Some very good news!!

So, some very good news to share. I’ve now signed with Grainne Fox, Literary Agent with Fletcher & Company in New York. She is one of the top US Agents and is quoted as having a love for gorgeous writing, proper storytelling, and books that stimulate the mind and satisfy the heart. I’m over the moon to be working with her (apologies for the cliché), and to be joining such a formidable list of clients. Now back to editing!! :-)

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2018 announced!!

Stav Sherez last night scooped the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for The Intrusions.
Now in its fourteenth year, the Award is considered one of the most coveted crime writing prizes in the UK.

The Intrusions by Stav Sherez was a 2017 Guardian and Sunday Times book of the year, dubbed ‘A Silence of the Lambs for the internet age’ by Ian Rankin. The book was acclaimed by critics for its echoes of Emile Zola and influences from Graham Greene to Dostoyevsky.

Stav was presented the award by title sponsor Simon Theakston and broadcaster Mark Lawson at the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. 
Stav said: “I’m so shocked. Thank you so much for everyone who reads books, everyone who buys books, and talks about them. The world is full of hardships, but we have so much great stuff in culture and it means so much that there’s something to hide in.”
Stav talked about the inspiration of social media offering a new vein of storytelling and criminality.

“The Intrusions are the stuff we have all around us – all the static and scatter of TV and phones – everything is impinging on our consciousness and you don’t have time to think. So many great crime writers have come before us that have used all the great plots – Christie, James Ellroy – it’s good to have new criminality to deal with. But it’s not only criminality, the internet is affecting politics, it’s affecting elections, it affects us and our kids.”

Sherez beat off stiff competition from the shortlist of six, whittled down from a longlist of 18 crime novels published by UK and Irish authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1 May 2017 to 30 April 2018.
The 2018 Award is run in partnership with T&R Theakston Ltd, WHSmith, and The Mail on Sunday.

Stav Sherez collected a £3,000 cash prize, as well as a handmade, engraved oak beer cask made by Theakston Old Peculier.

The winner was decided by the panel of Judges, comprising literary and media figures chaired this year by Lee Child, alongside a public vote.

The Intrusions is structured around the lead character – Carrigan’s - visits to the hospital to visit his mother who suffered a stroke.

Stav said: “I didn’t know anyone who died from stroke, then a year into writing the book my dad had his first stroke, and I was in and out of hospital rewriting scenes I’d already imagined. Philip Roth in his book at his father’s death was shocked at himself writing notes, in a way it’s remembering the dead, making sure their stories are never lost, which is in a way what all literature is about.”

A special presentation was made to John Grisham - the winner of the ninth Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award.
Grisham joins Lee Child, Val McDermid, Sara Paretsky, Lynda La Plante, Ruth Rendell, PD James, Colin Dexter and Reginald Hill as recipients of the Award.

John Grisham said: “About twenty years ago I attended a Chelsea football match with my close friend and editor, Oliver Johnson.  Afterwards, we retired to a pub and I had my first pint of Theakston Old Peculier.  Others followed.  It’s my favourite beer in the world.” 

He added: “I want to thank you for your loyal readership over the years, because of you, the readers, people like myself and Lee Child are lucky enough to do what we do. Thank you very much.”

Title sponsor and executive director of T&R Theakston, Simon Theakston, said: “We’re particularly delighted to honour John Grisham. He is truly a giant of the genre, having sold 300 million books worldwide, with nine of his novels being adapted by Hollywood. His appearance at the Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival marks the first time he’s visited Yorkshire, something that will be remembered in Harrogate history for many years to come. The fact that he is a devotee of Old Peculier only adds to our delight!”

The shortlist in full:

• Mick Herron, Spook Street
• Val McDermid, Insidious Intent
• Denise Mina, The Long Drop
• Abir Mukherjee, A Rising Man
• Stav Sherez, The Intrusions
• Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

Fiction Extravaganza!!!

Event, Time & Date for the diary!!

An evening of reading from 'READING THE FUTURE' from Hodges Figgis 250 year anniversary anthology (Arlen House)

Date & Time: Thursday 26 July 2018 @ 6.30

Place: Hodges Figgis - Dawson Street

FREE EVENT

Readers:

Sam Blake, Gavin Corbett, Tanya Farrelly,Patricia Gibney, Paul Lynch,Niamh McBrannan, Louise Phillips & Kevin Power....

It should be a cracker of a night!!!

ALL WELCOME

Michigan State University Students at Trinity College!

This is going to be one of my favourite events over the next few weeks as a key note speaker to students from Michigan State University at Trinity College Dublin!!

The students are here from July 2 – August 12 focusing on literary & cultural studies, including the Kate Pearson series of novels!

Homeless Hotel adapted to film!!

I'm very happy to hear that my short story 'Homeless Hotel' (published in the Irish Times) will be adapted to film by a very talented team from the Arts University Bournemouth!!


You can read the short story HERE

Before there was Love Hate there was Emerald Noir!!

Strangely, this came up in my news feed today...

RTE Interview for Crime Novel of the Year ...

Apologies in advance for my ridiculous attempt to cover my braces, and the subsequent lack of clarity at times....

Before there was Love Hate there was Emerald Noir - Watch HERE

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Murder & Mystery at Harrogate!!

This year sees a dazzling list crime writing stars taking part in the world’s biggest celebration of the crime writing genre. Lee Child author of the global bestselling Jack Reacher series will be chairing the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival which takes place 19-22 July.

Lee says: “I’ve been to all the festivals in the world and Harrogate is by far my favourite, so it’s a joy to be 2018’s chair."

Most importantly for readers and authors, it’s a great chance to hang out and socialise in beautiful Harrogate with each other. Blockbuster author, John Grisham, will be one of the headline writers. The lawyer-turned-author has had nine of his books adapted to film, including The Firm, The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill.

Other American authors include Don Winslow, who has sold over 100 million books worldwide and Laura Lippman, a former journalist on the Baltimore Sun turned New York Times bestselling author, considered one of the most acclaimed novelists in America. There will also be husband and wife writing team known as Nicci French, and special guests also include Sophie Hannah, Linwood Barclay, Denise Mina, and Val McDermid. 

Val McDermid’s annual New Blood panel, will showcase four hand-picked debuts, one of which is Irish Crime Writer Dervla McTiernan for her novel The Ruin.

The festival opens with a day-long writing workshop, Creative Thursday, followed by the crime writing equivalent of The Oscars, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. The festival is well known for it's open approach, readers, fledgling writers, and established authors mingle in the hotel bar. Considered to be one of the most important events in the crime publishing calendar, agents, publishers, publicists, readers and authors attend from all over the world.

For more information, including tickets, visit HERE

Irish Crime Files!!

IRISH CRIME FICTION, by Brian Cliff which was recently published by Palgrave MacMillan, will have it's official launch in The Gutter Bookshop on the 25th July. It is not only a must for the diary, but the book is a must for writers and readers alike. This book represents the first in-depth study of Irish Crime Fiction and its progression from wider Irish literature into a unique genre of its own, and Brian Cliff offers readers the chance to explore Irish crime writing from a fresh perspective, as well as posing important considerations for further study.

I'm delighted that my work is included in this study. Here is a short quote - "Phillips's work reaches towards Irish family Gothic material, with a profound sense of tangled and interwoven lives.." and that's a lovely overview to read at any time.

The book examines the recent expansion of Ireland's literary tradition to include home-grown crime fiction, and it surveys the wave of books that use genre structures to explore specifically Irish issues such as the Troubles and the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, as well as Irish experiences of human trafficking, the supernatural, abortion, and civic corruption. These novels are as likely to address the national regulation of sexuality through institutions like the Magdalen Laundries as they are to follow serial killers through the American South or to trace international corporate conspiracies.

This study includes chapters on Northern Irish crime fiction, novels set in the Republic, women protagonists, and transnational themes, and discusses Irish authors’ adaptations of a well-loved genre and their effect on assumptions about the nature of Irish literature. It is a book for readers of crime fiction and Irish literature alike, illuminating the fertile intersections of the two. Personally, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!!

Irish Crime Fiction Panel at the Crescent Belfast!!

Belfast Book Festival always has a lot to offer, and one of this year's Crime Fiction delights will be a panel made up of five  Irish crime authors who will discuss how Crime Fiction reflects society, whilst examining how writing about traumatic events can be used to reflect and heal.

 

Crime Writers: Brian Mc Gilloway, Claire Allan, Andrea Carter, Anthony Quinn, and Sharon Dempsey.

 

 

Brian McGilloway is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Inspector Benedict Devlin and DS Lucy Black series. Brian's fifth novel, Little Girl Lost, featuring DS Lucy Black, won the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award in 2011 and was a New York Times Bestseller in the US and a No.1 Bestseller in the UK. His new novel, Bad Blood, the fourth in the Lucy Black series, was published in May 2017.

Anthony J Quinn is the author of seven novels, including Disappeared (Mysterious Press, 2012, and Head of Zeus, 2014), Border Angels and Undertow (Head of Zeus November 2017). His debut novel Disappeared was a Daily Mail Crime Novel of the Year, and was shortlisted for a Strand Literary Award in the Us. It was also picked by Kirkus Reviews as one of the top ten thrillers of the year.

Claire Allan Author is a former journalist and Irish Times bestselling author from Derry. She has previously written eight women's fiction titles, published by Poolbeg Press. In 2016, she decided to make the leap to writing full time, and also to unleashing her dark side. Her Name Was Rose is her debut psychological thriller and it will be published by Avon, an imprint of Harper Collins, on June 28. It will also be published in Canada and the US. Claire spent 17 years as a reporter for the Derry Journal.

Sharon Dempsey's crime debut Little Bird was released July 2017 with Bloodhound Books. She has published four health books. Sharon is working on the follow up to Little Bird, and a collection of dark short stories. Her contemporary women’s fiction novel, A Posy of Promises, will be published in June.

Andrea Carter has written a series of crime novels set in Inishowen. Death at Whitewater Church was published in 2015, Treacherous Stand in 2016 and The Well of Ice in October last year.

 

Date: 16 JUNE
Time: 14:00 – 15:15

YOU CAN BOOK TICKETS HERE

Shortlist Announced for Crime Novel of the Year Old Theakston Festival 2018!!

THEAKSTON FESTIVAL ROUNDS UP SIX SUSPECTS ON CRIME NOVEL AWARD SHORTLIST

The shortlist for crime writing’s most wanted accolade, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, has been announced.
The shortlisted six were whittled down from a longlist of 18 titles. The prize, created to celebrate the very best in crime fiction, was open to UK and Irish crime authors whose novels were published in paperback from 1 May 2017 to 30 April 2018.
The shortlist in full:

• Mick Herron, Spook Street
• Val McDermid, Insidious Intent
• Denise Mina, The Long Drop
• Abir Mukherjee, A Rising Man
• Stav Sherez, The Intrusions
• Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

Val McDermid, Susie Steiner, and Mick Herron return as contenders after being shortlisted in 2017, the year Chris Brookmyre took the winning accolade.

Mick Herron’s espionage thriller, Spook Street, is the fourth in his award-winning Jackson Lamb series. His acclaimed series is based on an MI5 department of ‘rejects’ – intelligent services’ misfits and screw-ups. Herron’s writing was praised by critic Barry Forshaw for ‘the spycraft of le Carré refracted through the blackly comic vision of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.’

Val McDermid’s Insidious Intent features DCI Carol Jordan and Tony Hill, two of the most iconic characters in crime fiction. The LA Times said it was a novel that ‘shows Val McDermid deserves her Queen of Crime crown’. McDermid last received the Novel of the Year accolade in 2006.

Denise Mina could make it a hat-trick after winning the award in 2012 and 2013, she is the only author to date to have won the Novel of the Year in two consecutive years.The Long Drop has already attracted a wealth of awards; Mina was the first woman to win The McIlvanney Prize for The Long Drop.

Abir Mukherjee is the only author on the shortlist for a debut novel. A Rising Man, saw Abir Mukherjee picked as a 2016 New Blood author by Val McDermid at the Festival. She hailed it as, ‘One of the most exciting debut novels I’ve read in years.’ It too has won awards, including the CWA Historical Dagger. His sequel in the Sam Wyndham series is A Necessary Evil.

The Intrusions by Stav Sherez was a 2017 Guardian and Sunday Times book of the year, dubbed ‘A Silence of the Lambs for the internet age’ by Ian Rankin. The book was acclaimed by critics for its echoes of Emile Zola and influences from Graham Greene to Dostoyevsky.

Former Guardian journalist Susie Steiner’s first crime novel introduced Detective Manon Bradshaw in Missing, Presumed, a Sunday Times bestseller. Her follow up,Persons Unknown, a Richard and Judy book club pick, has attracted huge critical acclaim.
The 2018 Award is run in partnership with title sponsor T&R Theakston Ltd, WHSmith, and The Mail on Sunday.

2018 marks the 14^th year of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award.
Executive director of T&R Theakston, Simon Theakston, said: “The shortlisted authors are already rich in awards, but there’s only one Novel of the Year, so it will be fascinating to see which of these remarkable titles prevails - all are simply outstanding.”
The overall winner will be decided by the panel of Judges, alongside a public vote. The public vote opens on 1 July and closes 14 July at www.theakstons.co.uk.

Helen Donkin, Literature Festival Manager at Harrogate International Festivals, said: “The public’s vote is incredibly important. It’s the readers that have real power when it comes to judging a book’s worth, so I’d encourage everyone to make their voice heard – it’s free and simple to vote online.”

The winner will be announced at an award ceremony hosted by broadcaster Mark Lawson on 19 July on the opening night of the 16th Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. The winner will receive a £3,000 cash prize, as well as a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by Theakston Old Peculier.