Running Away!

I'll be off to the Tyrone Guthrie Artist Retreat in Annaghmakerrig a couple of days earlier than expected this Wednesday. 

Why? Life kept interrupting the editing process on The Game Changer and sometimes running away is a good option!!

Nine days, with me, the script, my laptop, a couple of books, and some yummy food with wonderful surroundings and people has to be good - right??

Launch of the Quarryman

Good luck to everyone involved with the launch of Quarryman at the Cork Festival this evening. A great collection and I was delighted to have had the opportunity, along with Donal Ryan, to contribute my sentiments about the work.....

Michelle McAdoo, Madeleine d'Arcy, and Eoghan Walsh, launch the 'Quarryman', Photo: Orla Murphy 

EXTRACT CORK INDEPENDENT

The newly-revived UCC literary journal, 'Quarryman' will be launched at the close of The Cork World Book Fest on Saturday April 25, in The Triskel Arts Centre.

"Within the pages of this anthology, we meet diversity, ingenuity, humour, pathos, compassion and a kaleidoscope of emotions which are both individual and universal," said Louise Phillips, author of Red Ribbons, The Doll’s House and Last Kiss.

Booker nominated author Donal Ryan says that, "It’s a perfect reading excursion, its pages inhabited by cyber-stalkers, bereft lovers, dying crows, web less spiders, disillusioned radicals, illicit cadavers, and people treading the uncertain pathways of life, love and loss negotiating the treacherous terrain of existence."

Read full piece from Cork Independent HERE

The Bridport Prize!

Closing date: 31 May 2015

Over £16,000 in prize money

One of the richest writing competitions in the UK, the Bridport Prize is open to all nationalities aged 16 years and over.

The poem and short story categories each have a first prize of £5,000, second prize £1,000 and third prize £500. An additional 10 supplementary prizes (for each category) of £50 each are awarded.

A new category for flash fiction with a prize of £1,000 was launched in 2010. There is a second prize of £500, 3rd prize of £250 and 3 supplementary prizes of £50.

In 2014 the Peggy Chapman-Andrews first novel award, named after the Prize’s founder, was launched. The first prize is £1,000 plus a up to a year’s mentoring from The Literary Consultancy. A runner-up prize of £500 is also offered. 

For more details visit HERE

Great Things Happen After Dark!!

I'm really looking forward to this event at Clondalkin Library on Friday.

Funding for this event and others, was made via the Carnegie Trust and the project called the 'Library After Dark Writers Café' is aimed at offering a course of creative writing workshops covering a variety of forms and genres, and also, to offer writers a quiet space and some time to actually write.

Clondalkin library opens 'after hours' once a month on a Friday to facilitate the café, which is open to new and emerging writers.

To reserve your place for future events, please email: libraryafterdark@sdublincoco.ie with a sample of your creative writing.  

At this month's cafe, I will be looking at how best to create pace in your novel, under the guise of 'Unleashing Your Dark Side: The Best Ways to Commit Fictional Crime'.

The Cafe is open from 6.30pm - 9.30pm when the Library is closed to the general public.

Dr Kate Pearson Series

Amazon now have the 3 books of the Dr Kate Pearson series available in a set! 

#justsaying 

http://buff.ly/1FRGF5T

Piercing Emotions - The Doll's House Review!!

Lovely review of THE DOLL'S HOUSE from Kingdom Books in Vermont...

“The pace is tight, the emotions piercing, and the connections between Clodagh and Kate, whom we met in Red Ribbons and whose own life is rapidly fracturing around the end of a relationship, turn out to be both significant and suspenseful. The clock is ticking, and there’s reason to believe that destruction and abuse are multiplying.

There is nothing particularly ‘Irish’ to this crime novel , it’s built on clearly linked character, not on the history or traditions of the Emerald Isle, yet the chilling criminal manoeuvres subtly echo the evil that Stuart Neville taps into so readily...” 

For more click HERE

The Importance of Reviews!!

While at a talk yesterday at the LONDON BOOK FAIR, one given by Tori Lyne-Purkis of Midas, Tori stressed the importance of book reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads....so with begging bowl in hand, if you have read any of my books. please, pretty please, post a review!!

Pics of the Fair!!!

I had an absolutely amazing day yesterday at the LONDON BOOK FAIR - it was such a buzz. 

I learned lots of stuff, I had some wonderful conversations, and I totally enjoyed the Opening Ceremony within which Donal Ryan was announced as the Irish Winner of the European Prize for Literature. 

Sometimes though, pictures speak louder than words, so here's a flavour....

London Book Fair!

Off to the London Book Fair in the morning, so anyone on the early Aer Lingus flight at 6.40 please give me a wave or private message me! I was delighted to be invited to the opening ceremony at the Olympia Conference Centre and the reception afterwards.

The Irish Winner of  the European Prize for Literature will be announced at the end of the opening ceremony and it was an honour to be on the judging panel. 

Shortlist authors are:-

Deirdre Sullivan, Primperfect (Little Island, 2014)

Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart (Doubleday Ireland, 2012)

Mary Costello, Academy Street (Cannongate Books, 2014)

Winners!!!

The 3 WINNERS of the LAST KISS Paperback/Lipstick Competition are Dawn O'Brien from Facebook and Sharon Benidorm Byrne from Twitter and Facebook and Joanna Ryde Twitter....Well done Ladies and HUGE THANKS to everyone who shared!!! smile emoticon 

Competition Time!!

The great news is that the small paperback of LAST KISS is now in Tesco's. It is also available in Easons and at all good bookshops nationwide....phew. 

To celebrate the smaller paperback being available, anyone who shares this news on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Blogger, will be in with a chance to win a copy of LAST KISS along with some killer lipsticks!!! There will be 3 Winners in all pulled out of the proverbial hat, and all shares and comments are much appreciated!!!

Competition closes at 6 p.m. Sunday 12th April 2015!!

The Eagle has landed!!!

Yay, yay and yay, someone has sent me a pic of LAST KISS in Tesco (thanks Kelly Spillane​) 

It may be a little late arriving, but it's there and the competition is still on! So to celebrate the smaller paperback being available, anyone who shares this news on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Blogger, will be in with a chance to win a copy of LAST KISS along with some killer lipsticks!!

There will be 3 Winners in all pulled out of the proverbial hat on Sunday evening, and all shares and comments are much appreciated. 

Anyone who has shared already is still in the draw but feel free to share again if you can!!

Falling in and out of Love!

Editing can be joyous, chopping and tidying, finding cleaner, clearer ways of saying things, but sometimes it needs you to dig deeper, to find meanings that you know are there but perhaps you didn't grasp them correctly in that first draft, first round experience. 

Yesterday, I fell out of love with the script of The Game Changer, mainly because things weren't going my way. After a number of different approaches on certain elements, the heart of it felt like it was losing something. Today, I am falling back in love again. I'm seeing fresh possibilities instead of problems, so long may that loving feeling continue... 

Exploring the Novel World!!

Exploring the Novel World

With Award Winning Crime Author Louise Phillips

•GETTING THAT BIG IDEA

•WHERE DO GREAT CHARACTERS COME FROM?

•ROLE PLAY

•WORKSHOP EXERCISES

• WHY FIRST DRAFTS ARE TOUGH

•FINDING YOUR FICTIONAL VOICE

DATE: 18th April 2015
TIME: 09.45 to 14.30 
PLACE: Carousel Writers' Centre
BOOKING: www.carousel-creates.com
TEL: 086 1923613
COST (Including all refreshments): €40

Is it sometimes better not to know the truth??

THE LOST AND THE BLIND by Declan Burke (Severn House) gets its official US release April 1st , and early reviews sound great. 

Described as an intriguing new departure for this comic noir writer, it certainly seems very interesting indeed ….

ABOUT THE BOOK:

“A dying man, if he is any kind of man, will live beyond the law.”

The elderly German, Karl Uxkull, was senile or desperate for attention. Why else would he concoct a tale of Nazi atrocity on the remote island of Delphi, off the coast of Donegal? And why now, 60 years after the event, just when Irish-American billionaire Shay Govern has tendered for a prospecting licence for gold in Lough Swilly?

Journalist Tom Noone doesn’t want to know. With his young daughter Emily to provide for, and a ghost-writing commission on Shay Govern’s autobiography to deliver, the timing is all wrong. Besides, can it be mere coincidence that Karl Uxkull’s tale bears a strong resemblance to the first thriller published by legendary spy novelist Sebastian Devereaux, the reclusive English author who has spent the past 50 years holed up on Delphi? But when a body is discovered drowned, Tom and Emily find themselves running for their lives, in pursuit of the truth that is their only hope of survival.

  

REVIEWS:

“Burke shows again that he’s not just a comic genius, but also a fine dramatic writer and storyteller.” – Booklist

“There’s much, much more, and readers with the patience to watch as Burke (Crime Always Pays, 2014, etc.) peels back layer after layer will be rewarded with an unholy Chinese box of a thriller. Make that an Irish-German box.” – Kirkus Reviews

“In “The Lost and the Blind,” Declan Burke weaves plot twist after plot twist together to create a thriller full of mystery and intrigue … Not many authors are capable of successfully pulling off such a complex plot, but Burke does and makes it seem effortless.” – Library Thing

If that sounds like your kind of book, you can find THE LOST AND THE BLIND here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in Sligo, Ireland, Declan Burke now lives in Co Wicklow. A freelance writer and journalist, his novels have been described as ‘Irish screwball noir.’ He is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times, Irish Times and the Sunday Independent, and hosts a website devoted to crime fiction called Crime Always Pays. In 2012, he won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL.