The Doll's House Cover revealed at last!

Drum roll please for the cover of The Doll's House - don't all shout at once!!

Pics of the Week!

Window Display Lahinch

After a full week of RED RIBBONS in bookstores and supermarkets nationwide, it got to number 12 in the Mass Paperback Sales Market in Ireland. Not quite the Top Ten, but I'm a happy camper!!

I've also been thrilled to hear this week that many bookstores throughout the county are choosing it as their FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH, including Hodges Figgis in Kilkenny, Book Value in Killarney, and Barker and Jones in Naas. I also hear it's for sale in outlets of Spar, Centra, and the Post Office in Athboy!

Again special thanks to Easons for facilitating pictures with The Echo last week, and also to Dubray Books for choosing it as one of their Staff Recommended Reads :-) And because I know how much you love pics here are a few for you!!!

Dubray Books Stillorgan

Easons The Square with Trish Nugent

Tesco Rathfarnham

Book Value Killarney

Finally many congrats to Anne Casey, Sharon Wilden and Siobhan Maher, all winners of a FREE COPY of RED RIBBONS this week!

Time to Celebrate!!!

To celebrate the release of RED RIBBONS in the New Smaller Paperback, I'm giving away a Free Copy to 3 Lucky Winners!

All you have to do is watch this short trailer HERE and answer the following question:

What is hanging from the tree?

You can email me at phillips.louisem0@gmail.com, or anyone connected with me on Facebook or Linkedin, can send me message there, or else send me a DM @LouiseMPhillips on Twitter!!

Easy? I thought so!

The winners will be picked out of a hat, (yes, I actually have one!) on Monday by a trusted source. Yes, you guessed it, one of our children :-)

Tune In!

I'll be on the radio this evening talking RED RIBBONS, crime writing and all that jazz!

Tune into 97.3 FM or 97.6 FM for Artyfacts ARTS SHOW with the lovely Brenda Drumm of KFM

You can click HERE this evening to check in online!

Going Local!!

Big thanks to both Pauline and Pamela of Easons in The Square in Tallaght, for making Friday's book signing for THE ECHO so much fun!! 

RED RIBBONS is now in Tesco and Dunnes Stores Nationwide

I'll take billing beside Martina Cole any day!!!

In stores since yesterday, pick up a copy pleaseeeee.......

BURNING BRIGHT

After yesterday being a bit of a bad day, here is the perfect cure - A Guest Blog Post from Catherine Brophy :-)

Put the kettle on and enjoy!!!

I met Catherine Brophy as part of a writing retreat at Carousel Creates, and she certainly burned bright! Her new book looks exactly the kind of thing to lift any blues, and if any of you have harbored the idea of being a tortured artist, then have a read of 'Brow-Clutching' below!!!

A COMEDY ABOUT MONEY, FAME AND THE CELTIC TIGER

 The Celtic Tiger is in his prime and the Kerrigans are splashing the cash.  They have made it big time, so eat your heart out you small town snobs! But Daddy’s-girl Kirsty wants Celebrity and International Fame and devotes herself to pursuing this dream. Crashing Madonna’s Christmas party doesn't help, neither does causing a stir on Big Brother but when a video clip of Kirsty goes viral on You Tube, fame arrives with a bang. But Tracey O’Hagan, a blast from a shady patch in the Kerrigan past, has appeared on the scene. She’s mad. She’s bad. And she’s definitely dangerous to know. Set in the years of the Celtic Tiger, Burning Bright is told in the voices of Kerrigan family members and friends.   

It’s funny. It’s believable. And it will definitely make you laugh. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   Catherine Brophy is a writer, story-teller and broadcaster.   She writes film, T.V. and radio scripts and she also writes short stories. Her previous novels are The Liberation of Margaret Mc Cabe and Dark Paradise.   She lives a blameless life in Ireland but escapes whenever she can.   She’s been rescued by a circus troupe in Serbia, had breakfast with a Zambian chief, ate camel stew in the Sahara, and was kicked by a horse on the Mexican plain.

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON

KINDLE:  http://amzn.to/XLEATU   PAPERBACK: http://amzn.to/XLE7B

BROW-CLUTCHING

We artistic types do love a good brow-clutch.   We love the idea of being, not just artists, but tortured artists.   And of course the summit of torture for every artist the Creative Block.

I recently saw a T.V programme about Louise Bourgeois - the artist who did the gigantic spider outside Tate Modern in London.  She lived her latter years in New York and, once a week, she held a salon for younger artists.   They showed her their work and she offered comment. 

“What is it about?” Louise asked an artist who showed her a painting

“It’s about the pain of being an artist.”

“Bullshit,” snapped Louise, “to be an artist is not a pain, it is a privilege!  Next!”

I love that attitude. Perhaps that’s why she lived until she was 102 and kept creating new works until the end.  She never suffered creative blocks.

The truth is that no writer, painter sculptor or poet suffered creative blocks until the late 1700’s!   Before that artists were artisans, employed by the rich to provide entertainment, education or decoration.   They were no more important than the tailor or the cook.   Even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the musical genius, had to eat in the servants quarters.   No person of noble birth would demean themselves by hacking stone, daubing paint, composing a Sonata or scratching on vellum-except perhaps in a dilettante way as a hobby.

But, by the late 1700’s a wealthy middle class was emerging who were prepared to pay good money for the trimmings of nobility. Artists no longer had to depend on the patronage of a Prince, a Lord or a Bishop, they could sell their work on the open market.    Members of the upper classes began to take up artistic and scientific pursuits.   Gradually artistic ability became not just respectable but seen as something other, something extraordinary, something  granted by God to a few special people.  And artists, naturally, jumped on that bandwagon.

Artists began to feel special, more sensitive, more aware, more tender-hearted than the rest of lumpen humanity and that’s when they began to experience the Creative Block.  Think of it. I am a gifted, exquisitely sensitive being and my creativity is blocked by some malignant force…. Oh the horror!   The agony!  How can I ever survive in this desert?

            

Here’s how.  

1. Creativity demands focus and attention therefore it is tiring - When you get stuck and no ideas are coming perhaps that’s nature’s way of saying:  Take a break.   Feed the dog.   Go visit your friends.  Watch X Factor. Go for a swim.   Dance.   If that doesn’t work then…
2. Your greatest block is yourself - One thing that is certain is, every writer, painter, sculptor, actor, musician will come up against their own sore spots, those tender areas we’d all like to leave undisturbed.   Avoid them and your work will suffer or worse still you’ll get stuck and stay stuck.   So you need to find a way of helping yourself.  And that will be different for everyone, some people run, some play sports, some meditate, some practise martial arts, some work it out through their work, some get counselling.   Only you can decide what’s best for you.   So if you get badly stuck check your sore spots and apply the salve that works best.
3. Inspiration is not always instant - Sometimes it is and that’s lovely but, more often than not, it emerges from the ordinary.  After you’ve taken a break and checked your sore spots go with the first idea that comes into your mind.   It may not be perfect.   You may think it’s lame.   It may not have the pizzaz that you want.  That doesn’t matter.   It’s a starting place and it will lead to the ideas you like.  

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to feel artistic and sensitive and superior to the rest of lumpen humanity so I have to go clutch my brow and contemplate the pain of being an artist!   

How to deal with a bad day!

You've guessed it - I'm having a bad day. In fact I'm having a god awful day. However, you'll be pleased to know that I'm not going to bore you with the 'why'.

Always thinking, at least when I'm not talking, I figured I'd look up mind lifting quotes on dealing with bad days - thinking it has to be better than eating loads of chocolate, going to bed early and wishing the day was over, or what I'm doing now, ..... going on and on and on about it being a bad day.

I didn't have a lot of luck with the quotes - probably because I'm having a bad day, but then I found this one. It's not perfect, but then what can you expect when you're having a bad day!

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

 – Franklin D. Roosevelt -

(Any other suggestions or quotes,  feel free to share)

Roll out!!

A very short post for all 3 of you who might have been looking to pick up a copy of RED RIBBONS in Tesco over the weekend - 

The roll out date for TESCO & RED RIBBONS is this coming Friday the 10th May!!

Happy rolling!

The Book Store Stroller

Does a picture paints a thousand words?

I never used to think too deeply about novel covers, or so I thought. 

Before sitting down to write a novel, I would stroll into a bookstore and browse the shelves looking for my next great read. 

If I recognized an author and enjoyed their material before, that was a definite plus for me. But you don’t realize, or at least I didn't, how influenced you are by a cover.

The cover is the first thing you see – makes sense! But what does a cover of a novel give you?  

Content? Genre? Tone? Curiosity?  Story?

Read More HERE

Dubray Books Announce Recommended Reads for May 2013!

It's not often you're put in the same grouping as 

F Scott Fitzgerald, 

but thanks to the lovely staff at Dubray Books, 

RED RIBBONS 

has been chosen as one of their Recommended Reads for May 2013 

(See Full List Below)

Every month our Booksellers pick their favourite recent titles and review them.

Many of their choices have gone on to become bestsellers as well as great selections for Book Clubs.

The Gamel - Ciara Collins

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

Red Ribbons - Louise Phillips

Blood & Beauty - Sarah Dunant

A Delicate Truth - John Le Carre

Crocodile Tears - Mark O Sullivan

The Woman Upstairs - Claire Messud

The Aftermath - Rhidian Brook

You can check out all these reads and many more at Dubray Books

Dubray Review of Red Ribbons

Detective Inspector O’Connor calls in criminologist Dr Kate Pearson to assist the police when a schoolgirl, who has been missing for two days, is found buried in a shallow grave in the Dublin Mountains. Twenty four hours later, another girl is found murdered. These carefully planned and ritualistic murders bear all the traces of a serial killer and the hunt begins in earnest before the killer strikes again. What is the link between the two deaths and Ellie Brady, a mother who has retreated into her mind since the death of her own daughter Amy? Although Kate focuses on finding the killer, her home life is less than perfect and she is concious of being watched by someone lurking in the shadows. Alternately told in the voices of Kate, Ellie and the killer, this is a dark and chilling psychological thriller from Irish author Louise Phillips.

- Emma Shannon, Stillorgan

Take a pic and Win Copy of RED RIBBONS!!

To celebrate the release of the smaller paperback of RED RIBBONS in bookstores, Tesco & Dunnes Stores, be in with a chance to win your FREE COPY by snapping the best pic in store!! 

All you have to do is take a great picture and you could win.

To help you on your treasure hunt - this is what the novel cover looks like all BLUE !