Wednesday, August 30, 2006

August

I'm not sure I'm all that fond of August. You can never get hold of anybody because they're away or you're away or you're both away. And there's either too much sun, which withers the garden, or too much rain, which has everybody moaning. Not much happens either, apart from Jacks's birthday on the 18th. (I gave her a microscope -- how's that for romantic?) But to be fair, this year a friend of ours was struck by lightning (or at least her house was, while she was in it) which relieved the boredom a bit. Nearly over now, thank goodness. September's usually better.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Moon Man and Flying Saucers

Had lunch with Dave Donohue yesterday and received an early copy of his new book MOON MAN, which is scheduled for publication in the autumn. I read a (very) early draft of this work -- which features his backwards-spelling hero Walter Speazlebud -- in manuscript form, but the book has grown dramatically in the interim. It now runs to 280 pages with one of those laser covers they put on Eoin Colfer's original ARTEMIS FOWL except that in Dave's book, the sparkle is used to denote stars in an astronomical skyscape; and very effective it is too. Egmont have also printed up a bookmark that glows in the dark. Great fun for a very quirky story. Watch out for it in the shops.

Watch out too for CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE by Dermot Butler and Carl Nally, published by Mercier Press and in the shops since June. It's about UFOs in Ireland. Haven't read it yet, but I had a tiny involvement while it was being written since I gave the authors permission to use material from an article I wrote on UFOs for SCENE magazine back in the 1970s.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Well, maybe not...

Looks as if the Halcyon plans to publish 'Cheekyfella Dreaming' this year were a bit ambitious. There's a huge amount of work involved in publishing a book (the reason, I suspect, why authors don't do it themselves) and it all eats up time. It's now looking like autumn 2007, rather than 2006.

I'll keep you posted.