Unfortunately, life is not simple; one hasn’t any control over it; especially at fifteen. Having an unpleasant time in school in early ’67, I had finally returned to studying again...

My dream has always been to one day hold my published novel in my hand, so when that day finally came it was every bit as thrilling as I’d expected,...

Even today, fish and chips from the chipper are, in my opinion, the tastiest of foods, especially if, like me, you were not allowed have them as a youngster. In...

It all started with Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, a novel I have never read and most likely never will. The year was 1999 and it appeared in my school library...

I have always been fascinated by the extended Regency era. Although the actual regency during which the Prince of Wales (later George IV) acted as regent for his father, the...

At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the shaky fairly recently established Irish Free State, declared it would follow a path of neutrality. This period, as...

Way back in 2002, I heard a radio ad for the RTE Francis McManus Short Story competition. Two thousand words – I can do that. I had no idea who...

I have wanted to be an author ever since I was eleven and wrote my first ‘novel’ about a group of rabbits going on a perilous journey (eleven pages overflowing...

I remember it like it was yesterday. The postman arrived with a large parcel wrapped in brown paper and handed it to my grandmother. I could hardly contain myself as...

I’m not sure writing a novel was ever truly a conscious decision but having spent a lifetime in the hotel business I have always felt there was genuine potential. Not...