Well done to everyone at The Dublin Book Festival and The National Library for going ahead despite Covid with this year’s festival.

It is a great honour to  take part in ‘Writing History’ a podcast with Breda Brown interviewing  new writer of A Quiet Tide Marianne Lee  and myself about  all the intricacies and joys of writing history, something we both love. The podcast will go out on Thursday 5^th November at 7pm.

 Here is the Link: https://dublinbookfestival.com/programme/historical-fiction-2/

 Marianne and I could have talked for hours about our favourite subject and how we each approach writing; researching and building our stories while staying true to those we are writing about   

It is unfortunate that here in Ireland we are back in a lockdown phase again to try and curtail the spread of Covid 19 numbers. Like many other sectors The Arts have been badly hit with theatres, concert venues and galleries shut, and many book and literature and music festivals cancelled or curtailed. It has been a huge learning curve for most of us writers who enjoy taking part in festivals and meeting our readers.

Along with working on a new book I have spent this time learning how to make videos, do Zoom events and podcasts interviews and in the past few months have amongst other things taken part in The John Hewitt Summer School, The Dublin History Festival, and The Kildare Readers Festival, with a lovely event planned next month with West Cork Book Groups who are all reading ‘The Hungry Road’.

Recording the Podcast

 I have a huge regard for all the wonderful organizers and volunteers who have pressed ahead with these alternate form of events which are proving so popular and finding a new even wider audience reach.