddie Coyle's an arsehole, everyone knows that, but you don't beat the shit out of him in front of his mates if you're looking to make friends around here."
Campbell pointed to the Jaguar at the kerb. "That yours?"
"Aye," said Toner, seeming to grow a full inch taller.
Campbell picked glass from his palm. "Well, quit yapping and take me to McGinty."

What I'm particularly pleased with is that I've written almost 100 pages just a few weeks. :)

For the aliens, ex prisoners still reading, the blurb for the book reads...

Sooner or later, everybody pays – and the dead will set the price...

Former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan is haunted by his victims, twelve souls who shadow his every waking day and scream through every drunken night. Just as he reaches the edge of sanity they reveal their desire: vengeance on those who engineered their deaths. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all must pay the price.

When Fegan’s vendetta threatens to derail Northern Ireland’s peace process and destabilise its fledgling government, old comrades and enemies alike want him gone. David Campbell, a double agent lost between the forces of law and terror, takes the job. But he has his own reasons for eliminating Fegan; the secrets of a dirty war should stay buried, even if its ghosts do not.

Set against the backdrop of a post-conflict Northern Ireland struggling with its past, The Twelve takes the reader from the back streets of the city, where violence and politics go hand-in-hand, to the country’s darkest heart. Stuart Neville’s gripping thriller marks the emergence of a brilliant new voice.

There are moments when reading the book it's nice to see something about Stuart that's recognisable. An example being his love of guitars. I was checking his blog tonight to try and find a photograph he'd posted displaying his impressive collection of guitars but sadly couldn't find it.In the book in chapter six he writes...

Fegan picked up the whetstone and ran it along the fingerboard again, back and forth, the rhythm soothing him... lowered the guitar to the felt sheet that protected its lacquered finish...

Writing like that and his obvious love of that instrument make me want to hear him play, hopefully that will happen sometime soon somewhere here in NI, hint hint Stuart.Maybe a gig of some sort to launch your next book :-)

The reviews for his new book which is entitled Collusionare starting already The official UK launch of COLLUSION is due to be on the 29th July 2010 @ No Alibis Bookstore, Botanic Avenue, Belfast Check the No Alibis site or Stuarts site for more details.

After all is said and done, more is said than done!

2010-06-23T01:09:00.000+01:00

Join in, have fun...

BooksNI: The Forum

Introducing, Northern Irish sci-fi author Owen Quinn.

2010-06-20T20:55:00.004+01:00

"I'm a 41 year old kid that at this stage will never grow up. I get excited every time I see a certain police box and in that moment when you actually stand on the threshold you believe that there may be more behind those wood panelled Tardis doors" Yes, that's what Owen's about me section on his Authonomy page reads. Owen's another Northern Irish author on the campaign trail, campaigning for your backing for his book THE TIME WARRIORS Moving up the ranks Owen's hoping that he'll make it all the way up to the top 5 so that the book will be read by the publisher, Harper Collins, with the possibility then of a publishing deal.He's 10 days left to achieve his dream. I met Owen last week and interrogated him, not quite Castlereagh style.

...

Why Authonomy, aren’t there more conventional routes to getting a book published?
Getting a publishing deal is bloody hard and you usually need an agent. Most publishers won't look at you without it. I was offered a deal in February this year by a London publisher (pretty big and well known) except it turned out to be a Vanguard contract where I had to pay £4,600 over 10 months and they would publish it. Not having that sort of money I said no, so they came back and offered to drop it to £4,000 over 15 months but again I said no. I would have been tempted if I had that sort of money but to be honest, if I'm doing all the work, sitting to all hours of the morning to write this, then no way am I paying someone else for my work.So my agent Bill Jeffrey told me to put it on Authonomy and literally, put it to the public vote so here we are, just over 3 months and I'm on the verge of the 100's.

You wrote your first novel when you were just 16, what inspired that? What was the novel about? Any snippets from it you’d want to share?
I was desperate to write for Dr Who so hand wrote a complete story, designed a cover and everything and sent it off, expecting it to be snapped up but they didn't read handwritten scripts so sent me a lovely letter along with the manuscript back.I was so affronted at this complete lack of acceptance i decided to create my own series of people to protect the Earth. How simple was I? It became the origin story of the Time Warriors called Wail of the Banshee and it told of how they all came together. It involved an alien entity trying to reassert a foothold back in our reality, an unfortunate side effect being the universe itself began to fall apart. With Varran being the only man in creation that has looked into the heart of the universe, he races to stop the creature before it completes its mission. Set in the Ireland of past and present, the battlefield would have been Ireland during the potato famine.The book on Authonomy is actually books 2 and 3 of the series because when I came to write Banshee, I found that although I knew the characters, I didn't really KNOW them at all so began to write The Time Warriors in a set of 17 stories that could be read as standalone but as a whole form a complete story rather like how they do shows these days like Dr Who, Primeval and Merlin.

Was there what might be called a defining moment when you realised you had to pull the finger out and get a book written and published?
Yes, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumour 5 years ago and died in exactly 16 weeks. It was a devastating time and had a profound effect on me, so although the story had been sitting in my head for years, that's when I decided this was the time.I am determined for this to happen and it will be dedicated to him.

You’re extremely passionate about pushing for a publishing deal are you as passionate and dedicated during the writing process?
Yes, it's a bit like going to the gym, it's just getting yourself in the frame of mind to do it but once you're in, you're flying. My poor wife has had to go to bed many a night alone because I'm writing. Problem is it's not something you can switch on or off, you just have to be in the mood and right mind set to do it. I have seen myself tossing and turning and having to get up in the middle of the night just to write one page and once it's done, I fall right to sleep.

Have you had a lifetime interest in science fiction or has it developed the older you get?
Oh definitely lifetime. I credit my mother for getting me into it because I remember running upstairs in terror to my room the second I heard the Jon Pertwee era theme music and my punishment for being naughty was being sent to bed before Star Trek came on. Like all things there's good and bad but when it's good, it's good.

Do you think that science fiction writers aren’t taken seriously enough by people in Northern Ireland?
Unless you're Eoin Colfer, damn right. What I have found is there is no support network or forum for Irish writers. Even the BBC have no submissions dept here, it all goes over the water which is no good for us. Bill Jeffrey was the only literary agent in Nr Ireland and I found him by chance. There are pockets of groups and sci-fi events but no real sounding board to let everyone know what is going on or what new authors are out there. We are the land of saints and scholars but have been swamped by others who have the workshops and support networks we don't. So where are the focal points to get us noticed? Although thanks to the likes of Dr Who, the sci-fi profile has jumped ten fold and unlike my day, it's cool to be a sci-fi fan. Merlin, Robin Hood, primeval and ashes to Ashes are all off the back of the high profile of Dr Who. They have a Welsh, Scottish and English voice but I'm not hearing any Irish voice in the mix. I intend to change that.

How do science fiction writers get inspired, could it be looking at everyday life from a different angle or are there other forces at work in your mind?
I personally am fed up watching crap that any monkey can write. My ideas just come to me or I'll read something and think that would make a good story. If you start reading history, a lot of weird things have happened to people especially historical figures, events that would be deemed supernatural. So we have a rich background to use and besides, it's educational.

A comment about your writing on Authonomy read…Wow. The comments about your book are almost as riveting as the book itself! The fact that so many people have taken a lot of time to write their comments tells me that they have found something good in your book and something worth commenting on. I'm not sure I'm qualified to assess the merits of your writing but I am impressed that your story has touched so many people.
I’ve seen other comments which might be described as constructive criticism, do you take on board what has been said? Do you edit your work that’s already up on Authonmomy or is it that the final draft?
It's always a work in progress. I'm constantly re jiggling or rewriting things because I'm never entirely happy and want the plot points closed. Sometimes you get too close and you need a fresh pair of eyes. You can tell constructive criticism from people who want to help out from those just out to bitch and tear you down.

What makes you and your writing unique? Why out of the hundreds of authors on Authonomy should we vote for you?
Because it's bloody brilliant! LOL. Seriously, I'm an Irishman on a mission to put us back on the market which is why Jacke is black, female and from Belfast. I have a slew of stories that will take pace in Irish history, people forget how diverse we are. I have given my characters solid self journey arcs and that's why I tagged the book sci-fi with a heart. Anyone can write aliens and monster ass kicking but unless you make your characters lovable and relatable, forget it, it's just pulp. That's why my book deals with bullying, unrequited love, losing loved ones and your virginity, victimisation, loneliness, conspiracy, revenge,self worth and friendships in unlikely places. If your story hasn't got heart, it's just a story.Plus I did a few test subjects, people who don't go near scifi, I had several moved to the point of tears and the rest liked it, they saw what I saw in my head, so something must work in its favour. Remember £4.600 stopped it being printed this year. Damn poverty!

Is it easy to vote for you on Authonomy?
Yes, google Authonomy and register as a new reader. Then search for me or the Time Warriors. Once there click on BACK THE BOOK. If in doubt check your bookshelf or contact me on my facebook or via David Todd. Come on guys, let's get the Irish back on the map!

On you’re Authonomy page you write… It's bloody hard to get a publishing deal! If a deal doesn’t materialise through Harper Colins what next?
I keep going until it's published, I will knock on every door until I make this happen. It's in my blood and there's nothing I can do to change that. But have no doubt, The Time Warriors are coming!

...

Lets help make it happen and make way for the Time Warriors, it's as simple as 1,2,3...

Register (simple) on http://www.authonomy.com
Search for 'THE TIME WARRIORS' and click on it
Then click on 'Back the book'

C. S. Lewis...

2010-06-19T12:54:00.000+01:00

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

BooksNI

2010-06-18T12:56:00.002+01:00

According to an article on CultureNI BooksNI.COM is finally being launched this evening. Back in March I'd blogged @ YeWhat.Biz

I'd been asked to speak at a networking event for book publishers in Northern Ireland,which I didn't do. I'm that shy and retiring and feel comfortable hiding behind a big blog-wall. I'd also noticed more and more press releases and invites to numerous events in my inbox from book publishers. To add to this it seemed to me there was a gap that wasn't being filled, interesting information about books and authors from N.I. that could be shared. So I started http://www.BooksNI.Biz

At the time when I chose the domain name BooksNI.BIZ I noticed that the domain name BooksNI.COM directed me to The Colourpoint Group's website I then set up BooksNI.BIZ I've since discovered that the Colourpoint Group also own booksni.org, books-ni.org, books-ni.com and booksni.co.uk. BooksNI.NET however has been registered by another Northern Irish publisher. I was in discussions with the team from Colourpoint to see if we could merge this blog BooksNI.BIZ with their site and was made an offer to write

One article 300-500 words a month, topic TBD
One column of review shorts (five or six pars each of four to six books – bni to provide the review copies)
One column of literary news briefs (two to three pars each, as many as you deem appropriate)

I had to refuse this as I didn't have the time to do it and I believe that blogging about books is more of a natural process and not that regimented as suggested.I also refused to work for Colourpoint/BooksNI.COM because as a book buyer I would find it hard to buy any books from a site that when you search for one of the top Northern Irish authors there aren't any books written by that author. When I met the team about a month ago I pointed out to them that if you search for Colin Bateman on their site the results come up include a book by Ivan Martin entitled David Healy: The Story So Far. A month on they haven't corrected this. There were other 'site problems' that'd make me hesitant to buy from the site I'd noticed and told them about then, which I haven't had time to check to see if they've fixed yet. I'm sure there are even more booksni domain names available and would love to see more people buying them up and using them to promote books written by people from Northern Ireland, published in Northern Ireland or books that are about Northern Irish topics.

To add to the intrigue the Arts Council have recently pointed out on their website...

Books NI, a company comprising four Arts Council-funded organisations (Blackstaff Press, Guildhall Press, Lagan Press, Verbal Arts Centre), is in the process of developing a ‘book space’ and common branding initiative for NI-published books, with the help of a grant from the Creative Industries Innovation Fund. Further information can be obtained from James.Kerr@verbalartscentre.co.uk.

Where language and heritage, the craic and the ceol...

2010-06-17T21:07:00.000+01:00


Specially designed Guildhall Press Culture poster supporting Derry as Candidate City for City of Culture 2013.

A few books on the Bloody Sunday bookshelf.

2010-06-15T21:57:00.002+01:00

As the news today here in Northern Ireland has been dominated by the release of the Bloody Sunday report I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at some of the books about Bloody Sunday. I'm sure after the events of today there'll be many more books published and peoples stories told.
Peter Pringle and Philip Jacobson investigated the shootings on Bloody Sunday for The Sunday Times within hours of them happening and wrote the book Those Are Real Bullets: Bloody Sunday, Derry, 1972
The blurb for it reads...

An iconic event in modern Irish history is, for the first time, narrated in directly human terms. Who were the people who marched, who fired from the flats, the barricades, who died? In brilliant narrative form a modern myth is unfolded and revealed fully, and so tells the story of the recent history of the armed struggle in Ireland.

Free Derry Corner, 30 January 1972, site of one of the pivotal events in modern British history. A civil rights march was led into an ambush. Thirteen civilians died, many killed by the British Army. It was the first instance of the British Army firing on its own citizens since the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. It ruined British authority in the province for a generation and was the single identifiable cause of the rejuvenated armed struggle that would last for the rest of the century. Yet it is shrouded in mystery and legend, in deliberate disinformation and deceit, in political interpretation from all sides involved. The events of Bloody Sunday, as it became known are told here as a vivdly dramatic narrative for the first time. Interspersed within the unfolding disaster is the story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a complex history revealed by two incisive and expertly informed writers who first researched events in Derry for the Sunday Times in 1972. Bloody Sunday is the most contested, mythologised and symbolic event in modern Irish history. Here, for the first time with the benefit of modern forensic science, new witnesses interviewed and against the background of the Savile report, is the truth of what happened.

There's also a book which would be interesting to read now that the Saville Inquiry is over. A book published by the UK's leading theatre publisher Oberon Books. entitled Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry You might remember reading reviews about the play from which the book originates (or is it the other way around), or maybe you were fortunate to see the play performed about 5 years ago in Tricycle Theatre. The book/play is a dramatic overview of some of the evidence given to the Saville Inquiry. Will it be updated?

Another book well worth buying, one of many books published about Bloody Sunday by Guildhall Press, is a book entitled Harrowing of the Heart: The Poetry of Bloody Sunday Edited by Julieann Campbell & Tom Herron it is described as an illuminating, often disturbing insight into Derry's darkest day. It attempts to capture the disbelief and heartbreak felt by a nation through the artistic responses of a few. Compositions by an array of eyewitnesses, relatives and local writers merge seamlessly alongside internationally renowned figures such as Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, Seamus Deane, Christy Moore, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Thomas Kinsella and Paul Muldoon to create a unique literary perspective of the events of 30 January 1972.
Through this collection, poets, musicians and dramatists from all walks of life share a rich and deeply personal archive, some of which has never been seen before, commemorating the anguish of Bloody Sunday and its devastating legacy on an entire city. I'd keep an eye on the Guildhall Press website for more books about Bloody Sunday. As I said before I'm sure there'll be many more books published and peoples stories told and I'm sure Guildhall Press will be involved in helping people from Derry in this process.

Writer ___ Page/Screen/Stage

2010-06-13T23:41:00.000+01:00

The latest author added to the Authors page here at BooksNI is Jamie Guiney. He joins the authors listed, like Paul Charles, Maggie O’Farrell and Colin Bateman who like all successful Northern Irish authors have a web presence. Jamie's site is a pleasure to visit, laid out well, easy to read and with that all important link to his twitter feed. If you've got a few minutes;visit, subscribe and follow Jamie.

Today is...

2010-06-11T12:20:00.001+01:00

read the book here

National Bookstart Day and this year it's off to the seaside.A large number of libraries across Northern Ireland will be holding events to mark this occasion,celebrating the fun of sharing books. Libraries will be holding seaside rhyme themed adventures as well as song and story telling sessions. Children attending events that celebrate National Bookstart Day receive a free booklet of a seaside poem by the author Tony Mitton, beautifully illustrated by Alex Ayliffe and free seaside stickers, along with a Bookstart rhymetime leaflet.
Kim Aiken, Learning Development Manager with Libraries NI, explains:
“Libraries NI is keen to support the work of Bookstart in ensuring that all babies in Northern Ireland will get the best start in life, by being introduced to books from a very young age. By celebrating National Bookstart Day in Northern Ireland libraries, we are giving parents the opportunity to come along to these events, especially tailored for babies and pre-school children, to ensure that this love of books and reading will continue throughout childhood and beyond.”
Liz Canning, Booktrust National Development Manager is delighted that this year’s National Bookstart Day will be celebrated in June.
“The seaside theme is in keeping with the new summer date and we hope that the Seaside stories, activities and resources will encourage families to enjoy sharing books and rhymes together right through the summer, indoors and out. A love of books is one of the most important gifts that can be given to a child and it is never too early to start.”

To find our more about events planned for pre-school children for today, contact your local library or check out the Libraries NI events website at www.librariesni.org.uk
Check out the Bookstart website for more details on Enjoy National Bookstart Day 2010 and on the Bookstart scheme at www.bookstart.org.uk

Help, BooksNI is already getting footie fever.

2010-06-09T19:46:00.002+01:00

As Neil Lennon, the new manager of Celtic, calls for his players to go to war every time they go on the pitch I reckon it is a good time to mention a biography of an ex Celtic manager that's just been published. A biography of a man not as violent as the new manager of Celtic a man I'm sure most of the people of Kilrea are proud of.

The man is Martin O'Neill, truly one of British football's true greats. Plucked from the Northern Irish club Distillery by Nottingham Forest in 1971, the young Northern Irishman went on an incredible football journey that saw him clash against some of the game's biggest characters.
He twice won the European Cup with Forest under the enigmatic Brian Clough - though the two never saw eye-to-eye. A talented midfielder, O'Neill played for Manchester City in between spells at Norwich before ending his playing career at Notts County in 1985.

As the first Roman Catholic captain of his coutry, O'Neill marshalled Northern Ireland's golden generation, who battled through to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1982, knocking out hosts Spain on the way. But football was by no means the only path O'Neill could have taken. His had been a life of choice. Opting for football over Gaelic football as a youth, O'Neill was then forced to curtail a law degree at Queens University Belfast to make the switch to England, although his interest in criminology had not diminished. O'Neill cut his football managememt teeth at Grantham Town and Shepshed Dynamo, and his stock grew as he took Wycombe Wanderers from the GM Vauxhall Conference to the old Second Division in a matter of years. However it was at Celtic that O'Neill would enjoy his most trophy-laden years, winning an unprecedented treble in his first year before narrowly missing out on UEFA Cup glory a year later. O'Neill would leave Celtic, his 'spiritual home', to care for wife Geraldine as she was battling cancer. Returning to football in 2006, O'Neill is charged with taking a hugely talented Aston Villa side into the Premier League's top four.

The NTVCelticfanzine say about the book Martin O'Neill The Biography, "it does make for an interesting - if never a riveting - read". What do you think, I'd love to hear if the readers of this blog agree with that or not.You can purchase the book here.

Blogging about...

2010-06-08T21:47:00.001+01:00

It has been said before, that every story has already been told. Maybe so. But if you've got the gift of the gab, you can tell the same tale as often as you like and still give it a life of its own every time. Requiems for the Departed flaunts that gift seventeen times over with top shelf stories from Stuart Neville, Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty, Sam Millar and many more.
Adventures in Novel Writing

17 short stories written by some of the biggest names in Irish crime fiction, and Maxim Jakubowski. The stories are divided into three groups Ulster, Myth, and Fianna. I have only had time to read Queen of the Hill by Stuart Neville and if the standard of the other stories is only half as good this is a collection not to be missed. With Ken Bruen, Brian McGilloway, Adrian, McKinty, Arlene Hunt and others contributing prepare to be frightened.
Crime Scraps

I've followed Gerard Brennan's blog Crime Scene NI for awhile now, and found it to be a consistently good source of information on the abundant wealth of great Northern Irish crime writing to be had right now. How exciting, then, that he and Mike Stone have managed to assemble so many of its authors between the covers of one small book. There are writers from other parts as well, but the theme they have all to deal with in these stories is combining contemporary crime with Irish myth. How fun is that?
Things You May Have Missed

If you're gonna be in Belfast on June 10 why you don't you tootle on down to No Alibis bookshop where the crime collection Requiems for the Departed is being launched. The cream of the Irish crime writing crop will be there and there will be wine and cheese and probably crackers...I'd guess Ritz reduced fat crackers, although I wouldnt be surprised if they served a generic Marks and Spencer water biscuit style cracker which, don't get me wrong, I like, but sometimes they can be a little dry - completely fine if the cheese is Brie but if it's a good stiff Edam or something then - watch out - the sensation isn't going to be that pleasant especially if you've got a tannic white wine working with it..., er, what was I, uh...oh yes Requiems.
the psychopathology of everyday life

A twit in the age of tweets, Mick "miniviews" each of the short stories in Requiems for the Departed: Irish Crime, Irish Myths "Red Hand of Ulster" by Sam Millar...
What fun! Sam Millar's contribution to R4tD is a short sequel to his 2009 novel, The Dark Place. "Red Hand of Ulster" features a pink bathrobe, severed limbs and extremities, a client who feels that God talks to her through defective car parts, gore, a confrontation with a cross-dressing prostitute, a possible NI zombie film, gore, twenty grand and justice. And then more gore! Millar revealed in our interview that he used to work in abattoirs. It shows. (I know a couple guys who used silly songs and flying chicken head fights to cope with their work in slaughterhouses!)
Critical Mick

All of the 17 stories in Requiems for the Departed are inspired by Irish mythology (not in a supernatural way, for the most part), but you don't have to be an expert on the subject to enjoy the stories—and the authors helpfully summarize each myth for you at the beginning of their tale to bring you up to speed. They're divided into three semi-geographical headings, Ulster, Myth, and Fianna.
In Reference To Murder

Need I say more, apart from the book is available to buy from No Alibis, Botanic Ave, Belfast or direct from Morrigan Books.

"Finest teacher this school has."

2010-06-07T11:21:00.001+01:00

When a teacher gets "5s" on RateMyTeachers.Com for easiness,helpfulness and clarity. When a teacher receives comments on the same website "Finest teacher this school has." and "Quality teacher. Survived AS level English with his help! He knows his stuff. Listen, Read, Study, You will do well." When a teacher like that writes a book I reckon it'll be worth reading.
The teacher with these top ratings is Francis Hagan who grew up in Belfast and waseducated at the University of Ulster and Queen's University. He has taught Creative Writing for ten yearsand is currently teaching English at Hazelwood College. His first novel is entitled The Auditor.
The blurb for the book reads...

Francis Hagan's disturbing parabable is concerned with a dystopian future teetering on the brink of moral atrophy.Drawing from the nueroses of Franz Kafka, the political insight of George Orwell and the gifts of a natural thriller writer, the psychic and physical landscape of The Auditor is one of an authoritarian society turning in on itself, fracturing to produce a world of gang identity and social chaos corrupting to the very core what it is to be human.It is a chilling and timely story.

The book is being launched next Monday the 14th June @ The Merchant Hotel, Belfast @ 7pm.

Some Weekend Reading...

2010-06-04T21:41:00.001+01:00

THE TIME WARRIORS by Owen Quinn

THE FIRST FOOTSTEP
Space was ablaze with orgasmic brilliance as the death throes of a billion voices choked in flame.
Orange, blue, red and green danced in a leering kaleidoscope opera as the planet's atmosphere began to evaporate. Time held its breath as the land shivered, cracked and began to dissolve under great waves of vivid green lightning as the air sizzled with energy.The planet was breaking up, black infernos blasting glacial chunks into space in halos of fire, whole continents shimmering into ash beneath the onslaught.

The stars trembled in horror as the entire eco-structure was swallowed in oceans of lava and fire which began shaving all life from the crumbling surface of Xereba in unrelenting spasms.
The land screamed and shattered, every person and animal caught in tidal firewalls that reduced the burning seas to superheated steam. Within minutes a millennia of evolution died in the molten rubble that surged forward from beneath the surface in great unfeeling geysers devouring everything they touched. Already, a bubbling wreath of red hot molten asteroids were forming, tumbling end over end in brimstone flame through space, a tapestry of tombstones marking the end for Xereba ...read more

Derry the Irish chick lit capital?

2010-06-03T12:59:00.001+01:00

Claire Allan's book Jumping in Puddles has been released in paperback this week.Back in September last year when the book was first released I documented her tweets...

...best selling chick lit author Claire Allan, from Derry, whose third book ‘Jumping in Puddles’ has just been released. On Claire’s twitter page we find out a little about her. A day she won’t forget was the 14th September when she tweeted…

9.37am Taking bets on whether or not the books shall arrive today… anyone care to
1.31pm IT’S HERE, IT’S HERE, IT’S HERE Oh pretty, pretty book. Perhaps the prettiest of all the books in the world. And my name is on it! In big letters. And the word Bestselling
1.39pm I love the smell of new books - esp those which have my name on them. Oh Happy Day!
9.43pm Well, that was emotional. Gave my book to my granny and made her cry.
9.51pm @Keris LOL! She cried because it’s dedicated to her - it was all a big surprise. *sobby sobby sob*
10.59pm Right. Am off to my bed. With a copy of my NEW BOOK. Did I mention I got it today?

As BooksNI.Biz is backing the Derry City Of Culture bid and as Claire is from Derry I thought I'd ask her a few questions...

Are your novels set in Derry and the surrounding area just because you're familiar with the city or do you believe it is because it adds to the story line?
A bit of both. As a proud Derry wan I'm very familiar with the city and very proud of it so it was nice to set something locally. I do believe it adds to the book - Derry is a brilliant city with a thriving cafe/ restaurant/ pub/ arts scene. It also has stunning tourist attractions and setting books so close to the border with Donegal also allows me to visit the glorious Donegal shoreline.

What would it mean to you and other Derry authors if Derry became UK City of Culture 2013 ?
It would be a huge coup. Of course, I think that us authors should ask why literature has not featured more strongly in the bid. Derry has produced some amazing writers in a variety of genres - the opportunities the title of City of Culture would offer us would be unprecedented. The very wonderful Garbhan Downey has touted the idea of a Guys N Dolls literary festival - pitting chick lit in all it's glory against crime/ satire etc. Bring it on, I say!

There's a book/TV programme called "Profiles of Eight Remarkable Men from Derry", are there eight remarkable woman from Derry you'd like to share about, women who've inspired you either to write or to write about?
There are eight remarkable women in my family - never mind the wider city. Derry is a city of remarkably strong, courageous, funny, smart women who guided their families through the worst of times and who offer a comaraderie second to none. There is long standing joke in Derry "How many Derry women does it take a change a lightbulb? Twenty five - one to do it and 24 to form a support group". It's tongue in cheek but Derry women are the most remarkably supportive in the world.

I've heard the "Maiden City" used as one of the many names for Londonderry, what's that all about, has it anything to do with "chick lit"?
I'm shamefacefly ignorant of the source of that title but sure, why not adopt it and make Derry the Irish chick lit capital? I'm all for giving the Dublin set a run for their money!

On the back cover of your latest novel Jumping in puddles are the characters Niamh Quigly, Ruth Byrne, Liam Dougherty and Ciara Boyle loosley based on Derry people?
Not at all. Of course everyone wants to find someone they *think* I'm writing about. But they are complete figments of my imagination. It's always brilliant craic when people try to identify themselves in books.

If Derry wins the City Of Culture how would you celebrate?
I imagine me and Mr Downey and perhaps Brian McGilloway would get together for that long awaited drink. And then we would plan that festival.

What's life like for you over the next few days with the book now coming out in paperback?
Busy! Busy! Busy! It has been bonkers and it will be - but it is always a buzz. This is the best bit!

@ the Guildhall Press 30th Birthday Bash & Book Launch

2010-06-01T22:08:00.001+01:00

Last Thursday I made it along to The City of Culture offices in L/Derry to join in Guildhall Press thirtieth birthday celebrations.I took my camera along...

The offices were packed that lunchtime...

The star of the show, apart from Jenni, was Garbhan Downey.I suppose that was because it was also the Derry launch of his book The American Envoy
.

Garbhan spoke and this is what he said. ENJOY...
Derry Envoy Launch

And, thanks Garbhan for entertaining me that lunchtime and allowing me to share your speech here.

We're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland

2010-05-31T22:56:00.001+01:00

Now with just over 9 days left until the World Cup begins is a good time to start reading books about football. Not just any book but a book written by Stephen Rea. Who is Stephen Rea you may ask.

Stephen Rea, from Belfast, is a freelance writer based in New Orleans who has contributed to national and international newspapers, magazines, and Web sites for over twenty years. He has covered a range of news stories, from the Gulf War and terrorist attacks in London to the resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Rea attended Campbell College in his hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland and studied journalism at the United Kingdom's National Council for the Training of Journalists.

After his move to New Orleans, Rea struggled to find an outlet for his love of football. He discovered an Irish bar in New Orleans's Mid-City area called Finn McCool's, an eccentric blend of locals and ex-pats. The men eventually formed a club team and joined a league - the perfect place for Rea to play soccer and express his love of the game. He wrote Finn McCool's Football Club while he was displaced to Houston, Texas, after Hurricane Katrina, and the story follows not only Rea's struggles through that difficult period, but the rest of the team's as well.This luminous, gripping work follows them as they rebuild their lives and their team. With a masterful combination of dry humour and astute profundity, Rea reflects on his adopted city, providing powerful insights into the lives of the foreign-born and minority groups that stayed behind during Katrina because they had little to lose. Filled with equally hilarious and sobering anecdotes and no shortage of good football stories, Rea seamlessly weaves his experiences alongside his teammates’ harrowing survival stories. A breathtaking and incredible debut celebrating camaraderie, sportsmanship, and survival, ‘Finn McCool’s Football Club’ stands out as a haunting and powerful memoir filled with laughter, loss, astonishment, and, of course, football.

Meanwhile back here in N.I.as Brazil plays in South Africa all we can do is sing...

We're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland,
We're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland,
We're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland,
But its all the same to me.

Win a trip to Australia

2010-05-29T22:03:00.001+01:00

The Daily Mirror competition read...

Win a trip to Australia with Adelaide Insurance Services To celebrate Geoff Hill and Colin O'Carroll's 15,000-mile motorbike ride across Australia, we've teamed up with motorcycle insurance services, Adeleide Insurance Services, to give you the chance to win the trip of a lifetime to Adeleide Australia.This super prize is a travel voucher to the value of £3,500. For your chance to win, simply answer the question below and telephone or text in your answer, leaving your name, address and daytime telephone number. And it must be won by a reader of the Daily Mirror Northern Ireland edition Q.This prize is brought to you by which motorcycle insurance service provider?
Call 0901 293 0309 Text MIRRORS followed by a space and then your answer to 81108. Terms and conditions Entries cost £1...Lines close at midnight on May 31 2010...

Back in February, Blackstaff Press anounced...

Author and adventurer Geoff Hill set off last week on his latest big bike adventure with fellow writer Colin O'Carroll. The pair will circumnavigate Australia on Tiger 1050s, taking 10-12 weeks to cover the 15,000 miles of the legendary Highway One before the road is decommissioned in 2010.
With them will be film makers Matt Curry and Gareth McGrillan who will be producing a TV series, which BBC and Channel 4 are already interested in.
Geoff, who's already ridden from Delhi to Belfast and Chile to Alaska for the best-selling books Way to Go and The Road to Gobblers Knob, is facing his mightiest challenge yet: the wombats of Oz. The trip will result in a new book to be published by Blackstaff Press in October 2010, provisionally titled Oz: Geoff and Colin's outrageous Australian adventure.
You can follow Geoff and Colin's adventures on their daily bog www.adelaideadventures.com

Then just last week the good news was reported on the Adelaide Insurance Services website...

Two bikers conquer the longest national highway in the world!
They’ve done it! Their mammoth journey took 12 weeks to complete and finished with a triumphant home-coming celebration at the offices of sponsor, Adelaide Insurance Services. Led by Adelaide’s Sam Geddis, and flanked by a police escort, our dynamic duo made their way to Boucher Plaza to the sounds of “Waltzing Matilda” courtesy of a live band. They were greeted by the press, friends and supporters alike. Geoff Hill and Colin O’Carroll’s adventure had finished but their stories of Australia had only just begun.

Yes the stories had just begun. Stories we will have to wait for and read in October. Stories in a book that'll be well worth reading, if you've read anything by Geoff Hill before you'll agree. The book should be available to buy at the 'BooksNI' bookshop then.

He who laughs last...

2010-05-26T20:15:00.000+01:00

Did you know?

The Last Laugh Award for the best humorous crime novel first published in the British Isles in 2009 sponsored by Goldsboro Books went to top Northern Irish author Colin Bateman for the book The Day of the Jack Russell

Now you do.

Busier than Cape Canaveral.

2010-05-26T15:05:00.001+01:00

It looks like bookshops and cultural centres here in Northern Ireland have and will be busier than usual recently and it's not just because they're selling lots of local books, it's because the books they're selling have and will be launched recently. I am amazed that there are so many book launches by local authors and sadly I can't be at all the launches.

The poet David Agnew has two videos recorded at the launch of "Belfast via Bedlam" the first here and second can be found here. David’s writing is based on his own experience of the journey of recovery, now extending over more than twenty-one years. It is also informed by his long experience of working with the mentally ill, including those suffering from addiction problems.He firmly believes that, in recovery, we all travel a similar road, no matter where we begin.Following on from his previous books - Walking into Eternity and First I Dreamt the Journey - David, in this book, further explores the paths, pitfalls and signposts on the journey.The book is available from his website.

Guildhall Press, one of the mainstays of Derry’s cultural scene, is hosting a literary bash in Derry city centre on Thursday May 27 as part of its thirtieth birthday celebrations. The lunchtime show will take place at the Culture Centre on Waterloo Place, to mark the publishing house’s long-standing support for Derry’s City of Culture 2013 bid.

At 1.30pm, novelist Garbhan Downey will preside at the Derry launch of his new best-seller The American Envoy, after which author Jenni Doherty will host a ‘micro-writing’ workshop from 3.00pm to 5.00pm. Downey will also sign copies of his book, which will be on sale on the day along with several other Guildhall Press titles.
Downey’s new novel made its debut at the Dublin Book Festival earlier this year and has already received strong reviews in the Irish media. It was April ‘Book of the Month’ in the Ulster Tatler: “An expertly crafted novel which strikes the perfect balance between intellect, action and humour. Downey’s star can only continue to rise in the literary world.”
Books Ireland (April 2010), meanwhile, praised Downey’s ‘funny and cynical’ picture of local and international politics: “Downey must have been a good journalist, since a lot of the fictional scandals that have appeared in his novels have been mirrored in real-life events.”
Jenni Doherty will continue the literary event by hosting a creative-writing workshop, based on the micro-writing format used in her highly successful publication Wonderful World of Worders.
For this genre, participants are invited to interpret a theme and express themselves using specific titles relating to the city, its people and culture, to create original 60 or 100 word micro-stories. The idea is to produce as many positive, imaginative and stimulating pieces of work that celebrate and commemorate our city of culture in all disciplines. This one-day workshop is open to all ages with places limited to 15 participants on the day. A selection of the completed material will be collated and later made available in a colourful poster format for public display in the Culture offices.
In the thirty years since its inception, Guildhall Press has become widely recognised as the most innovative publishing house in Ireland, thanks to its groundbreaking work on eBooks and web design. Last month, the Sunday Times noted that the company was the first Irish publishing house to release a paperback novel and eBook-version for digital devices simultaneously. Downey’s The American Envoy can claim the honour for this landmark publication.
Guildhall Press manager Paul Hippsley commented: “Guildhall Press are proud to celebrate our role in assisting, developing and showcasing fiction and local history writers over many years. We are also pleased to join with our other cultural partners across all the art forms from the region to demonstrate in such a public and positive way our support for the 2013 City of Culture bid.I just might pop along to the City of Culture offices in Waterloo Place in L/Derry,tomorrow at1.30pm

...

Back down to Belfast and Miriam Gamble's first collection, The Squirrels Are Dead is being launched at No Alibis on Thursday, 03 June 2010 @ 6.30pm.

Miriam Gamble was born in Brussels in 1980 and grew up in Belfast. She studied at Oxford and at Queen’s University Belfast, where she completed a PhD in contemporary British and Irish poetry. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2007, and her pamphlet, This Man's Town, was published by tall-lighthouse in 2007. A selection of her poems appears in the Bloodaxe anthology Voice Recognition: 21 poets for the 21st century (2009).Miriam lives and works in Belfast. She writes poems, reviews and critical essays and is a part-time tutor in creative writing at Queen’s University.The blurb for the book reads...

Miriam Gamble’s poetry is cleverly self-conscious about the doubleness of language: as resistant, resisting medium, and as the lightly worn currency of the everyday. Remarkable for its imaginings of both the animal world and the human, her first full-length collection The Squirrels Are Dead encompasses an urgent sense of social engagement as well as a profound sense of mystery, in which language is journeyed through as an almost-familiar landscape.

Gamble is a mistress-manipulator of tradition – with sonnet, villanelle and sestina some of the forms on display – who forces new rhythms into tried and tested forms, yet is ever vigilant to the fact that poets do not replace, they update, and that tradition comes to fresh life in the retelling. The Squirrels Are Dead is a striking and assured debut from a distinctive new talent in Irish poetry.

'Among her positive qualities I would single out abundant vocabulary, ambitious syntax, humour (not all that common), a sense of rhythm, an ability to write memorable lines, and an original slant on the world. She looks like the real thing all right' – Michael Longley

'Alert to the possibilities of alien consciousness and aware, simultaneously, of our human presumption, the poems...explore, dissect, muse on, re-imagine and punctuate "the disparities of life as we know it" with fleet intelligence and consummate skill' - Sinead Morrisey

...

Another launch coming up on the 17th of June is for the book "Sons of Ulster: Masculinities in the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel" by Caroline Magennis, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Irish Studies (QUB).I'll no doubt mention more about this book later.

The debate continues...

2010-05-22T13:04:00.001+01:00

As a cross-party group of MLAs take receipt of educators' report aimed at breaking the political impasse over academic selection,here's an opportunity for us to discuss this issue which has been in the news here in Northern Ireland for a while now. To help us get involved in the debate BooksNI.Com are offering a couple of free copies of the book Selection Challenged: The Case Against Selection for 11+.
The blurb for the book reads...

Written by the former Head of Education Services in CCEA, Dr Alastair Walker, Selection Challenged looks back through the last 60 years to see how we came to be where we are now. It considers the various attempts that have been made at devising a reliable and acceptable means of implementing selection, studies the research evidence surrounding the subject, examines the situation in other places and looks critically at the arguments used to justify selection.

To be considered as one of the recipients of a free copy of this book you can leave a comment with your views on the Northern Ireland Academic Selection Process here on this blog.Or leave a comment/question here addressed to Dr Walker on BooksNI.Biz which he will answer. Or thirdly, leave a link to where you've blogged/written about this subject on your website/blog here. Dr Walker will decide who will recieve these free books. Please ensure you leave a current email address on all comments so that either BooksNI.Com Dr Walker or BooksNI.Biz can contact you to arrange to post the free book to you.

The blogger/politician Conall McDevitt tweeted "Dr Alastair Walker is dead right about the way ahead for selection in NI" what do you think?

Guildhall Press; Doing it for #derry2013

2010-05-19T13:16:00.001+01:00

This Thursday Derry's City of Culture bid is to be delivered ahead of Friday’s submission deadline.Helping ginormously for this bid is Guildhall Press, who have been promoting Derry as a City of Culture for years now. From publishing novels by Dave Duggan and Felicity McCall and even links to performance poetry and all these stories making an appearance in the blogosphere over the last 5 years, I couldn't help but mention them again.As mentioned in CyberScroll back in November 2007...

Guildhall Press
...was founded in 1979 as a voluntary educational book-publishing trust by local school teacher, Ms Anne Murray. Its original aims were to research, write and publish all aspects of local history in an objective and factual way and to create a platform for reconciliation through education by publishing material that increased cross-community understanding and acceptance.
Since 1995, the scope of publications produced by Guildhall Press has changed from local history texts, to wider interest books concentrating on the history of the past thirty years in the north of Ireland, giving Guildhall Press the potential to operate in a larger market, whilst retaining its role as an active community organisation.

Recently Guildhall Press announced that...Garbhan Downey's new novel The American Envoy will be the first from a Northern Ireland press, Guildhall Press, to be sold as an e-book as well as in printed form.

And,this Friday...

Guildhall Press
is delighted to announce the launch of the

Derry & Donegal Tourist Guide 2010

City of Culture offices, Waterloo Place, Derry
@ 1:30pm

Guildhall Press will launch the Derry & Donegal Tourist Guide 2010 – its free Guide to the city, Donegal and the NW – at the City of Culture offices in Waterloo Place on Friday 21 May. This year’s edition has a special extended section on Derry’s Arts and Culture scene to highlight and support Derry’s bid as UK City of Culture 2013. Copies of the Guide will be presented to Jim Roddy, Manager of the City Centre Initiative, and City Rangers Kathleen Hughes and Hugh Kennedy.

Guildhall Press manager Paul Hippsley commented: “In support of Derry as a candidate city for City of Culture 2013, we have extended the Arts & Culture section of this year’s Guide to showcase some of the many cultural partners who enrich our vibrant arts sector. Building on our remarkable physical, social and cultural achievements of the past, and our shared traditions, we believe that, together, we can harness the creative energy that pulses through the city to produce a strong and successful bid.

“The Guide is very popular with visitors, who find its size very convenient and the wide range of information very useful and is required reading for anyone touring and interested in the area. It has detailed colour maps of the city and North West and a handy walking tour of Derry’s Walls. With over 100,000 visitors to our city every year, our Guide complements the wide range of excellent material currently available from the Tourist Information Centre and Heritage & Museum Service.

“The contents are also available online at www.visitderry.com (from Friday) plus many additional photos and links to some of our advertisers whom we wish to thank for their support. Everyone is welcome to attend on Friday and obtain a free copy.”

Jim Roddy, City Centre Initiative manager said: “This new guide showcases all that is great about our city and will no doubt prove to be an invaluable resource to the city’s visitors. The great work undertaken by Guildhall Press in this publication will surely strengthen the city’s bid to become the City of Culture 2013.

Finola Faller of Tours’n’Trails, Derry, added: “We love these tourist information publications from Guildhall Press; they are small, manageable and very suitable for pockets and handbags. Well done!”

The Guide is distributed throughout Ireland and is available free from selected retail outlets, hotels and businesses throughout the city as well as from the Derry Visitor and Convention Bureau in Foyle Street, Tower Museum, the public libraries, the City of Culture offices and from Guildhall Press.

There will also be a selection of other Guildhall Press titles, at a reduced price, for sale in the City of Culture offices during the day.

For further details please contact Guildhall Press; T: (028) 7136 4413; E: info@ghpress.com W: www.ghpress.com

Well done to Guildhall Press and keep doing it for L/Derry no matter what the result!

Hearken ye unto that weak chirping sound

2010-05-17T21:27:00.001+01:00

books_ni is on twitter and if you don't like twitter you can keep updated with the books_ni "tweets" on your RSS Reader by subscribing here and if it's the books_ni favourites it's here

Recent tweets...

Irish Pages - The Up-and-Coming Reading - Thursday 20 May 2010 7.30 pm - The Black Box,Cathedral Quarter, Belfast. http://ht.ly/1MbLw
Book review: 'The Hand That First Held Mine,http://ht.ly/1Ko8s' by Maggie O'Farrell @ washingtonpost.com http://ht.ly/1Ko9q
Crime Fiction Week: A nationwide celebration of crime writing, National Crime Fiction Week will run from 14th - 20th June http://ht.ly/1KxpN
Interview with Ray Givans who published his 1st collection "Tolstoy in Love" [Dedalus Press] last year @ Tonguefire - http://ht.ly/1Lsyr
Listen now to the conversation about Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck and his links to N.I. on "A Kist o Wurds" http://ht.ly/1LVZ1

Recent favourites...

ColinBateman'The Day of the Jack Russell' paperback launch in The Gutter Bookshop, Dublin on June 9, 6 pm - free for all, and it might turn into that.

PublicityBooks Piece by Maggie O'Farrell in today's Guardian Women's pages on secondary infertility http://bit.ly/csuveN

BlackstaffNI May 2010 Newsletter, win copies of new titles, latest news - http://eepurl.com/wOKL

davidjmoody New blog post: A quick AUTUMN competition http://www.djmoody.co.uk/2010/05/15/a-quick-autumn-competition/

ClaireAllan Talking in the Evening Herald about what I would do if I won the Lotto, planning the book release and another... http://bit.ly/cPmhq0

_FionaCassidy_ Really enjoyed being guest speaker with the Burnavon Writer's who've just launched their own book of short stories! Good luck folks!

King of the Roads

2010-05-15T13:15:00.001+01:00

I can't believe it's nearly ten years since the untimely death of Joey Dunlop.Today as the bikes race around the North West I'm sure it's not just bikers will remember Joey Dunlop and also his brother Robert, who also lost his life just two years ago.With the never ending respect and interest of the public it's good to see that the tenth-anniversary edition of the book Joey Dunlop: King of the Roads is packed with new material, including a new introduction by Stephen Davison. There is also a new chapter on the legacy of Joey Dunlop and previously unpublished photographs.
Joey Dunlop was born in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim on 25 February 1952. His ambition was to be a soldier, but all that changed when he purchased his first motorbike at the age of sixteen: he discovered his destiny.
His racing career began in 1969, and his yellow helmet and number 3 bike quickly became synonymous with high-octane wins. He was one of the most exciting riders the sport has ever seen, drawing huge crowds to the Isle of Man TT races and to every other course he raced. Joey received an MBE for his motorcycling prowess; his racing record remains unsurpassed: twenty-six wins in twenty-five years at the TT races, and five times World Champion. But there was more to this rider than racing. He also received an OBE in recognition of the many relief trips he made, alone, to war-torn areas, such as Romania and the Balkans, bringing food, clothing and supplies to those in need. True to his quiet, modest nature, he did not seek credit for his humanitarian work. The 'King of the Roads' died as he had lived: in an adrenaline rush. On 2 July 2000 the forty-eight-year-old rider crashed during a race in the republic of Estonia. The death of Joey Dunlop triggered an unparalleled emotional response as the sporting world and his fans openly mourned his passing. His funeral in his home town of Ballymoney was attended by 50,000 people, and thousands more recorded their feelings for 'Yer Maun' in books of condolence set up throughout Ireland. In September 2000 thousands of residents and visitors turned out to pay tribute to their hero at the Isle of Man TT circuit, which he had dominated for so long. A decade after his death Joey Dunlop is still revered as a motorcycling legend. He will not be forgotten Joey Dunlop tenth-anniversary edition looks at Joey Dunlop's legacy and captures the rider, the family man, the winner, the humanitarian - the person behind the legend that is the 'King of the Roads'.

The author of this book Stephen Davison is a photographer with Pacemaker, Belfast. A road-racing enthusiast, he has followed the career of Joey Dunlop for many years, producing award-winning pics for specialist magazines, newspapers and TV.

Also tonight on BBC One Northern Ireland there is a programme entitled Joey Dunlop Remembered, which is a tribute to Joey Dunlop marking the tenth anniversary of his death. His family, friends and fellow riders describe the many ways he still is fondly remembered.

A first for a writer from Northern Ireland.

2010-05-13T13:12:00.001+01:00

I'm sure your remember reading last month about Gerry McCullough who was at Number 5 on the 28th April on the HarperCollins (publishers) website: authonomy.com The top 5 books on that list at midnight 2 days later were to be read by HarperCollins, with the possibility of a publishing deal for the authors. I kept checking and kept my fingers crossed hoping that Gerry would have that opportunity and I'm glad to say she did. I asked her to tell me just what it was like for her...

The Authonomy Experience.

by Gerry McCullough

At midnight on 30 April, I became the first writer from Northern Ireland to reach the top five on www.authonomy.com and have my book, Belfast Girls, selected for reading by Harper Collins, the major publisher.

I won’t hear what they think of it for several months, yet. Meantime, I’m still floating on air!

“Tell us about it - what was it like? How did you know about it?” people ask me.

I first heard of Authonomy last October, through my literary agent, Bill Jeffrey, of the Wordsmith’s Forge. The name means ‘author autonomy’, i.e. freedom for the author to be judged by his peers. Harper Collins set it up to sift through the thousands of unsolicited manuscripts they get every year. Up until now, these manuscripts have been dumped in the ‘slush pile,’ where they wait for years before anyone has time to read them. Now, instead, other writers read the book online, comment, and, if they decide to, ‘back’ the book; that is, vote for it. As the book accumulates votes, it moves up the rankings. At the end of each month, Harper Collins reads the current top five books, gives an in-depth critique, and possibly offers a publishing deal.

Bill Jeffrey’s contact at Harper Collins said this was the best way for a relatively new agent to bring an unknown writer to the publisher’s attention. It sounded like a great idea.

So, enthusiastically expecting that the whole thing could be done in a couple of months, I uploaded my book, Belfast Girls, on 21 October 2009, and was ranked six thousand and something, the very bottom of the list.

In less than two weeks, Belfast Girls had worked its way up to the top thousand, and by the time I’d been on site for exactly a month, I was at 143. Bill and I optimistically expected that I’d be in the top five by January.

However, enlightenment was to come.

As competition gets fierce at the top end of the rankings, movement gets slower and slower. By January I was in the top twenty. It took until the first day of April to get into the crucial top five.

To start with, I was getting between five and seven backings a day, and moving fast. But by March, even getting fifteen backings a day wasn’t enough to move me up a place, if the book above mine happened to get sixteen backings!

Backings can come from other writers, or from supporters who register on the site just to back one particular book. This is fine, and is encouraged by Authonomy. So naturally, I tried to rope in all the support I could.

On my last day, I got an amazing eighty-five backings, many of them from people who heard about the book either on this blog or on the Gerry Anderson show. So thanks a million, everyone!

My six months' hard work, reading and commenting on other books so that they would return the favour, was quick progress by Authonomy’s standards. Many people have been on site for over a year before getting to the top. Many give up in discouragement when their progress slows down dramatically. So, was it worth it, and if I’d known how long it would take, would I still have done it?

The answers are yes, and yes. How else would I get Harper Collins to read my book? As a bonus, the comments of other writers have often been useful (although not always!) and I’ve made some changes to Belfast Girls in the light of these, which I think have improved it.

So what does the future hold for Belfast Girls?

Like someone who has sat an exam, done their best, and finished their paper, there’s nothing more I can do now, except try to forget it until the time when the results are due out.

I just have to wait and see.

I got a brand new combine harvester, an' I'll give you the key...

2010-05-11T14:23:00.002+01:00

It's that time of year again when the fields are void of farmers and 4x4's in Belfast are driven by farmers and not yummy mummies.Yeah, it's Balmoral Show time again. Coinciding with this is the release of a new book entitled Memories From The Farmyard.The blurb for the book reads...

In this book Paul Callaghan highlights and celebrates the work of notable Ulster livestock breeders who, in the same way as the famous 18th century English farmer Robert Bakewell, were inspired to take up the challenge to ‘breed something better’. Through a fascinating and entertaining series of accounts, that first featured in Farm Week, we explore aspects such as the impact of the Ravenhill herd on the British Friesian breed and the Heyday of the Hereford. We also pay homage to the Large White Ulster breed of pigs and look at some old examples of the ‘veterinary art’.

image from www.colourpoint.co.uk

The author Paul Callaghan was born in Portadown, County Armagh where his interest in farming began at an early age. Much of his time outside school he spent on a small, mixed holding near his home. There he gained valuable experience and knowledge of older farming methods and traditional livestock breeds before moving on to assist on a modern pedigree pig unit. Later Paul studied meat technology and is a Graduate Member of the Institute of Meat. Since 2003 he has written a weekly column in Farm Week entitled ‘Memories from the Farmyard’. He is married to Victoria and lives in Belfast.

I've had a quick glance at the book and even people like me with a moderate interest in farming would find some of the stories interesting. These include stories about the heavy snow of 1937 when hundreds of sheep died. Farming exploits of the Robinson & Cleaver director, another story to read which includes why different people back in1934 had different reasons for remembering the Balmoral Show that year.

To buy the book pop along to the Colourpoint website ,where you can also view sample pages of the book in PDF format.

Come on now let's get together

In perfect harmony

I got twenty acres

An' you got forty-three

Now I got a brand new combine harvester

An' I'll give you the key

Inside Story: A career in publishing [link]

2010-05-07T12:51:00.000+01:00

Check out a must read on Creative Choices, the first online service to provide the tools, knowledge and networks to support every individual and business to get in, and get on, in the creative industries and cultural sector.
An article written by Malachi O'Doherty. Susan Feldstein's story and tips about working in publishing. The article includes this tip...

Enjoy what you do - “You have to love this work; it's a tough road if you are just looking for financial reward. It is a fantastic industry and most of the people are not cut throat and money grabbing. But you need persistence and patience.

Read it in full HERE

Born in Northern Ireland.

2010-05-06T21:10:00.001+01:00

Yes we can claim that an author born in Northern Ireland is a Northern Irish author and one who it's been very hard to ignore over the last couple of weeks is Maggie O’Farrell.
Her latest novel opens with...

Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.
The garden is empty, the patio deserted, save for some pots with geraniums and delphiniums shuddering in the wind. A bench stands on the lawn, two chairs facing politely away from it...

If like me, before buying a book you like to read the opening lines, you'll not want to put this one down. Entitled The Hand That First Held Mine the blurb for the novel reads...

A gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, this is a tour de force from one of our most acclaimed and best loved novelists.

When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life for herself, with Innes at her side. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina, a painter, struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood, memories that don't tally with his parents' version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, so an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.

Reviewed by Claire Hopley in the Washington Times, she sums up with...

...it helps make "The Hand That First Held Mine" compelling reading. Yet Maggie O'Farrell's sharpness of perception, her talent for the telling detail and the ability to evoke both places and states of mind show that she could set her characters free to explore the world and create their own destinies. This suggests that it will be worth watching for her future work - this is her fifth book.

Tina Jackson in Metro...

O’Farrell handles the shifts and links between past and present with a consummate grace that heightens the sense that the story is on an inevitable trajectory towards shocking revelations. The low-key lyricism of her writing heightens both suspense and emotions: this is as much a novel about what it means to love as it is about the devastation that can occur when people conceal the most shameful parts of their past.

Valerie Miner in the Boston Globe...

O’Farrell creates a suspenseful atmosphere of distrust. When she finally reveals the connections between the two generations and lifts the opaque curtain, we enter a scene of surprising grace and hopefulness.

So, ladies (and gentlemen) have you read this book yet, what did you think about this novel written by a "Northern Irish author" ? I'd love to find out, leave a comment or a link to where you've reviewed this book.

Roe Valley Tales Re-told.

2010-05-05T00:56:00.001+01:00

I'm chuffed to see that the long awaited book by Mary Hayward has finally materialised.I'd the privilege of attending a creative writing group she was in during some of the time the stories for the book were being written, rewritten and polished off. The book which takes its title from the lyrics of the song, Danny Boy is entitled "From Glen To Glen". It consists of a collection of tales from the Roe Valley.which include the Danny Boy stories: Rory Dall, Denis O'Hempsey, George Petrie, Jane Ross & Jimmy McCurry, Bringing It All Back Home (Fred Weatherly).The Drumcete Convention, Finvola, Cushy Glen, Lig Na Péiste, Broighter Gold, Piper McQuillan and Shane Crossagh O' Mullan.

The book will be launched during the Danny Boy Festival on Sun 9th May from 2 to 4 during the afternoon session of traditional music, song & verse in the Green Lane Museum at Roe Valley Country Park, Limavady.

For more details about the book, how to purchase the book or to contact Mary visit www.haybalepublications.co.uk

“Some books are to be tasted”

2010-05-04T00:12:00.002+01:00

David Bowen, Open Book/ Otwarta Książka
Originally uploaded by Galeria Camelot & FIM

David Bowen @ Krakow Artists Book Show

I was recently invited to Krakow to take part in an artists book exhibition called “Some books are to be tasted”. There were books from around the world on display. From books that could take pictures to architecture books reconstructed into mini cityscapes.

My contribution was a book based on ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. ‘Open Book’ is 3,550 blank pages each representing a person who lost their lives in the 35 year conflict. The years are represented by red ribbons and it’s bound in white linen. It was quite poignant to have it shown in a city which has known terrible conflict.

source - www.mccannerickson.ie

and the winner is...

2010-05-02T21:47:00.002+01:00

Not just one Northern Irish author, but two winners in the 2010 Spinetingler Awards.

For Best Novel: New Voice The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

and...
Best Novel: Rising Star Category Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty

Well done Lads!

Profiles of Eight Remarkable Men from Derry :The Boys of St Columb's.

2010-05-01T15:18:00.003+01:00

Today is ‘City of Culture Commitment Day’ in Derry - Londonderry, part of their ongoing campaign for the UK City of Culture 2013. Showing my support for this bid I'm hoping that the committee who makes the final decision on which city to choose, have either seen the film or read the book entitled The Boys of St Columb's. The Belfast launch of the book takes place on Tuesday in the Bookshop at Queens.

Watching the film version on the BBC I was amazed at the story of how eight men; poets, writers, diplomats, musicians and a socialist campaigner were all at the same school around the same time and were all so successful. The blurb for the book reads...

The Boys of St Columb's tells the story of the first generation of children to receive free secondary education as a result of the ground-breaking 1947 Education Act in Northern Ireland. This book shows how the political and historical conditions of Northern Ireland altered as a result of the mass education of its population, culminating in the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s which drew its inspiration from the USA. The book profiles St. Columb's school in Derry, an excellent example of a school that underwent the shift from the dark post-war years into the more liberal 1960s, as a lens to understand the effect of the 1947 legislation. "The Boys of St. Columb's" consists of interviews with Nobel Prize winners, writers, diplomats, musicians and a socialist campaigner. The eight figures who make up this oral history are Bishop Daly, John Hume, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Deane, Phil Coulter, Eamonn McCann, Paul Brady and James Sharkey. These interviewees, as well as being world figures, are also sharply insightful. They form as fine an example as exists of the watershed in Irish history brought about by educational overhaul. These eight remarkable men first learned to survive in the unionist state, and then to thrive. The considerable momentum that gathered from their endeavours, along with those of others, paved the way for future generations. As Seamus Heaney put it, 'they broke some silences' and opened avenues that had been unimaginable to their parents. Their achievement is still being felt today.

Author's website - MauriceFitzpatrick.Org
Publishers website -TheLiffeyPress.Com
The book can be purchased from Amazon

Deadline - midnight on Friday.

2010-04-28T21:46:00.001+01:00

Gerry McCullough has written five novels and had around 30 short stories and several poems and articles published in a number of magazines, books, online publications and broadcast on BBC radio.

In 2005 she received the Cuirt Award for New Writing from Galway Arts Centre, (judged by Helon Habila, Nigeria), for her story, 'Primroses', which was published in their Annual. In 2008 she was shortlisted for the Brian Moore Award in Belfast. Her story, 'The Greatest Gift of All', was one of 24 included in the 'People's Friend 2008 Annual'.

In Sept 2009 her story, 'Giving Up', was commended in the Seán O’Faolain Short Story Competition, Cork - (Munster Literature Centre). Now, this same story is to be included in an anthology to be published next year by The Stinging Fly Press, Dublin.

The first part (24,000 words) of Gerry's book, 'Belfast Girls', is available to read on http://authonomy.com which you can join read the book, back it, comment, and watch it move up the ratings!

When a book reaches the highest level it is guaranteed to be read by the publisher, Harper Collins, with the possibility then of a publishing deal! It works like an online 'slush-pile', with YOU as the reader.

'Belfast Girls' is Number five tonight on the HarperCollins (publishers) website: authonomy.com

Help it stay in the top 5 for two more days by registering on the site and 'Backing' the book. The top 5 books at midnight on 30th April will be read by HarperCollins, with the possibility of a publishing deal resulting.

If you have not already done so, please

Register (simple) on http://www.authonomy.com,
Search for 'Belfast Girls' and click on it -
Then click on 'Back the book'

UPDATE Sat 1st May - The book was selected for review by HarperCollins" - Authonomy Editors Desk - http://ht.ly/1FBJ5

Crime writers interrogated on the Beeb tonight.

2010-04-28T20:48:00.003+01:00

Two of Northern Irelands favourite radio dj's present what is called an eclectic mash-up of all things art in Northern Ireland, in a programme entitled Art Space. Tonight's programme, on BBC 1 @ 11:00pm includes...

Donna Legge investigating the murky world of crime fiction in Northern Ireland.
To help her with her enquires she met Dr Andrew Pepper, a lecturer in English and crime fiction at Queens University.
Donna also interrogated local author Stuart Neville, whose debut novel The Twelve has been optioned for a movie deal and was shortlisted for the LA Times book prize 2010.
Joining her too in the interview room was Brian McGilloway the writer responsible for the critically acclaimed Inspector Devlin series who was shortlisted in 2007 for the CWA New Gold Dagger award and whose books have been optioned for TV.

Finally Donna had a rendez-vous down at the docks with internationally renowned crime writer Lee Child, who has just released his 14th book '61 Hours'.

Meanwhile, Joe Lindsay...

Check out Verbal this week!

2010-04-25T16:57:00.001+01:00

For all you Norn Iron folk, Verbal Magazine is in the Derry Journal on Tuesday 27th April, Belfast News on Thursday 29th April and Newsletter on Friday 30th April 2010.
This month Verbal speaks to Edna O’Brien on the 50th anniversary of Country Girls – her debut novel which, despite being banned in Ireland on its release, cemented her reputation as one of the most important writers of her generation.
As if one literary luminary wasn’t enough, they also chat to poet and novelist, Ciaran Carson on the links between his writing and traditional music. An interview with the award winning Nigerian-born writer Petina Gappah and a feature by Canadian-born Chris Nikkel looks at how
immigrant writers are changing the face of Irish (and British) society and literature. Plus Marcus Sedgwick, the master of historical fiction for children, took time out from his appearance at the Children’s Books Ireland conference to speak to us about his award winning fiction.
Their opinion piece this month comes from Mike Faulkner, author of two books documenting his life on an uninhabited Island on Stangford Lough. Recently shortlisted for the inaugural Author Blog Awards - Mike explains the difficulties of online marketing when you’re reliant on a generator for electricity…

They also took a trip to the first Northern Ireland Booktrust conference to find out how this national organisation is helping parents and carers make a difference to children in their most formative years.
Their popular Shelf Life and Ulster History Circle features are still going strong and they continue with their new series; introducing readers to some of the best of the special collections housed in local libraries – this month Edward Bunting, and some exclusive pictures of the inside of QUB’s new multi-million pound library. With details of upcoming literary festivals, a sneak peak at 2D – Northern Ireland’s premier celebration of comics and graphic novels and reviews of the best, new Irish writing you won’t want to miss.

Ausubo Press Responds to Death Threats Against Anthony McIntyre

2010-04-23T11:37:00.002+01:00

If tweets were more than 240 characters I'd have tweeted...

Ausubo Press the publishing company that compiled the best essays and articles of Northern Irish author Dr. Anthony McIntyre in the book Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism responds to death threats against him http://ow.ly/1C6HB

A deal has been signed.

2010-04-21T22:12:00.002+01:00

Bookseller.Com report that

Award-winning Northern Irish playwright and novelist Lucy Caldwell has been signed up by Faber in a two-book deal for her first novels. Angus Cargill bought world rights from Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White. Caldwell is already published on the Faber drama list. Cargill described it as a "hugely impressive piece of narrative fiction, which becomes a devastating and compelling look at this woman's loss of faith". Faber will publish early spring 2011.

For a good cause...

2010-04-19T21:57:00.001+01:00

Camille’s Appeal is the children’s brain tumour charity specifically focused on the support and welfare of children under the age of five.

Under current treatments, children are likely to undergo three treatments in an attempt to cure them of this horrific illness, all of which have a devastating effect on the bodies of these small children. Chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy will in many cases leave the child with disabilities making an independent life very difficult.

Camille’s Appeal wants to help these wonderful children and their families get as close to a normal life as possible. The focus of the charity is to work closely with the NHS to ensure that each and every child is given the maximum amount of care to lower the risk of disability and to create and improve rehabilitation care across the United Kingdom.

Claire Allan the 'chick lit' author from L/Derry is trying to raise some support for CAMILLE'S APPEAL.On her blog she's posted that she's...

decided to give one lucky reader the chance to make a cameo appearance in my new book 'It's Got to Be Perfect' for a donation to the appeal.
This is how it is going to work.

The highest bidder by the end of this month will win the prize.

They can feature in the book themselves, or nominate a family member or friend to appear in the book.

Their name will appear in the book which will be published by Poolbeg Press at the end of September 2010.

The winner will receive a mention in the acknowledgements of the book along with a plug for Camille's Appeal. They will also received a signed copy of the book for them and/or their chosen special guest star.

This is a very worthwhile cause - and this is a great present for people who perhaps struggle to find that perfect present for the person who has everything.

To enter: Please contact me at claire.allan@gmail.com

PLEASE NOTE: It's Got to be Perfect is a romatic comedy novel for adults - and does contain some strong language and scenes of a sexual nature - please bear this is mind when you are thinking of who you would like to nominate - as perhaps your great Auntie Mable wouldn't be so keen!

There'a also the opportunity to read Chapter One of It's Got to Be Perfect due for release in October 2010 - just click on this LINK.

Growing up in Belfast.

2010-04-18T22:03:00.001+01:00

It's strange having two books just published about boys growing up in Belfast, one growing up in the Upper Shankill and another in Falls Road area of Belfast. Both books about what it was like growing up in Belfast in the 70's & 80's.
A book which opens with...I was born on Tuesday 10 May 1966. I died the same day. Relatives hugged and cried... would certainly be a temptation book lovers would find hard to resist, a book they'd just have to read.The book Where Are You Really From? tells the story of Tim Brannigan...

Born into a devoutly Catholic Belfast family, Peggy Brannigan was devastated when she became pregnant as a result of an extra-marital affair with a black junior doctor. Unwilling to have an abortion or to have the baby adopted, Peggy came up with an audacious plan to keep her child.
When Tim was born hospital staff smuggled him into St Joseph’s Baby Home and told the rest of the Brannigan family that the baby had been stillborn. One year later, Peggy adopted Tim and brought him to live with her family in the Falls Road area of Belfast. It was 1967.
Told here for the first time, this is Tim’s extraordinary story, describing in vivid detail what it was like growing up black in Belfast during the turbulent 1970s and 80s, his five-year stint as a republican prisoner, his coming to terms with the true circumstances surrounding his birth, and his desperate attempts to trace the father who abandoned him.
Where Are You Really From? is a fascinating and powerful memoir about oneman’s struggle to establish his own identity and a moving tribute to the woman who risked everything to keep her son. Source - Blackstaff Press

It's fasciniating to read articles and listen to podcasts about this book. There's also an opportunity to hear Tim Brannigan @ the 11th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival [Friday 7 May 1.00pm - The Black Box] Tickets available here.

An event/programme with Tony Macaulay and Tim Brannigan talking about their childhood would be interesting to see sometime, hint hint folks.

Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

2010-04-16T14:46:00.002+01:00

Launched last night, Paperboy’- a memoir of a Belfast childhood, is another book to add to [yours and] my reading list.This book is written by Tony Macaulay,a broadcaster and community development and conflict resolution consultant from Northern Ireland.The blurb for the book reads...

It’s Belfast, 1975, and a 12-year-old boy wearing Brut aftershave has just been appointed paperboy to the Upper Shankill by Oul’ Mac.

The smell of Tayto cheese and onion crisps is on his breath, and the aroma of fresh fish suppers and burning double-decker busses is in the air. It is the era of platform shoes and parallel trousers, and Paperboy is taking guitar lessons with Mr Rowing so he can play along to the Bay City Rollers.

Belfast in the seventies is like the newspapers he delivers: everything is black and white, albeit Orange and Green. There are bombings and killings on the evening news, but Paperboy is more interested in Doctor Who and Top of the Pops, bonfires and outer space, and of course, Sharon Burgess.

It is a time of hate and conflict, but Paperboy’s only battles are with acne, dentistry and the wee hoods out to rob his paper money. The streets are ruled by the IRA and the UDA, but Paperboy is under the spell of a less threatening acronym: ABBA.

There are secrets at school and dangers on the streets, but Paperboy is happy, so he is. He is a good paperboy. He delivers.

Tony's been busy the last day or two. The launch, videod by Mr Ulster...

On the Nolan Show [podcasts]

And, Tony's just announced the news that...

The film rights for 'Paperboy' have been snapped up by Titian Red Pictures. They plan to make the book into an international feature film!

I'm looking forward to reading the book as my wee Ma was born on the 'Road' and because of that I seem to have an affinity with the Shankill and want to keep updated on all that's gone on there.

BLACK BOOKS

2010-04-15T17:27:00.002+01:00

Sunday, 18 April 2010 12-5 @ the Black Box

Inspired by the crafty resourcefulness of the Black Market and a cult tv-show about a dusty bookshop and a taciturn, alcoholic Irishman, trans in association with the Black Market, present a new, grass-roots book fair.With a cacophony of stalls manned by book-sellers, zine writers and literary enthusiasts and an afternoon of word-based entertainment, Black Books is a revival and a celebration of the multiplicities of language and printed word.Stalls will include new and secondhand books, zines, rare books & antiquities, comicbooks, magazines, papers and children’s literature.Come enjoy a laid-back Sunday afternoon, and have a hoke through some dusty old books sitting side-by- side with cutting edge writing from both the local and international avant-garde.Tea and tales in the cafe all day: books, bean bags and storytelling.Tea and Tales brings you stories by some of the best authors of children’s contemporary fiction read on-the-hour by renowned storytellers. Children and parents can choose to listen to the stories read on the hour or simply relax on some bean bags in a quiet comfy area and choose something to read for themselves.Perhaps most importantly there will be a fine selection of word-based games in the cafe including Scrabble, Boggle and the Black Books favourite, BANANAGRAMS!
more info @ Black Books April -facebook

That's lovely !

2010-04-13T21:52:00.002+01:00

I think it's nice to see a book written by someone I know, because they might just drop a copy in the post to me.It's even better when an ex creative writing tutor of mine has her first book published. I had the privilege of being in a creative writing class in Limavady which was facilitated by Bernie McGill. Bernie's book The Butterfly Cabinet is due to be published later this year. I'm looking forward to reading the book as Bernie heard so much of what I attempted to write. I couldn't resist but write a short poem at the end of the series of classes that highlighted two words she said after she'd heard my attempts at writing.We both read the poem out at the last class. I'll share it here...

"That's lovely" a poem for two narrators
1st narrator
On the 2nd of October 2008
I arrived before eleven. It's rude to be late.
The creative writing class started
and we all said who we were
and what we liked writing
and what we wanted to learn.
Over the weeks the lessons were varied
and some of the homework's even seemed quite scary.
Like writing iambic stress patterns and spells and incantations.
When I couldn't do them I was full of frustration.
When my words all connected and everything flowed
and I felt like what I'd written was worth it's weight in gold.
Yes, when that happened the words I wanted to hear.
Just two words, which I'll always hold dear
2nd narrator -(words spoken slowly and sweetly)
"That's lovely"

I'm sure Bernie's book will be lovely and thanks to CultureNI here's an extract read by Bernie herself.Enjoy...

Vote for these Northern Irish authors

2010-04-12T00:14:00.002+01:00

It's ladies first. For MAD Blog of the Year award in the Funniest Blog category, the author of books like Jumping in Puddles and Feels Like Maybe, yer women who has popularised the use of the word 'feck' in local literary circles. Yer woman who spells her surname Allan not Allen, who else could it be but Claire Allan. Her blog is found HERE and the voting booth over here in the corner. She needs your votes, she once won a basket of fruit in a raffle in school but someone had loaned her the 10p for the ticket so she had to give them the grapes (aka the best bit).

VOTE FAULKNER! No we're not going back in time and I'm not encouraging people to vote for any political party but I am encouraging you to vote for Michael Faulkner. Michael is author of The Blue Cabin: Living by the Tides on Islandmore and Still on the Sound: A Seasonal Look at Island Life and blogs @ ISLAND LIFE: The Blue Cabin Blog and tweets @TheBlueCabin Michael is a finalist in the Author Blog Awards which aim to honour the best blogs by both published and unpublished writers. They will recognise the writers who use their blogs to connect with readers in the most imaginative, engaging and inspiring ways. At the same time they hope to attract new audiences to these blogs and help readers find out more about the authors they love, and new authors too.Vote for Michael here.

Spinetingler promote and enhance the profile of talented emerging writers using the forum of electronic publishing and two Northern Irish authors names appear in the 2010 Spinetingler Award list. They are Stuart Neville for The Ghosts of Belfast in the Best Novel: New Voice category and Adrian McKinty for Fifty Grand in the Rising Star category.Vote for them here.

In other news Sam Millar has four of his books listed in the top ten Dark Fiction Picked By Amazon Readers Well done Sam!

The tweet read...

2010-04-08T22:04:00.003+01:00

another book in the 'news' soon -'Duplicity and Deception: Policing the Twilight Zone of the Troubles' by Alan Simpson http://bit.ly/cI2Pxc
1:05 AM Apr 5th via HootSuite

Today..

Finucane detective 'could have caught killers'
The retired RUC Detective, Alan Simpson, made the claim in a book entitled Duplicity and Deception...
Book 'is not attack on RUC'
‎The retired detective superintendent was in Belfast yesterday for the launch of his book Duplicity and Deception: Policing the Twilight Zone of the Troubles ...

Troops Out Movement Latest News
The retired RUC Detective, Alan Simpson, made the claim in a book entitled Duplicity and Deception, which is due to be published on Thursday. ..

The Irish World : news : (Irish News)
Simpson makes the claims in his controversial new book “Duplicity and Deception”which is due to be published this week. ... Alan Simpson rose to the rank of detective superintendent in the RUC and was the deputy head of the CID for ...

I'm sure there'll be more soon. Watch this space!

The bookworm's noticed...

2010-04-07T17:08:00.002+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

Oxford University Press has recently published a book entitled 'The European Convention on Human Rights and the Conflict in Northern Ireland . The book provides the first comprehensive account of the role played by the European Convention on Human Rights during the conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968. Topics examined in the book include the right to life, the right not to be ill-treated, the right to liberty, the right to a fair trial, the right to a private life, the right to freedom of belief, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of assembly, and the right not to be discriminated against.

Former Antrim footballer, Paul Darby who is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sports Studies at the University of Ulster in Belfast, has written what's been described as a brilliantly researched work and insightful account of the history of Gaelic Games in America entitled, “Gaelic Games,Nationalism and the Irish Diaspora in the United States” He focuses on New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, showing the breadth of the Irish experience and how the GAA interacted with the wider Irish community differently in each city.

For those of you into horror.James Gracey, who blogs Behind the Couch has written a book entilted Dario Argento examining the work of Dario Argento one of horror cinemas most significant pioneers.

Over at the Poetry Foundation Brian Turner interviews Sinead Morrissey, who's latest collection (Through the Square Window) was awarded the Irish Times Poetry Now Award.

The first Northern Ireland Drewett Book Award has been won by Derek Landy's The Faceless Ones (Skulduggery Pleasant), the third Skulduggery Pleasant book.

You’re So Fit

2010-04-05T22:50:00.002+01:00

If like me you've overindulged over the last few days we should be reading and acting on what's written in Your So Fit , written by Ciaran Woods a Certified Personal Trainer and Natural Bodybuilder from Maghera. It's claimed: for women trying to lose pounds of unwanted body fat and develop that toned shapely look or a man interested in building rock-hard muscle onto your frame,that all the information you need to get started and continue to make visible improvements on your body is contained within the pages of this book

I think it's great that so many authors now have their own websites, facebook/bebo pages and twitter accounts.On Ciaran Woods website he's listed a few Motovational Tips which I thought I'd share, they include...

Having faith in yourself is absolutely essential if you want to succeed...
Desire is something you must possess is you are to continually follow through with the process of getting into top shape...
Without a definite goal you are going nowhere, you have to analyse yourself and decide what it is exactly you are trying to achieve and then construct a plan of how you are going to get from where you are now to where you want to be...

On Ciaran's old Bebo page his Inspirational quote is..

Life is like a book with many different chapters, some tell of tragedy, others of triumph. Some chapters are dull and ordinary, others intense and exciting. The key to being a success in life is to never stop on a difficult page, to never quit on a tough chapter. Champions have the courage to keep turning the pages because they know a better chapter lies ahead.

Judging by the amount of hints and tips on his website it looks like this book could well be the ultimate guide to perfecting your body.

Voices from the Grave

2010-03-29T21:03:00.000+01:00

Ed Moloney's 'Voices from the Grave' published today has caused quite a stir here in Northern Ireland. The book is based on interviews with two former paramilitary leaders, David Ervine from the UVF and former IRA leader Brendan Hughes. An interview with Brendan Hughes claims that Gerry Adams the Sinn Féin President ordered the murder of Jean McConville over claims she was a British army informer.Nearly a decade ago Ed Moloney's book 'A Secret History of the IRA' detailed Adams’s involvement with the IRA’s Belfast brigade and their reign of terror in the early and mid 1970s.

The blurb for Voices from the Grave reads...

a truly ground-breaking piece of historical evidence-gathering initiated by Boston College, two former paramilitary leaders - one republican, one loyalist - speak with unprecedented frankness about their role in some of the most appalling violence of the Troubles. Their openness results in a book of shocking and irresistible testimony, their voices set in the context of a narrative by Ed Moloney of their lives and of the society they grew up in.

A review for 'A Secret History of the IRA' read... An in-depth authoritative read. A 'must buy' for those interested in modern republican history...Ed Moloney at his best!!! I'm sure there'll be similar reviews for Voices from the Grave too.

A timely reminder from Blackstaff Press

2010-03-27T14:55:00.000Z

Summer time officially begins tomorrow and Blackstaff Press have kindly shared a recipe for 'Summer Pudding' from Simon Dougan's cookbook, The Yellow Door. They say...

Summer pudding does, truly, epitomise the taste of summer.

After reading the recipe here I'd agree with that.

The latest from the Feldstein Agency

2010-03-24T22:28:00.002Z

The Feldstein Agency (Literary Agents and Publishing Consultants) is a diverse and dynamic publishing consultancy offering a range of services to Irish, U.K., U.S. and international book publishers and authors. These include:

Literary Agenting and Scouting
Rights Sales (including representation at major international book fairs)
International Sales and Distribution Consulting
Editorial Services (Commissioning, Script Development, Ghostwriting, Copy Editing)
Packaging
Executive Search for Publishing Professionals

Their current projects involve writers like Anthony Quinn, a crime fiction author from Dungannon,Lesley Richardson a fiction writer from Bangor and Tanya Ravenswater another fiction author originally from Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Other authors include, Brendan McCourt who has worked as a journalist in Northern Ireland for nearly 30 years.Patrick Greg with a True Crime story The ‘Limbs-in-the-Loch’, Deric Henderson who has written about the Northern Irish dentist Colin Howell. More authors include Lee Henry, Darragh McIntyre and Ronald W. Bresland

full details below the fold... read more...

Current Projects: London Book Fair 2010

Fiction

Disappeared [Crime Fiction NEW]
Anthony Quinn
If Detective John Rebus woke up in a decomposing cottage on the misty shores of Lough Neagh, and found himself balanced precariously on the edge of a pool of self-pity, while pitted against shadowy security forces and the IRA, the result might be something like Disappeared, Anthony Quinn’s first crime thriller.
The action is set in a wintry, water-bound landscape, a sniper’s puzzle of thick thorn hedges and slanting fields, which is inhabited by a small group of reclusive duck-hunters, who have retreated to the wilds of the lough shore in the hope of escaping their sinister pasts.
One of them, a former spy, believing his life is in grave danger, writes his own obituary, and publishes it in a newspaper the day before he is brutally murdered. Shortly afterwards, his handler, now suffering from Alzheimer’s and plagued by ghosts, disappears from his lough-shore cottage, presumed kidnapped.
Detective Celcius Daly is charged with investigating the murder, and must navigate his way through a dangerous world of cover-ups, abductions and killings to uncover a truth which threatens to destabilise the peace process.
Interwoven with the story of Daly’s faltering investigation are chapters describing the mysterious events which befall the kidnapped man. He escapes death and capture on several occasions with the help of a ghostly figure known as ‘the visitor’. He also sends a cryptic postcard to his sister and carer, which gives clues to his whereabouts.
The emotional climax involves a teenager’s search for his father's grave, one of the Disappeared, who was abducted and killed by the IRA. The teenager joins forces with Daly in the hunt for the missing man, and as their search unravels through the labyrinth of bogs and tree-lined coves around Lough Neagh, they discover a conspiracy of silence between the IRA and the security forces.
Anthony Quinn is a stunning new crime fiction author-this is his first novel.
Author’s Home: Dungannon, N. Ireland World Rights

Biddy Weirdo [General/Crossover Fiction]
Lesley Richardson
A spare and moving account of the devastating effects of a relentless campaign of bullying on its subject, a shy young loner with an exceptional talent for drawing and an emotionally crippled father. Set in a fictional seaside town in Northern Ireland, this story of universal appeal is at once full of pathos and speckled with black humour. Reminiscent of Brian Moore's Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne in its acute portrait of the quiet desperation of the socially inept, this is a very promising first novel from a writer with much potential.
Author’s home: Bangor, N. Ireland. World Rights

Russian Dolls [Literary Fiction]
Tanya Ravenswater
Beautifully written with a simple lyricism which is sustained apparently effortlessly throughout, this is a first novel of rare integrity and compassion, which breaks down the barriers between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’, and gives us a unique insight into the world of the obsessive-compulsive – and the power of friendship, compassion and love.
Author’s home: Cheshire, England (Originally from Bangor, N Ireland). World Rights

Non-Fiction

Dissident Ranks: A History of the Real IRA and Continuity IRA [History/Current Events NEW]
Brendan McCourt
This book will outline and explain the origins, motives and modus operandi of dissident Republicans in Ireland.It is based on the investigations and detailed research the author has carried out over the past ten years or so, which have resulted in four programmes broadcast by the BBC: The Croatia Connection (BBC Spotlight, December 1999); Dissident Ranks (BBC Spotlight, February 2003); Omagh: What the Police Were Never Told (BBC Panorama, September 2008); The Gunmen Who Never Went Away (BBC Panorama, March 2009).
It will chart the rise of Republican Sinn Fein in the mid-eighties, which broke away from Provisional Sinn Fein on a point of policy principle, under the leadership of Ruairi O’Bradaigh, a prominent Republican and former IRA leader from the 1950s. It will also aim to throw new light on its military wing, the Continuity IRA, of which very little is known, or has been documented, to date.
It will also examine the origins of The Real IRA, which came into being some ten years later. Detailed research, supplemented by reliable source material, will outline how, in 1997, another group of hard line Republicans, with considerable military experience, decided to break away from the Provisional IRA to continue the war, as they see it, against the British presence in Ireland.
It will follow the progress of these dissident groups leading up to the present day activities which continue to threaten the fragile peace that has brought N. Ireland hope and promise.
Brendan McCourt is an award winning investigative journalist currently working for the BBC as a television current affairs producer. He has worked as a journalist in Northern Ireland for nearly 30 years and has produced and directed a number of programmes for the BBC about dissident Republicans over the past ten years. In 2009 he was nominated for an RTS award and a BAFTA for Panorama for Omagh: What the Police Were Never Told. In 2007, he was nominated for a Royal Television Society Scoop of the Year award for The Hunt for Captain Nairac.
Author’s Home: Belfast World Rights

William Beggs: The ‘Limbs-in-the-Loch’ Murderer [True Crime NEW]
Patrick Greg
In December 1999, as Scotland prepares for the biggest Hogmanay for a century, with the coming Millennium celebrations, a gruesome discovery is made by a police diving team on a training exercise in Loch Lomond. Limbs from a cadaver are brought to the surface, one after another, and it is clear that the team had inadvertently stumbled upon a killer’s dumping ground. Subsequently, a severed head washes up on a beach near Troon, on the west coast of Scotland, and is matched forensically with the recently recovered limbs. The victim is soon identified as Barry Wallace, a nineteen-year-old man who had gone missing after a night at a Christmas function in Kilmarnock on the previous December 5th.
Police already knew of William Beggs, and he became the prime suspect almost immediately. A case was carefully built against Beggs, even as he fled the country back to his parents’ home in Northern Ireland, and then to the Netherlands, where he was detained by Dutch Police. After extradition, Beggs was ultimately brought to trial and convicted of the slaying of Barry Wallace.
Patrick Greg explores not only the case in question, but also Beggs’ history of violent crime and the likelihood that a number of unsolved murders of gay men might be linked to the same man.
Patrick Greg is the author of The Crum (Gill & Macmillan, 2007) and the forthcoming Cold-Blooded Murder (John Blake, 2010).
Author’s Home: N. Ireland. World Rights

The Castlerock Murders [True Crime]
Deric Henderson
The compelling story of the Northern Irish dentist Colin Howell, who in 2009 confessed – seemingly after some kind of religious epiphany – to murdering his wife and his lover’s husband almost twenty years previously. As veteran investigative reporter Henderson delves deeper into the background of a man who is now also the subject of a separate police investigation in relation to a catalogue of alleged sexual assaults on anaesthetised female patients, he uncovers a story of murderous conspiracy, a staged double suicide, betrayal, greed and a twenty year secret, all against the unlikely backdrop of a small community in Northern Ireland’s Bible belt. A book which will give new force to the old adage that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. . .
Irish edition to be published by Gill & Macmillan directly after the trial, expected in Autumn 2010.
Author’s Home: Belfast World Rights ex Ireland (Gill &Macmillan)

Belfast Taxi: Memories in the Fast Lane [Memoirs/History]
Lee Henry
Belfast Taxi: Memories in the Fast Lane tells the real life stories of the Belfast taxi drivers who kept driving through the Troubles. A factual mix of tragic personal testimonies, hilarious anecdotes and philosophical cabbie musings, the book becomes a social history of Belfast over the previous forty years (as told by the men and women who know the city best), as well as an entertaining tour through the working lives of Belfast’s most amiable professionals.
Author Home’s: Belfast. World Rights ex UK & Ireland (Blackstaff Press)

The Voices of Belfast [Narrative History]
Darragh McIntyre
This book will be a highly individual ‘take’ on the city, but one which will deeply resonate with anyone who lives or has lived in Belfast, or has even just spent some time there. Through a series of encounters with various Belfast natives, the author will look at a number of aspects of the city – past, present and future; the social, political and cultural context of the place; significant events, traditions, and places and people of particular importance - as well as those of no apparent importance, but whose very uniqueness makes them worthy of mention.
The overall aim will be to recreate something of the essential character of the city of Belfast and its people – where a spirit of incredible warmth and hospitality coexists with a deeply rooted sense of unease, where a savage and self-deprecating humour takes a wicked delight in debunking anyone in danger of taking themselves too seriously. While the darker elements of the city and its inhabitants will certainly not be overlooked, the book will be above all a celebration of the place in all its idiosyncratic glory!
The style and form of the narrative will be quirky, eclectic and more than a little whimsical at times, but the book will be a compulsive and very accessible read and the reader will emerge at the end with an indelible impression of a city and a people as richly complex as they are individual and unique.
Darragh’s first book, Conversations: Snapshots of Modern Irish Life (Gill & Macmillan) was published to much critical acclaim in 2005.
Author’s Home: Belfast World Rights

Narnian Ireland: A Pictorial Biography of CS Lewis [Biography]
Ronald W. Bresland
Narnian Ireland: A Pictorial Biography of CS Lewis is a major new appraisal of CS Lewis’s Irish life and background and will present the author’s relationship with his homeland in a fully illustrated and visually exciting, large format book. This book will show that Lewis remained and thought of himself as an Irishman throughout his life and that the Chronicles of Narnia and many of his other works are directly influenced by his Irish background. Narnian Ireland presents an informed, comprehensive and engaging biographical account of Lewis’s Irish background in a way that is illuminating, engaging and entertaining. The book will combine high quality contemporary photographs of places in Ireland closely associated with Lewis and illustrated and archival material of the Lewis family and associates drawn from a wide and varied range of sources.
Author Home: Artigarvan, N. Ireland World Rights

Recently Sold Projects

Belfast Taxi by Lee Henry
UK and Ireland rights to Blackstaff Press

The Castlerock Murders by Deric Henderson
Ireland (Northern and Republic of) rights to Gill & Macmillan

Hide and Seek by Stephen Walker
World Rights to HarperCollins UK

Dream On: One Hacker’s Challenge to Break Par in a Year by John Richardson
US rights to Skyhorse Publishing. UK and Ireland rights to Blackstaff Press. Film option to Artifice Films.

Cold Blooded Murder: The Murder of Pearl Gamble and the Last Execution in N. Ireland by Patrick Greg
World Rights to John Blake

The Step by Step Guide to Setting Up and Managing Your own Coffee Bar
by John Richardson
World Rights to How To Books

Wake up and Smell the Coffee 52 (+1) Guaranteed Ways to Make More Money in Your Coffee Business by John Richardson
World Rights to How To Books

Recent 'notable' tweets

2010-03-23T21:22:00.002Z

I know some people have no time for twitter and for those readers like that occasionally I'll share tweets that are posted here on the BooksNI.Biz website. These tweets are tweets from local publishers and authors and well worth reading if you want to keep up to date with the 'biz'.

Recent tweets...

BlackstaffNI
Going to LBF? Come to the tweetup! 20 April, invitation here --> http://bit.ly/aE44lE #lbtweet 2:39 PM Mar 18th via web

DianneAscroft Second year, second audience - it's great to find new readers. http://dianneascroft.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/second-year-second-audience/ 8:54 AM Mar 20th via web

stuartneville
Craig Ferguson, aka @CraigyFerg, talks about GHOSTS OF BELFAST movie: http://bit.ly/arHJ1t 1:44 PM Mar 20th via TweetDeck

_d_a_v_e_
BooksNI.Biz now has a fan page on facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/BooksNiBiz/333586131915 if you're that way inclined

gerardbrennan
Lee Child in Belfast (Wed 24th March), win a free ticket here - http://crimesceneni.blogspot.com/2010/03/lee-child-competition.html 11:25 AM Mar 22nd via web

ClaireAllan
At Strabane library tonight doing my authorly thang about 11 hours ago via web

stuartneville
REQUIEMS FOR THE DEPARTED: Anthology of crime shorts based on Irish mythology, inc. my own story Queen of the Hill - http://bit.ly/dsHoNx about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck

colourpoint
Colourpoint announce publication of our brand new book for KS3 History: History in Close-up, The Twentieth Century: tinyurl.com/ygaxdul about 4 hours ago via web

Never let go of what YOU strive for

2010-03-21T17:23:00.001Z

Not only a true insight to the ever evolving big wave surf scene in Ireland but also an inspirational, emotional and personal journey by Al Mennie.
My mind was filled with thoughts should I really be doing this? Do I know what I've got myself into? Am I ready?
I felt I was feeling my way through big wave surfing at this stage largely with a trial and error approach. It was a weird time in my life because I also felt like that in my everyday life.source

Pioneering Northern Irish big wave surfer Al Mennie has recently, with the help of April Sky Design, published his first book.Al accepted as a contender into the 2007/2008 Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards and as a nominee for selection into the Quiksilver Big Wave In Memory of Eddie Aikau event at Waimea Bay, Hawaii is one of only two European surfers to have ever achieved these prestigious accolades.
The video below shows a little of what he does when a huge swell hit the West Coast of Ireland on 7th November 2009.Al is wearing the orange helmet, black wetsuit and is on the orange board.

The book cleverly entitled "Surfing Mennie Waves" is available to buy now.

Re-examining and re-appraising...

2010-03-19T17:23:00.001Z

It's not very often to read and fully understand one book I'd need to have read seven other books previously.It looks like it is the case with Peter Mahon's Violence, Politics and Textual Interventions in Northern Ireland. Starting with Joe Cleary's Literature, Partition and the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine (Cultural Margins) and Richard Bourke's Peace in Ireland: The War of Ideas would probably need to have been read to understand Peter Mahon's suggestions on the characterizations of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The blurb for Violence, Politics and Textual Interventions in Northern Ireland reads...

Drawing on the literary-anthropological work of René Girard and the psychoanalytical work of Jacques Lacan, Mahon's analysis of key Troubles texts seeks to move away from the all-too-common belief that the Troubles were the result of the repeated clashes of atavistic and instinctual tribal nationalisms. Using the work of both theorists, Mahon re-examines and re-appraises the complex deployment of recurrent motifs—such as language, violence, ritual, psycho-sexual dynamics, history, the law—in key Troubles texts. He then goes on to explore how the interaction between these texts and theorists makes it possible to theorize a new, flexible framework for reading and engaging with the dynamic interplay of violence, sexuality, politics and textuality that opens up alternate political and sexual possibilities.

Texts examined in the book include Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father, Terry George's Some Mother's Son, Neil Jordan's The Crying Game, Bernard MacLaverty’s Cal, Louise Dean’s This Human Season, Glenn Patterson’s That Which Was and Pat McCabe's Breakfast on Pluto The book looks like a very interesting read which evovled out of Peter's classes on Northern Irish literature and film at the University of British Columbia, where he lectures.

“For the house, darlin’s. We’re going to paint the O'Neill house yellow“

2010-03-15T23:50:00.000Z

Patricia Falvey who was born and raised in Newry, Northern Ireland and now living in Dallas has just published her first novel entitled The Yellow House...

Glenlea, County Armagh, Ireland 1905. When her family is torn apart by religious intolerance, personal tragedy, and explosive secrets, young Eileen O'Neill is determined to reclaim the Yellow House where her family had been happy and bring her broken family back home.

As war is declared on a local and global scale, Eileen cannot separate the politics from the personal impact of the conflict. Her choice is complicated by the influence of two men. James Conlon, a charismatic and passionate politcal activit is determined to win Irish independence from Great Britain at any cost, appeals to her warrior's soul.

But Eileen also finds herself drawn to Owen Sheridan, the wealthy and handsome black sheep of the pacifist family who owns the milll where she works, and who believes that peace can never be achieved through violence.

The choice that Eileen makes will change the course of all their lives and give her a true understanding of herself. Set in Ulster in the early 20th century, this novel brings to life the conflicts leading up to the birth of the border that divided the island of Ireland, and still exists today.

Joy Tipping from The Dallas Morning News reviews the book...

The book tells the first-person story of Eileen O'Neill, whom we first meet as a child in Ulster, the epicenter of the conflict between the British rule-supporting Protestants and the Home Rule-supporting Catholics. Eileen's idyllic childhood, set in the bright house of the book's title, comes apart when she loses, in quick succession, both parents and two of her siblings.
Left with her younger brother to care for, she goes to work in a linen factory, attracting the attention of the owner's son, Owen Sheridan, a gentle Quaker who gets drawn into the political upheaval when he becomes a British military officer.
Eileen also finds herself attracted to James Conlan, a rough man on the other side of the battle, whose fighting spirit appeals to her own warrior nature.
As the book progresses, and the animosities between the Protestants and the now fully formed Irish Republican Army grow ever bloodier, Eileen is continually split, with conflicts of love, lust, compassion and loyalty running roughshod over her soul. The early scenes of Eileen's and James' lawless exploits for the Catholic resistance make for thrilling reading, and her gradual realization that lust doesn't necessarily lead to long-lasting contentment is realistic and sad.
Falvey's research is flawless, and she perfectly balances the fictional story with the real-life characters and events that populate it.

Elsewhere on the net and more reasons to add this book to my reading list....

This novel delivers the best of both worlds: secrets, intrigue and surprising twists will keep readers flipping the pages, while Falvey's insight and poetic writing tugs at the heartstrings of the most cynical audiences.
bless their hearts mom blog

This novel definitely took me on a journey through a defining time in Northern Ireland -- and in fact, the creation of the country. The tension between the Protestants and Catholics is palpable and distressing. Having this violence occur in the shadow of World War I seems almost unbelievable and yet the history is undeniable.
We Be Reading.Com

Also a competition for US & Canadian readers @ We Be Reading.Com, a chance to win a brand new copy of the book (thanks to the publisher, Hachette Book Group) Just leave a comment before the end of day on Tuesday March 16 (be sure to include your e-mail address if it's not in your profile) and the winner will be chosen on St. Patrick's Day. Good Luck Folks!

DREAM ON

2010-03-11T22:11:00.001Z

A memoir about golf and pursuing your dreams is due to be released this April in the USA. The book entitled 'Dream On' is written by John Richardson a 39 year old golfer who lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland. In May 2004 he set himself a challenge, he was a hacker golfer who couldn’t break 100 and wanted to break par at his local golf course. John wanted to do it in a year or less. Sam Torrance told him to “dream on”.

James Corrigan, Golf Correspondent, The Independent wrote...
While the overwhelming majority of us would be content with the occasional miracle in a thousand efforts, the author went after 70 of them. Consecutively. Yes, the Ulsterman made it his mission to go from being unable to break 100, to breaking par in the space of a year. And not only that, but the self-avowed slob in his late thirties would do so while holding down a full-time job as well as bringing up a family. As Sam Torrance said when he heard of the project, 'Dream On!'. Thus the Scot gave Richardson his title, if not some extra incentive.

Published by Blackstaff Press in the UK and now Skyhorse Publishing in the US it's strange that the best recomendation I've read for this book came in the form of a tweet...

Just received the 'Dream On ' book from @breakpargolf. Nearly halfway already! It's like it was written exclusively for my quest...:) @mygreenjacket

Read; here, there and everywhere

2010-03-08T16:25:00.002Z

There's a lot of interest online and in the papers in Ian Sansom's latest book 'The Bad Book Affair'. Gerard from the CrimeSceneNI blog was at, what I'd term, an unusual launch for the book.

Last night I attended the most unconventional book event ever. Seriously, I doubt anyine can beat this. Organised by the folks at Literary Miscellany, Ian Sansom launched The Bad Book Affair at Belfast City Hall’s exhibition space and the Belfast Wheel...
I ended up in Ian Sansom’s big wheel carriage. We listened to a pre-recorded reading from The Bad Book Affair as the wheel raised us upwards for a lovely view of the Belfast city skyline in all its orange-lit splendour. Mister Sansom, always good for a chuckle, took the piss out of his reading and treated us to a few quips before disembarking the carriage to sign books as provided by David Torrans of No Alibis.

A couple of years ago I listened intently to the librarian who was interrogated about his job by Ian Sansom before he started writing his 'mobile library' series and was impressed by how much research Ian put into it.I'll admit I haven't read the book as yet and am ashamed to say none of the series but they're high up on my reading list now.

All over the net this book is being talked about and reviewed...

Mark Rose from Bookgasm...

a good-humored farce built around a large collection of oddballs

Patricia Craig @ The Independent...

For all its "mystery" aspect, The Bad Book Affair is, like its predecessors, less a detective novel than a work of humorous social observation, by turns astute, hilarious, wry and rueful. What it lacks in intrigue it makes up in clarity of style, and is engaging and diverting throughout.

Summed up by Jack Goodstein@ blogcritics...

The Bad Book Affair is a whimsical entertainment that never hesitates to take potshots at a good many modern targets, and more often than not hits the bullseye.

World Book Day in Northern Ireland

2010-03-03T21:00:00.002Z

Tomorrow is World Book Day,the biggest annual celebration of books and reading in the UK and Ireland.

'Read to a Million Kids', sponsored by Renaissance Learning, is a brand new initiative for World Book Day 2010. The 11 £1 Book stories, read by their authors or actors, will be broadcast online during World Book Day. Available exclusively to schools and libraries in the first instance, and supplemented with a fun quiz about the reading, please visit www.readtoamillionkids.co.uk to find out more and to register to participate. The films will be available for all to see for a period after the Day via this site, so if you're an interested child or parent, please visit us again.

In Northern Ireland, Libraries NI are and have been holding Rhythm & Rhyme sessions for children.There are also quite a range of shops/bookshops throughout Northern Ireland participating in World Book Day. These include Tesco,Sainsbury's, WH Smith, Waterstones, Unite The Nation,The Bookshop at Queens, Real Life andT Sheehy & Sons.
Tomorrow I shall try and read a few more chapters of Feels Like Maybe by Derry author Claire Allan, it's ok for guys to read chicklit, isn't it?

Gaylit in the North West.

2010-03-02T21:09:00.004Z

Recently two, what could be termed as gay activists have had books published. They both happen to come from the North West. Gaylit, what I'm calling books written by gays, doesn't seem to be mainstream here in Northern Ireland yet.So it's interesting to see these books 'out' there.I've just finished a book by Patrick Gale who Bron Sibree says is 'hailed as Britains most succesful gay novelist'.It was an interetsing read showing his insight into the intertwined lives of a family of which only one person turned out to be gay. I'd love to read some work by local writers who are gay and get an insight into the way they think and interact.The books recently published were written by Mauk Donnabhain and Stephen Birkett.

Stephen's latest book 'Ulster Gay' was launched in Strabane a couple of weeks ago.Stephen has worked for over 20 years on gay-helplines and has written 'Ulster Gay'which he says is to chart Northern Ireland's gay history in novel form.Stephen first published a book entitled 'Ulster Alien' in 1999 which was set in the 1970s. The story of how Matthew, a young Protestant living in rural County Derry, discovers he is gay.The story follows the process of coming to terms with his sexuality and telling his friends in the climate of the troubles and the 'Save Ulster from Sodomy' campaign. 'Ulster Gay' takes Matthew and his friends through the 1980s and charts the rise of AIDS and the impact this had on gay people in Northern Ireland.

Stephen said, "Although that is the main theme, the novel explores all sorts of other issues like the problems that bisexuals experience and the difficulties of gay policemen in Northern Ireland."

The book is currently available @ Lulu.com

The blurb for Mauk's book which is entitled Against The Walls reads...

The Northern Ireland Peace Process is rocked by a bomb on Derry’s Ferryquay Street, the weekend of the Protestant commemoration of the siege of that city. Behind the TV coverage and bland newspaper headlines, Against the Walls reveals the lives of nine people caught up in the bomb. We follow their histories, only passively aware of the political process that shadows their births, deaths, marriages and love affairs, trying to make some sense of human interaction, despite the pressures of an alienating world, love, hate and confusion through the streets of Derry, London and Detroit, people finding themselves crushed and disempowered.

Mark in his website describes his time in L/Derry

Derry
Working with communities torn apart by hatred and mutual suspicion, finding myself an unexpected spokesman for the city’s growing LGBT community, slamming poetry into outraged audiences in the Verbal Arts centre and elsewhere, producing a play about the lives of gay men in Derry, finding ourselves in dusty community halls, in crowds of Orange fury and guns.

Mauk's book is available here...

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Bob on BlogTalkRadio talking about Werewolves, Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts.

2010-02-28T21:18:00.000Z

Sometime tonight on ISIS Paranormal Radio Dr Bob Curran will be talking about his new book Werewolves: A Field Guide to Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts.According to psychic-wisdom.net

Dr. Bob Curran was born and raised in County Down in Northern Ireland. He left school at the age of 14 and took up a variety of different occupations including the job of a gravedigger, a lorry driver, a professional musician, a journalist, and a scripter of comics. He is well traveled, and settled down to work in a Civil Service position. Dr. Bob Curran later continued his education and received degrees in educational psychology, history, and education. He is presently a consultant to a variety of cultural bodies within the Province, and he manages cross-border matters with the Irish Republic while working for the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. He has authored a total of 38 books mainly on the subjects of culture and history. His works have been published in Italian, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, German, Latvian, and Urdu. He presently resides in the North Derry Coast of Northern Ireland with his wife and family.

Bob's book is reported to have reached No1 in the Independent Publishers List and sparked a new frenzy of interest in werewolves.

"The idea of the werewolf," writes Dr Curran, "may represent an amalgam of a number of deep human fears and perceptions - the separation from nature, the fear of the wild, a horror of cannibalism, and inherent awareness of the savagery and ferocity that often lies under the veneer of human 'civilization.'

Coleraine Today reports...
"In his best selling book, Dr Curran examines the deep psychological roots that underlie the linking of human and beast. He reveals that the modern sympathetic vision of a forlorn man-wolf transforming under the moon's rays are very different from, say, the 16th century perspective, when lycanthropy was considered an abominable offshoot of witchcraft and Devil worship. Or from further back, to the Dark Ages, when taking on the mantle of the wolf was seen as a sign of virility, and battle-hardened strength".

Some good bedtime reading, if that's what you like.

Don’t fear the Reader

2010-02-25T22:18:00.000Z

Garbhan Downey's new novel The American Envoy will be the first from a Northern Ireland press, Guildhall Press, to be sold as an e-book as well as in printed form.

The Derry author is convinced that the e-reading revolution will bring huge opportunities for readers, writers and publishers alike.

I love books. Our house is coming down with them. Every time we build a new bookcase, we instantly fill it from the pre-existing spill-over.Like many people I know, I have a greater sentimental attachment to books than any other (non-breathing) possessions. Revisiting the shelves has all the charm of revisiting old friends, without the attendant need to explain yourself. You remember the stories, where you were when you first saw them, the time you spent with them and when you fell in love with them.

I own signed copies of books that I wouldn’t even mention to people in passing conversation, for fear someone might want to see them – or worse again borrow them.

Last summer, however, was the first time I was ever able to go off on holiday with 125 books in my jacket pocket, courtesy of the Sony Reader my mother-in-law had given me at Easter.

The Reader gives you 7000 page turns without needing a re-charge, which, is roughly the equivalent of 15 to 20 books. And it allows you to purchase and read the books you want immediately, from the comfort of your PC – and you never have to settle for second best.

It’s not perfect by any means. The Reader doesn’t perform half the tricks of any semi-decent mobile phone, it isn’t interactive and it’s also, well, a little too black-and-white for my tastes. In addition, it still costs the guts of £150 and necessitates the user carrying around a third portable screen, (the others being the mobile and the laptop), which industry experts believe is one machine too many to be bothered with.

But while the current generation of devices is struggling to keep pace with consumer demands, (the 1G Apple iPad has already been getting flak for being too big and lacking the ability to multi-task), e-reading and e-publishing is here to stay.

Sales set to explode

Shortly before Christmas, two hundred publishers from all over the world attended a keynote conference on e-publishing at the CGI Tower in London. I attended as Guildhall Press’s representative.

Hosted by The Bookseller, the FUTUReBOOK symposium was addressed by some of the top names in both the book and telecommunication industries, including: Random House, Bloomsbury, Waterstones, the Publishers’ Association, Google and Vodafone. Every single person there was preparing for a massive explosion in e-book sales.

Jason Hanley, the Development Manager of Google Editions, quantified it in very simple terms. He noted that $113m of e-books were sold in the US in 2008, rising to $14m a month in 2009. He projects sales of $9 billion per annum by 2013; others suggest this figure could be even higher.

Whichever figure you take, the rise will be phenomenal. Even the most cautious contributor, the pollster from YouGov (research consultants), was convinced. And while he suggested that the current generation of e-reading devices might be a passing fad (in the way that mini-discs were in the music industry), they would only be a brief stopping point on the way to great things. He also stated that Apple would, without a shadow of a doubt, drive the e-reading market both in terms of book sales and devices.

The conference chair, Jason Dunne, pointed out that there are already 4.5 billion mobile screens active in the world, making it “inevitable” that reading would become digitised, just as music did. “People love books but they will prefer getting their wall space back,” he said. “Books as a physical product aren’t as important as we think.”

More for readers

Much debate was also given to adding enhanced value to e-books – to make them more “alive” and interactive for the 21st century reader. Peter Collinridge, the founder of Enhanced Editions, argued that it wouldn’t be enough to replicate the simple reading experience – and warned of the limitations of the Sony Reader and the Kindle. He showed a video of a new iPhone e-book his company had developed from the Nick Cave novel ‘Bunny Munro’. This includes full audio and select video of Cave reading the book – and a facility which allows the publisher to send updates to the purchaser, in the form of reviews and notice of new books.

Other publishers at the conference discussed the potential for developing fully interactive schoolbooks – with inbuilt links, urls, video and audio, and test questions. The recent announcement by Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, that he intends to furnish every single schoolchild in his state with an e-reading device, will certainly speed up this process.

There was widespread agreement that the days of the three-stone schoolbag and stoop-shouldered schoolboy were numbered. One prediction, that made its way into a Radio 4 documentary, was that there will be an e-reading device in every house in the UK within five years.

Less risk for publishers

The price of e-books is likely to remain almost identical to paperbacks, despite the reduction in production and distribution costs. All the major players in the book and telecommunication industries are demanding this, insisting that the quality of the final product will be as good as before. They also point out that similar (i.e. full) pricing structures apply in the music industry

Virtual supermarkets such as Apple, Google and Vodafone are expected to take around 30 percent from each e-book sale, as opposed to the 48 to 55 percent many distributors take from printed books. But there is, naturally, no longer any onus on the publisher to print a specified number of copies and then accept returns.

Fears that publishing houses will be done away with in place of self-publishers (a process referred to as “disintermediation”) also appear to be groundless. The major retailers and distributors are insisting on a regulated marketplace, as they did with the music industry, and will only deal with established publishers.

Good news for writers

Finally, and very importantly, it looks that e-publishing could be good news for writers. Some authors have already negotiated between 50 and 75 percent of the royalties to their digitised books – as opposed to the eight to 15 percent they get from printed volumes.

In addition, publishing houses will be more inclined to recruit and develop new talent on an “e-book only” basis, as the financial risk to them is much lower.

And of course, your work can be dispatched instantly to readers across the planet, without any additional cost or haggling with distributors. Just try getting a single US chain to take one hundred copies of your hardcopy novel. You could literally drown in the paperwork.

In my own case, as a lifelong techie, I am tickled pink that Guildhall Press have chosen my new novel, The American Envoy, to be the North’s first e-book.

Ironically, the central character is a man who prefers to write letters, as he doesn’t trust computers. And for those of you who might agree with him, the book will also be published in hardcopy form, with foldable pages and glossy cover.

As I said earlier, I love books. But I also love e-books.

[This article first appeared in the Verbal magazine, 23 Feb 2010.]

Garbhan Downey's The American Envoy published by Guildhall Press will be launched at the Dublin Book Festival Dublin Book Festival 6-8 March 2010. ISBN: 9781906271275. Paperback £6.95. Copies of the e-book are available to purchase from www.ghpress.com 1 March 2010. Garbhan will be reading at the festival alongside fellow author's Ciaran Carson and Karen Gillece at 3pm on Sunday 7 March in Dublin's City Hall. All welcome!

THE AMERICAN ENVOY by Garbhan Downey.

Published 6 March 2010 by Guildhall Press.

Paperback. ISBN: 9781906271275. £6.95.

E-book available from http://www.ghpress.com from 1 March 2010.

Money... Power... Drugs... Women
Just another day at the office.

Boston journalist Dave Schumann is in line for a major posting from the US Secretary of State. But instead, his big smart mouth gets him exited to Derry, the rainiest city in Ireland.

There, the new envoy is forced to contend with psychotic drug smugglers, a leftie shock-jock who wants to burn him live on air and a renegade security team who are monitoring his every move.

Schumann's letters to his father and friends reveal his increasingly precarious – and hilarious – struggle to cope with the most thankless job on earth.

And that's before he discovers there's a spy in the camp who has dark plans for the Presidential visit.

'Impossible to put down' Ulster Tatler

'Irresistibly funny' Irish News

THE AMERICAN ENVOY by Garbhan Downey will be launched at the Dublin Book Festival 6-8 March 2010. More details to follow soon.

http://www.ghpress.com
http://www.garbhandowney.com

http://www.dublinbookfestival.com

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