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.

Francis MacManus Short Story Competition 2015!

This year marks the 28th anniversary of the RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition, which over the years has proved to be the launching pad for many renowned Irish writers.

Submissions are now being accepted for this year's Francis MacManus Short Story Competition 2015.  You can download an entry form here or send a stamped addressed envelope to:

RTÉ Radio 1 Short Story Competition
RTÉ Radio Centre
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4

About The Annual Short Story Series:

Since its establishment in 1986 the competition has been the launching pad, as well as a great source of support and inspiration, for several new and emerging writers. Previous winners include Claire Keegan, Ciarán Folan, Ivy Bannister, Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Martin Malone. The competition was founded in memory of Francis Mac Manus: the Kilkenny-born novelist, short story writer, biographer and former Head of Talks and Features at Radió Éireann.

The 2014 short-listed entries can be heard on the RTÉ Player at www.rte.ie/radio1/francis-macmanus-short-story/

Unleash your Dark Side!!!

ADVANCED CRIME FICTION WRITING - One Day Course Saturday 9th May at the Irish Writers Centre.

Available for booking from this week, but there are ONLY 3 places left! So if you are interested, get booking! 

This course is aimed at writers who have completed an introductory creative writing course and/or are currently writing a crime fiction novel. It will focus on plot development, hot seating your principle characters, incorporating tension and a fast pace into your story, one with page turning quality, and how best to create effective dialogue. There will be a series of workshop exercises, along with a talk from a crime scene professional.

For more details click HERE

LAYLA...

I'm working on a short story today. It's a flash fiction piece for an anthology, and it feels like forever since I've worked within this format, but thankfully it felt strangely new, challenging, and refreshingly good...

It's called LAYLA btw...

LAST KISS in Large Print...

So here is the LARGE PRINT cover of LAST KISS from WF Howes.... interesting....

THANK YOU!

With the smaller paperback of LAST KISS gradually reaching the shops, I wanted to say a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed LAST KISS so highly, and especially those who have had their reviews quoted on the back and inside of the novel. It does the writing heart so much good!!! 

Apologies for the pic, but this was the only way I could get them all on one image!!

S J Watson and Paula Hawkins in conversation with Sinead Crowley - Mountains to the Sea Festival

How well do we know our family, our closest friends? How well do we really know ourselves? S.J. Watson’s new novel, Second Life, explores identity, lies and secrets in a nail-biting new psychological thriller. Watson’s debut novel, Before I Go To Sleep, became a phenomenal international success. It has now sold over 4 million copies around the world and has been made into a hit Hollywood film starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.

Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train has become a publishing sensation before it has even hit the shops with early reviewers anointing it as “the new Gone Girl”. The central conceit is brilliant. Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. Each time it waits at the same signal, overlooking a row of houses. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but now everything’s changed.

Sinéad Crowley is Arts & Media correspondent with RTÉ News. Her debut thriller Can Anybody Help Me was published in 2014.

Venue: Pavilion Theatre / Time: 6.30pm / €10/€8 Concession / 20th March 2015

Let's talk about Irish Crime Fiction!!!

Hi All,

I'll be doing a Twitter online chat with 3 other Irish Crime Writers this evening as part of the Killer Reads Festival. Myself, William Ryan, Sheena Lambert​ and Ava McCarthy. 

It would be great to have some of you chip in if you can. Time and hashtag etc below...

Time: 5.30pm-6pm Friday 13th March
Theme: Irish Crime Fiction
Host: @KillerReads
Hashtag@ #KillerFest15

GOLDEN CAN BE DARK, VERY DARK INDEED!!!

When I was asked by Frank to launch his novel THE NIGHT GAME, I didn't get that feeling of dread you sometimes get when someone asks you to read something and you worry that you may not like it.  I had no such concerns on this occasion as I was familiar with Frank's poetry and other extended works, and I had no doubts about the literary merits of the prose being top class.

I was intrigued however, about it being a psychological crime thriller, this supposedly being my area, so to speak.

Lots of words come to mind to describe THE NIGHT GAME - Dark, dangerous, suspenseful and raw, to name but a few. The story certainly pulls you from a potentially safe mindset, and can make you feel very uncomfortable, asking lots of questions of the reader.

They say the sign of a great crime thriller is a sense of dread on every page, and THE NIGHT GAME delivers this and then some. The dread of what is going to happen next is paralleled within the tempo, rhythm, and utterly gripping language, and you get the sense that you are on a road to something very dark and dangerous indeed.

Another element of creating a successful crime thriller, or so I'm told, is the wonderful use of masks. People are not always who or what they seem. Sometimes they gain your trust only to slap you in the face with it, unsettling you, the reader. In THE NIGHT GAME, there are plenty of masks, and you are kept wondering until the very end if all the masks have been revealed, or, if there is going to be yet another turn to this story, and you will not be disappointed there.

This is high quality prose, but with an underlying darkness that is both suspenseful and at times surprising. Be prepared to be taken on a roller-coaster ride, one which isn't afraid to explore human depravity and human fragility in a very different way. If you do read THE NIGHT GAME, you certainly won't forget it.

Not for the fainthearted, but it will be in my books of 2015 for sure!

ABOUT THE BOOK

New York. Late winter. The city is shrouded in fog. Mary lives alone in her childhood home, a rambling brownstone on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. After a series of menacing phone calls, and fearing that she is being stalked, Mary contacts Sheila, one of her oldest friends. Sheila agrees to move in until the situation is resolved. The police investigate and initially focus on respondents to a dating site she has recently joined. Mary suspects her ex-husband David, with whom she is still obsessed. Fast-paced and dark The Night Game offers up psychological intrigue and emotional depth. Nothing in this surreal story, which culminates in the re-enactment of an old murder, is as it seems.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frank Golden is a poet, novelist and visual artist. His previous novel, The Two Women of Aganatz, was published by the Wolfhound Press, Dublin. His last book of poems was In Daily Accord (Salmon Poetry). He has received two bursaries in literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and a number of other awards. He lives in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland. www.frankgolden7.com