Movie Trailer (fan-made)

This trailer which one of my readers created disappeared from youtube for a time and has just shown up again! So I am posting it again myself. She did a fantastic job. Do check out her trailer for The Hunter's Moon also. Now I am off to a dinner dance for New Year's Eve. I wish you all a great night and a fabulous year. Perhaps our paths will cross in 2009.

Reader Art

I love when readers create art from my books. It's such an honour and a thrill. This is an amazing painting that is all about Ruarc, the raven guard in The Summer King. If you click on the pic and enlarge it, you'll be able to see it better. The image perfectly depicts the terrible beauty of the Fir-Fia-Caw; and the spatters of red underscore the sad tale of the Captain's life. He is one of my favourite characters in the series, so I was delighted to see this. Thank you, Nimue Fox!

Enlightenment

Okay, enough moaning about the horrors of the publishing industry. Isn't the entire world in a state of deterioration and collapse? We live in the end times and the fall of old empires. But to paraphrase the Lord Krishna as he spoke to Arjuna on the eve of a great battle. "No one's dyin' here. We're all immortal." I credit my present state of equanimity on a recent re-read of a wonderful little book a dear writer friend in New York sent me. It's called The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas. The author wrote his gem of wisdom in one room in San Francisco back in the days of psychedelics and flower power. Here's my favourite line: I offer no resistance to this reality. Great for calming you in the face of universal human madness. Here's a sweetie thing he says in his foreword: I'm not really expecting anyone to take these sentences and expand them again into a feeling of realization. But if one of you whom I never hear about gets a little higher and happier, then I would write all this again a thousand times over. And here's a bit that made me laugh out loud: The thought of these possibilities is so staggering, trying to contain them in writing is so ridiculous, that it is hard for me to move my pen any further. Ach, Mr Golas, you're a pet. I hope you are happy wherever you are, a chara.

Cassandra Cries

Irish comedian Dara O'Briain calls nostalgia "heroin for old people" but still I must confess that I yearn for the olden golden days of publishing; before all the houses were bought up by global conglomerates who have no interest in books per se, but only in sales and profit. (And don't get me started on the chain bookstores who simply use books to sell their coffee and donuts.) This is not a moan. It's a fact. Everything has changed, changed utterly and horribly. Back in the 1980s (here we go, into the main vein) I could ring my editor collect from wherever I was in the world and she would always accept the call. There was always time to chat. If I hadn't called her in a while - I am talking different editors here, actually - she would, gasp, ring me! For both of us, there was time for editing, time to discuss the book, time to think about the heart and soul of writing. Yep, in the old days, my publishers actually cared about me as a human being and an artist. Now the whole business is all nerve-wracking deadlines and production schedules, Nielsen ratings and sales and promotions. Will this be a bestseller? If not, it's worthless! What I am trying to say is that there is no cherishing of the author any more. It's all "get the work done and sell for us or piss off." And I'm not talking about the people in the publishing house. I am talking about the great impersonal corporate juggernaut that is driving the publishing house. We are all crushed beneath it - publishing staff and writers and small bookstores and readers.

Culture Ireland & NCTE/ALAN

I was just filling out my report for Cultúr Eireann/Culture Ireland, the government body which gave me a grant to help finance my trip to America, when I realised I forgot to acknowledge them on my website! So here is my go raibh míle maith agaibh for their continuing and amazing support of me and other Irish artists who are invited to travel abroad.