“Music & Me” is a feature in which authors talk about their musical influences, their favourite musicians and their “musical guilty pleasures”. This week’s victim guest is “Drivetime” contributor and prolific novelist, Joseph O’ Connor, whose many works include Star of the Sea and, his latest, The Thrill Of It All, the tale of the rise and fall of a fictional ’80s rock band. What are your earliest musical memories? I can just about remember hearing...

To become a published writer requires talent. This is a given. But – equally – it also requires another “T” word – tenacity. Indeed, it could be said that if half the battle to becoming a writer requires mastering the art of writing, the other half requires mastering the art of never giving up. With this in mind, I came across two articles this past week that I think will inspire even the most disheartened...

“Music & Me” is a feature in which authors talk about their musical influences, their favourite musicians and their “musical guilty pleasures”. This week’s victim guest is Louise Phillips. Louise is the bestselling author of four psychological crime thrillers. Her new novel, The Game Changer, is on sale now. What are your earliest musical memories? Hearing the singer Mario Lanza had to be one of the first. He was a favourite of my Dad’s, an actor with a...

The shortlist for the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize has just been announced and includes ‘Beatlebone’ by Irish author, Kevin Barry. The story of John Lennon’s visit to Dorinish – the Irish island he owned in Clew Bay – in 1978, the book will be published later this month by Canongate. The blurb on the book is as follows: “He will spend three days alone on his island. That is all that he asks . . ....

“Music & Me” is a feature in which authors talk about their musical influences, their favourite musicians and their “musical guilty pleasures”. This week’s victim guest is Louise O’ Neill. Louise’s debut novel, Only Ever Yours, has won numerous awards and the film rights were recently sold. Her new novel, the critically-acclaimed, Asking For It, is on sale now. What are your earliest musical memories? My mother had a Carly Simon tape that she would play in the car. I...

“Music & Me” is a feature in which authors talk about their musical influences, their favourite musicians and their “musical guilty pleasures”. This week’s victim guest is Caroline Finnerty. Caroline’s new novel, My Sister’s Child, is on sale now. What are your earliest musical memories? I have lots of fragmented memories of different songs. I remember singing along to “Brown Girl in the Ring’ by Boney M and thinking that the song was actually written about me....

For any authors interested in what goes on behind the scenes designing books, this TED Talk by Chip Kidd of Knopf publishers is fascinating.

This week’s Songbook is a guest post by Matthew Ralli, a writer, actor, and founder of “Speckintime” – a theatre company that specialises in producing new writing for stage.  They say writing a great book is the easy part. Getting it published and into people’s hands is an even harder task. The same applies to playwriting. Having written a rewarding play, how do you go about getting it staged? Unless you are lucky enough to be commissioned...

This week’s blog is a guest post by Noel Shine. It was never going to be easy getting into Trinity College Dublin, but I was determined. Alas, I failed spectacularly. The security man at the back gate rumbled me as an interloper and kindly suggested that I avail of Dublin’s extortionate on-street parking system. As fate would have it, I parked near ‘The Ginger Man’ pub. A neat little south-side establishment which had already sprung into...

I recently came across this article in The Guardian about Tony Schumacher and his debut novel, The Darkest Hour. Not only is his story inspirational, it’s also fascinating, as he was a dropout from school who went from being a policeman to driving a cab for a living. Click on the article below to read.