Ennis Book Club Festival 2019 Announces its Full Programme Festival dates: Friday 1 – Sunday 3 March 2019. Today, the full programme for the 13th Ennis Book Club Festival was announced. Readers travel from all over the country and further afield to gather at this, the only book club festival in the country. But whether you are a member of a book club or not, all lovers of books are invited to gather in Ennis...

Coming up to the publication of my second novel there’s 8 things I’d like to rant about. Rant 1 ‘The Healer’ will launch on 22nd January and I can’t wait – but then I am dreading it too. When I was doing promotion for my debut ‘The Abandoned’ I thought maybe it would be my one and only novel. I threw my heart, soul and kitchen sink into the promotion for it. Other than offering...

Being a young girl in 1940’s Ireland isn’t easy for Molly McCarthy, especially since she isn’t like the other children. Her family and community are wary of her beauty and nature. As Molly becomes a teenager life gets harder and she loses faith in everything. Molly is surrounded in danger. She must make choices. But will she chose the right path or is she doomed to a life of misery? Will she survive in a...

  Writers, we wait ALL the time and some of us may wait quietly. I don’t do waiting well, hence the blog post. 🙂 With writing, one of the worst parts is the waiting for stuff to happen. Anyone else agree? To be a writer, we need to wait. It is the kind of waiting that involves, heavy chocolate eating, cursing and candle lighting. While waiting I thought I’d place a few times points together....

The Writing Cure by Sharon Dempsey.  “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. News flash – life’s hard. We all experience difficult times, relationship break ups, the loss of a loved one or periods of stress relating to work. Take your pick, there will be some catastrophic episode which leaves you reeling, unsure of how you will survive. Throughout my...

Writing should not make writers fearful.

You're writing? What's next?

There’s so much talk about writers having a social media presence. If we leave our manuscripts, for faffing about on twitter or social media, how do we use this time effectively? We explored this topic on our trending #Writerswise tweet-chat when we had Paul Dunphy, social media consultant, as our guest-host. THE Paul Dunphy, (who is endorsed by many Irish celebrities and businesses) called by for an hour, to chat with us. To make the...

For my new writing group #indulgeinwriting, I am interviewing writers to hear what about their lives and I am taking tips directly from what they tell me. (From the horses’ mouth as it were… but there’s no poop here!)

On May 17th, Andrea Mara guest-hosted on our #WritersWise tweet-chat, discussing, ‘Writing that Second Novel.’ There is a summary of the discussion in pod-cast form here; http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-7krvh-91819d The chat took an hour and was structured around four questions. T1 Is the second novel really very challenging? T2.Do readers expect more of the same or want something different? T3.What are the pitfalls when writing a second book? T4. Is the book promotion side of it easier...