Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1961. Back then, as we didn’t yet have the luxury of a television set in the house, as kids, if we weren’t playing outside, we usually read. I learned and loved to read before I’d even started school, and was writing my own little stories by the age of five. At school then, writing was the one pursuit that I really enjoyed, and at which I seemed to excel: I won commendations, prizes and even an award for a story of mine that was sent on my behalf to an Irish national newspaper, when, If I remember correctly, I was still only about seven.
Of course, it all went to my head! As far as I was concerned my future was sorted; all I’d ever have to do was write. I needn’t bother myself about trying to do well in school, or ever consider any alternative careers, and certainly I’d need never worry about money. But, unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
Let free on the world then, unburdened by any qualifications or skills, I worked at various jobs, but then finding myself unemployed for a while, in the Irish recessionary 1980s, I decided that it was about time that I was discovered, and finally got around to writing my first great book!
However, the one publisher that I sent it to didn’t seem to agree, sending it back to me with the note that it ‘didn’t suit their lists’ and the suggestion that supplying it hand-written mightn’t be such a good idea, and that, if I was forwarding it elsewhere, I should really consider first getting it typed. And there was I believing that my genius was bound to shine through even my barely decipherable long-hand… I really was that naïve!
Disappointed as I was, I never did get it typed, or sent it anywhere else, coming to the painful realization that, maybe, just maybe, it really wasn’t so great. But I did continue to write.
My first novel published was The Prince in 1996. The new version, The Revenge of The Stoned Rats (The novel previously known as The Prince), in 2018.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The Revenge of The Stoned Rats (The novel previously known as The Prince) A new version of my novel The Prince which was published in 1996, and was inspired by my life experiences up until then.
I was probably near enough to being what might have been called then ‘a model child.’ I did what I was told and I doubt that I was ever any trouble to anyone. But I did read a lot, and I did think a lot, and probably overthought a lot, and at the age thirteen I changed. I questioned everything that I’d been told, I believed nothing and saw no value in anything, and began my rebellion against all. Thankfully, in my teens, I found the company of other unsettled souls: Lads who’d spent a lot of their childhoods in reform schools and juvenile prisons, some of whom, as it transpired, were well on their way to achieving senior status, but who turned out to be the most trustworthy and loyal friends I have ever had. The book, in part, is a tribute to them.
The family circumstances and situation are purely fictional, but otherwise the novel is autobiographical; I always had the feeling that everything that I experiencing was just material for a book I would write someday. That book was The Prince, now called The Revenge of The Stoned Rats.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Writing whilst listening to loud music.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
That’s a difficult one because I’ve read a lot of books, and I couldn’t honestly say that I’m aware of being particularly influenced by any specific author. I actually think that my influences might be more musical than literary e.g. the lyrics of David Bowie, Talking Heads and The Psychedelic Furs, and the attitude of The Sex Pistols.
What are you working on now?
A novel that I’ve been tipping away at now for over twenty years…. seriously! But just to qualify; oftentimes, because of work and financial commitments, I haven’t managed more than a few paragraphs at holiday times. But, thankfully, the road ahead is looking a lot clearer now and I am hopeful that it will see the light of day in the next year, if not two.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m hoping it will be Awesome Gang! But other than that, I’m very much old school and haven’t really used the internet or social media to date. The Revenge of The Stoned Rats is, though, available now from bookshops around Ireland, so, fortunately, I’ve done a number of radio and newspaper interviews, and have had articles written about it.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t set out to try and write a bestseller, just be true to yourself.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Be true to yourself.
What are you reading now?
I’m catching up on a few I missed along the way. I’ve just finished Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, and have my eye now on Charles Dickens’s, David Copperfield.
What’s next for you as a writer?
To finally complete my new novel.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I suppose I’d have to take Robinson Crusoe…for sure! But, otherwise, I’d like to take a few books that I haven’t read yet, and preferably lengthy ones, and I don’t know what they’d be. But if it was a choice of old favourites, maybe, The Wasp Factory by Ian Banks, The Catcher in The Rye by J.D. Salinger, and Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson, and, if I had room for one more, definitely for reasons of literary merit, as well as for length, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.
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