My website got hacked. Only a few months after I’d given it a complete makeover.
This is taking me hours to sort out. I have to re-create the sidebars and several menus. I completely forget how I managed todo these the first time around – I have to learn it all again from the online manuals.
If you got hammered by the same Badi, this is a good resource: here.
American poet and commentator Djelloul Marbrook linked my blog to his Next Big Thing Blog Tour .
I have been a reader of Marbrook’s political/social commentary blog for years now. He had a long career as a journalist and returned to writing poetry in his seventies. Michael Meyerhofer invited Marbrook to take part in the tour. And now Marbrook is inviting me.
The tour consists of 10 questions and answers about works in progress. I’m going to invite a few other writers to join in the tour, and they should post their answers to the questions during the week beginning Feb 18th.
So here goes!
What is your working title of your book (or story)?
“Empires” – it’s a play actually
Where did the idea come from for the book?
It was an old man I knew who believed there were still British spies in Dublin Castle. If you listened to him, you would believe it too.
What genre does your book (play) fall under?
It’s a character study of an amateur historian who is borderline crank / conspiracy theorist. A person with a low-status job who spends his life searching for the Truth about the way the world is drifting. It’s partly comedy.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I never remember names of movie actors. I know several theatre actors though. Wait, I remember Anthony Hopkins. He’d be perfect as the elderly amateur historian.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
We live in a world of remote powers and conspiracy theorists: how can we tell the warriors for truth from the crackpots?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
No or no.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Three months.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Ehhhh. My mind is blank. Wait, I see The NeverEnding Story … no, that’s embarrassing.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
How many times do I have to tell you it’s a play!! I already answered this one. Kind of. The idea I suppose needs extra impetus to take form. I wanted to make it into a play because
(i) I think this confrontation of a wily old man and a complacent college kid has great drama potential
(ii) I wanted to write a play with only 2 characters
(ii) It’s a dramatic situation that I’m undecided about. I mean, obsessions with large-scale politics are very common, there are people getting all hot and bothered about clandestine powers over which they cannot possibly have any influence. And maybe sometimes neglecting things closer to home which they could change. But on the other hand complacency is dangerous …
What else about your book play might pique the reader’s interest?
Latin is spoken in parts of it. That doesn’t do it for you? Phibsboro Aid gets a mention.
Now I’ll pass on the Next Big Thing blog tour to:
Colm Keegan well-known spoken word poet and poetry teacher
Mark Dark crime fiction writer and screenplay writer. Some of his short fiction is available on Ether Books
Brian Kirk Dublin writer whose work has appeared in just about every Irish outlet, newspapers, and various anthologies. His work is also available on Ether Books.
Ethel Rohan Unheimlich, lucid, surreal, disturbing, close-to-the-bone writing, a unique style of her own. I love Ethel’s writing.
BTW here’s a story of hers http://www.friggmagazine.com/issuetwentynine/fiction/rohan/kriegspiel.htm
I’m a beta tester for the new Android version of the Ether app. (Short stories for the smartphone – up to now only the iPhone. Hopefully the Android app will be out before the summer.
I’ve spent some time working on a new website for singer Larry Beau. Larry styles himself as a minstrel and wanderer. He sings cabaret-influenced gothic-tinged songs of outcasts, nomads, beggars, rogues and lovers.
It’s hard to place him in any category – he has been compared with Kate Bush, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and 1930s cabaret artistes.
Best just go to his website and have a listen to the sample tracks.
Misery Hill
Legends of scandal vanish in memory lonely
while the young guns revel in a five-second claim to fame
Back from the movies, Gloria steals the moment
by swallowing plls and a cocktail of lethal blue.
Lolitas and madmen and drag-queens and demons at Misery Hill.
Star of the game show, lives on her one-day wonder
on a diet of playback the moment she wins the prize.
Bride of the sideshow mourns like a songbird dying
trapped in a marriage to madness and misery.
Old Mr Bozo watches the high towers crumble
admiring the wonder of particles fall like rain.
lolitas and madmen and drag-queens and demons at Misery Hill.
I’ll sing you a love song, see if it makes you happy
called ‘Over the rainbow and into the arms of you.’
Dec 2, 2012
Ether Books are a publisher of short fiction for smartphones. There’s a selection of free stories to try it out, and a range of modern writers with stories at about €0.60 cents each. Well-known writers like Hilary Mantel, Lionel Shriver, Toby Litt, as well as special sections for horror, sci-fi etc. The interface is beautiful: slide your finger to flip over the page. Download the app and try it out.
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This is my new story available at Ether Books. It’s a long short story (!) so it’s in two parts, with the first part a free download.
I say “smartphone” but in fact it’s only available for the iPhone at the moment. The android version is coming very very soon. Maybe for Christmas.
Ether describes itself as a “social reading platform” because of the extra frills like the ability to rate stories, recommend them, contact the author etc etc.
You have to download the app and browse to my name to find the story – I wish I could give a direct link for those with an iPhone.
Oh, here’s the blurb:
Celtic Tiger Ireland. An unlikely tale of farmers-turned-investors, an ex-poet, and a bearded German inventor. A one-quarter fictional story that nails down the atmosphere of those heady times.
My new story is out in the Dublin Review Winter 2012-13 issue.
Contempt
Ruben has lost his accent, stripped away his background, and lives each day at a time. He works shoulder to shoulder with immigrants from all over the world. His fellow labourers assume he is a Russian.
He seems to get on well enough with people. But there is surely something unsound about this man without a past and with no plans or ambitions. When a young Latvian woman comes to rely on him, we fear for her safety. As we see things more from Ruben’s unique and ruthless perspective, we realise that differences of race or culture are miniscule compared to the differences between individuals. Ruben is out there on the fringes of what it means to be human, unguided by taboos or beliefs or habit.
Kevin Barry has an essay in this issue – a personal history of his encounters with the internet.
Nov 13
I’ve got no less than two reviews coming up in the next issue of Dream Catcher magazine.
One is Lemistry, a celebration of the work of Stanislaw Lem, the other is Cold Sea Stories by Pawel Huelle.
Both books are from Comma Press (which has been called the Factory Records of the publishing industry).
I submitted reviews of the two books, and one of the editors at Dream Catcher decided to run with both of them.
Dream Catcher has been on the go since 1996 and steadily gaining in prestige. They publish poetry and (shorter) short stories. (I had a piece in in last year.) They are on their 25th issue now. Check out who’s in the current issue.
Ether Reads is an iphone / ipad app that allows you to download from their library of short stories. The interface is beautiful – as you come to expect on the iphone. The pages flick over when you slide your finger on them.
The authors are a mix of the bestselling and not-so-famous. There are little tags on the stories to help guide your choice, and a few free ones to get you started. An app for ‘the other’ platform – the Android – is in the pipeline
Ether selected three of my stories for publication. They’re priced at about 70 cents each.
Good things happening at the Cork Short Story festival 19th – 23rd September. See you all there.
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