Jo Kerrigan tells us how her latest book came about. Over the past twenty years or so, Richard and I have been exploring Ireland’s scenery and history for our books. Each time, our explorations provided so much more than was required – stories heard in small harbours or on windswept coasts, mystery in abandoned seashore villages. Who hasn’t imagined smugglers storing their goods in those caves, or wondered what vessels once tied up at these grass-grown quays, used those rusted …
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Meet The Leaflings… It was Niamh who discovered the leaflings. When we came up with the notion of working together, we would go to a coffee shop here in Skerries …
When I got married in the 1990s, it was common in my country for newlyweds to spend their honeymoons in the Caribbean where they’d have to wear all-inclusive resort bracelets …
Unconsecrated Ground If you want to find a cillín, you have to know what you are looking for. There will, in all likelihood, be no signpost or gate. It’s best …
Nothing sets high expectations quite like one of your favourite authors saying they’ll release the book that’s haunted them for the past decade, waiting for the right time to be …
“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer …
Nobody tells stories quite like the Irish. From anecdotes to allegories, folktales to epic poems, the Irish have an innate talent for spinning words. So, it’s no surprise that Irish …
I believe in the power of empathy. It is a powerful, vitally important and, unfortunately, oftentimes uncommon thing. The Transgender Issue, Shon Faye’s debut nonfiction book, has no shortage of …
Thomas Mann was born into a mercantile family in Lübeck in Northern Germany in 1875 and died in Switzerland in 1955. In his early teens, when his father died, the …
September brings a sense of change with it. The summer light begins to fade, the leaves turn brown and crisp, and students flock back to school and college. Along with …
Before openhearted was published I had written reams in minute detail about my life growing up, about my husband Peter, about how he became ill and his subsequent suicide. I …
Harp Maiden had a somewhat unexpected element to its creation. My initial plan was to write a tale about magical music, and I chose the flute. But after speaking in …
At each stage of life, your sense of self and personal identity finds expression in the story you tell about yourself and the story significant others tell about you. That …
For a long while, my novel Dinner Party: A Tragedy was a short story that wasn’t quite right. It had an interesting premise – a woman with an eating disorder …
If I were to give aspiring fantasy writers any piece of advice it would be to include some form of magical transportation. This is especially relevant when you need to …
My name, Easkey, has its origins in ancient Gaelic for fish. I’m named after an important salmon river in Ireland that creates a wave where it flows into the sea; …
Some books are easier to write than others. I’ve written one or two in a matter of weeks; others have taken several years. The House of Ashes was the latter. …
The annual Women’s Prize for Fiction is a celebration of a year of bestselling and unforgettable novels by women. It has been won by great writers from Ann Patchett for …
1. May we start with the title of the book? (Your notes to the text tell us that it’s a translation of a phrase from a poem by Schiller, later …
I didn’t actually set out to write a book for general consumption. I was writing for myself. A career in medicine is anchored by various milestones as you progress through …
Wallis Simpson has always fascinated me, so to write a novel about her was an act of supreme self-indulgence! However, the Wallis I present in The Duchess is very different …
I wrote the first draft of All Her Fault at a corner of my dad’s dining room table – writing furiously to get the words down while my kids were …
When I started working on You & Me on Vacation, I didn’t set out to write an homage to When Harry Met Sally, but looking back, it’s obvious how much …
About Us is about three couples, at very different stages in their lives, struggling to connect. I think relationships are fascinating. They ebb and flow and at different stages people …
A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to be asked to talk to a classroom of children about my route to publication. “I wrote my first book by …
I remember how the light felt on my face, the smell of the grass, the rough ‘skin’ of the oak tree, bluebells everywhere and out of nowhere, a cuckoo called. …
At the center of The Paper Palace is a woman who has to make an impossible and life-changing decision in a single summer day. 24 hours during which she has …
During the last recession, I once came upon a small ghost estate in the middle of the countryside. It was completely uninhabited; eerie and quiet, you could see right through …
When my novel, I Know I Saw Her, came out on 1st July, it was a kind of second time around for me. I’d been published before, about fifteen years …
Every Sunday morning, I go for a leisurely scroll. Not a stroll you understand, a scroll, walking my eyes down through the weekly long reads list collated by the news …
When I was writing my new novel, Yours Cheerfully, because it is a sequel (to my debut Dear Mrs Bird) and I know my characters and where they are in …
I had all sorts of notions about how I would write my first book. I’d craft my painfully wrought prose, I told myself, at the mahogany roll-top writing desk that …
I began writing Holding Her Breath when I was working at Dubray Books in Grafton Street. I loved the job – it was a joy to be around books all …
When the first lockdown hit I was excited to crack into my neverending-continuously-growing pile of books I wanted to read. I thought about how much time I would have to …
As the son of a carpenter from North Cork, I spent most of my childhood falling out of trees, wading through streams, and running through muddy cornfields in the Blackwater …
It all began with a reporter’s notebook and a murder, but by the time I’d finished, the story had expanded to encompass Irish land wars, adulterous love, a trans-Atlantic assassination …
‘Write what you know’. It’s the writing advice that most people have heard, and it’s advice I’ve never followed. In fifteen books, including the Maeve Kerrigan series and my latest …
I began writing The Seven Sisters series in 2013, and 1.2 million words later, I suddenly found myself about to write Book 7. The characters have been with me for …
This year marks my tenth anniversary as a full-time writer. And I’ve been reflecting on how much my writing life has changed over the years. One of these changes is …
I was conducting some background research for my novel Stranger when I came across an old article in The New Yorker about diagnosing mental illness. At one point, it referred …
How could it possibly be that a book which starts with a brutal murder in Arizona in 1915, before settling into an account of three more killings that took place …
My new novel The Beauty of Impossible Things is set in a small seaside town during a heatwave – a place of “novelties and souvenirs” to quote one of the …
I have always been interested in forgotten pieces of history, particularly where lives have been barely recorded, distorted by mis-telling, or eroded over time. It is the fragment that excites …
There is an urban myth I heard as a child that has always fascinated me. It goes along the lines of: Only two people know the recipe to the world’s …
Diary of a Young Naturalist follows seismic changes in your life, as the seasons turn. What do the seasons, and their transitions, symbolise to you? Do they reveal something about …
I’m sure you’re a more conscientious reader than I am, but back in late January and February I was really struggling to read. We were back in lockdown, this time …
On a February evening, just over three years ago, I was happily procrastinating on Twitter when I came across a post by a paediatric palliative care doctor. Here, he had …
It’s looking like 2021 will be another year when our yearnings for foreign shores will have to be assuaged with some vicarious travel. For me that’ll take the form of …
I began the #ReadIrishWomenChallenge back in April 2019 as a way to spotlight great work by Irish female authors, and to start a conversation about their writing. Now that it’s …
Reader, it started with Hydra. I had recently finished writing my novel, The Kindness, and was wearing my other hat, that of lyricist for my husband’s music. It was 2014, …
When I was pregnant with my first child, a woman I’d barely spoken to came over to me in the office toilets and touched my belly. It felt like such …
The southside suburbs located between the Grand Canal and the Dodder encompass the area we now know as Dublin 4. It contains some of the most expensive roads and houses …
It has been a joy to watch the progress of Leonard and Hungry Paul through our bookshops. Some books arrive like explosions, with huge fanfare and a maelstrom of sales …
The idea for this book came about during the debate around Ireland’s gay marriage referendum. I was sitting in the pub with my friend Colin, who was decrying the state …
“Too embarrassed even to try as long as everyone was looking at me, I made what was probably a fairly unique request. ‘Um, I’ll have a go. But I can’t …
I was introduced to Anna Jones by a friend whose eyes lit up as she described this one-pan lemony pasta where the cooking water becomes the sauce. The enthusiasm verged …
The Ministry of Bodies describes the final months of my long career as a hospital doctor. I left in the first week of February 2020, just before the pandemic. Although …
While I was writing my novel, my long suffering agent Harriet was subject to many anguished emails and phone calls about how long I was taking to finish. I would …
I’ve always wanted to write about the sea. When I came across the true story of the Flannan Isles vanishing – the mysterious disappearance, in 1900, of three lighthouse keepers …
Squeeeak … Thwop … Thwop… whoop … whoop … whoop … Dwooooooerp! … Dwooooooerp! Just some of the sounds that you might hear if you were deep underwater, far out …
A Good Father is a psychological suspense novel about a man who kills his family. I wanted to explore the idea that jealousy could be the driver of such an …
I first became drawn to the mountains in my early twenties, while living in the Alpine resort of Crans Montana in Switzerland. It’s a stunning place all year round, but …
When I was eight years old, I learned the word ‘wanderlust’ and though I’d never travelled very far from home, I knew it applied to me. Even then, I wasn’t …
Gardening has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My dad is very passionateabout gardening and growing his own food. I learned everything …
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Girl A? Abigail Dean: As an only child, I’ve always been interested in the relationships between siblings. I spent a long time …
They say a picture paints a thousand words and as a designer and artist I communicate visually. Having spent roughly seven years studying and learning the design process from The …
Over 30 years ago, I did a Diploma in Legal Studies at the College of Commerce, Rathmines. I rented a room in a house-share with art students from NCAD and …
This month my debut, Thin Places, flies out into the world. It’s a book I’ve been trying to write since the end of my 20’s, one I’ve felt haunted by …
Based on three generations of my own family, the seeds of Life Sentences were planted early. Until I was seven years old, I was blessed with a grandmother who …
It’s been just under a year since I began learning to play piano, something I’ve been putting off for a long time. I finally took the plunge when I spotted …
The last time I was in an Irish bookshop was Dubray in Grafton Street in March 2020. I was looking at a ‘New and Bestselling’ display that included my new …
There’s a tradition of children being told dark tales, and given an insight into the scarier side of life through our songs, stories and rhymes. The original versions of the …
I’ve had more best friends than boyfriends. With them I’ve had first cigarettes, first drinks, periods, crushes, encountered perverts, drunk too much, gone too far, got hurt, been betrayed, shamed, …
When I was a kid, there was a henna plant outside my grandmother’s apartment. It was one of my favourite things in the world, because every once in a while, …
Christmas 2020 promises to be one like no other. Most of us will be at home. There’ll be less visiting but more home fires; less cocktails in bars but more …
As a bookseller, I try to be aware of all the new books coming out; as a reader, it is a huge delight to see how many of them are …
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