Shrieking Words
Banshee – /ˈbænʃiː/ BAN-shee, Modern Irish bean sí, from Old Irish: ban síde: Female spirit who heralds the death of a family member by shrieking or keening. Banshee – /ˈbænʃiː/ BAN-shee: Irish literary journal, softcover, 113 pages, containing poetry, fiction and non-fiction by a wide range of writers … including me. For sale in all good bookshops and […]
Read more "Shrieking Words"Soundclouding …
You can listen to my short story “The Two of Hearts” on Soundcloud. The story was originally broadcast on RTÉ Radio, read by actress Catriona Ni Mhurchú. Click on the picture to listen:
Read more "Soundclouding …"The Parallel Universe of Regret
The album will be for sale on iTunes as soon as my twelve-year-old niece can explain to me how iTunes works.
Read more "The Parallel Universe of Regret"19 Ways to Say “I Love You”
I’m very pleased to announce that I had a short story published in The Irish Times on Saturday, as this month’s winner of the Hennessy Short Story of the Month. Which is very nice. You can read the story here, if you want.
Read more "19 Ways to Say “I Love You”"A Long Way from Home – 20 Books of Summer
This is the second – yes, only the second – review for my 20 Books of Summer Challenge Excepting some engravings and that postage stamp portraying One Pound Jimmy, I had never seen an Aboriginal. They were all far away in dusty history, or in hot places where they threw stones at passing cars … […]
Read more "A Long Way from Home – 20 Books of Summer"20 Books of Summer: Connect
Is it a YA novel disguised as a cyber thriller? A treatise on love? A condemnation of our hyperconnected selves, our slavish devotion to technology? A philosophical evaluation of what it means to be human in the 21st century?
Read more "20 Books of Summer: Connect"ISTANBUL ISTANBUL
The title hints at one of the themes of the novel, which is that there are two Istanbuls, the one above ground and the one below, and each is ‘transformed’ in sense through acts of creation and imagination. The prisoners transform their surroundings through imagination and fantasy, parables and riddles, and likewise the city above is changed by time and love.
Read more "ISTANBUL ISTANBUL"50 Great Irish Songs
There’s always a good reason to listen to decent music, so here’s another chance to look at my list of FIFTY GREAT IRISH SONGS (none by U2). Apologies if some of the You Tube links no longer work.
Read more "50 Great Irish Songs"Travelling in a Strange Land
“I am entering the frozen land, although to which country it belongs I cannot say.” David Park’s novel Travelling in a Strange Land is a brief story about fathers and sons, memory and regret, told from the point of view of a middle-aged man, Tom, travelling from Belfast to Sunderland to collect his son […]
Read more "Travelling in a Strange Land"Hennessy Literary Awards Shortlist
The Hennessy Literary Awards shortlist for 2018 has been announced. I’m humbled and grateful to be included in the list. I have been shortlisted for my short story, “The Light on the Water”, published last summer in the Irish Times.
Read more "Hennessy Literary Awards Shortlist"Undertow
The true border ran between the two forces of law and order, the Garda Siochana and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the two police forces sliding darkly past each other like blips on a radar, separated by the whim of politicians, detectives passing each other in the night, their murmurs breaking the static on […]
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