Invisibility Cloak
One of my fellow 2022 debut authors wrote a long Twitter thread today about the struggle of being small. In this context, ‘small’ means ‘we are published traditionally, but with a small, independent publisher, and not one of the few…
It’s been a while
It’s not so much that I had little to say; just little time to say it. My MA is progressing well. I am at the beginning of a new module: Writing the Novel, in which the idea for my latest…
It’s Publication Day!
Today, March 15th 2022, I woke up as a published Novelist! (I know novelist makes me sound all pretentious, but I couldn’t just say ‘published’ or ‘author’ because today wasn’t the first for those. Today marks the release of my…
Spring promises
I’ve been gone a while. Things piled up and blogging seemed low on the priority list. Today sees me enjoying the end of a week off from teaching and catching up on MA reading, whilst also pausing to catch breath.…
Ticking along
It’s so cold here today I’m typing fast to keep my hands warm… …which is good, since I’ve slacked off on my blog for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been mad-busy working on the fourth novel, prepping for a…
the proof and the obscure
In Edinburgh recently, we spent a fun couple of hours in Camera Obscura, looking at the incredible, the impossible, the unbelievable, the inexplicable, and the unclear. Now, home again, I am coming towards the end of my proofreading for Dear…
Holidays and homecomings
I’ve been away. For the first time in 18 months, we left Ireland. It was a combination trip of visiting family we haven’t seen since Covid locked down the world, and delivering our daughter to her new university life in…
Dinosaurs, and all that old stuff
I’ve just finished creating a lesson about dinosaurs, so they are on my mind. I told someone the other day that one of my childhood nicknames was ‘Diplodocus’ and they thought I should use that as my pen name from…
Keeping it brief
Hello everyone, This will be a very brief entry today, as it’s been a rough week full of time-eating problems and deadlines all coming along at the same time like fleas on a dog. As you may know, my ‘other…
The Gardener’s Daughter
Firstly, apologies for skipping last week. The sun was shining. It was 30 degrees. That’s hot for Ireland. I lazed around in the sun in the snatched spare moments between a jam-packed week of work and webinars. I’ve been making…