Shane Hegarty, the former arts editor of The Irish Times, made headlines in 2013 when he signed a substantial six-figure four-book deal with HarperCollins for his Darkmouth series of children’s fantasy books. In January 2015, the film rights for the Darkmouth series were sold in a high six-figure deal. ... Read the Post...
Niamh Boyce – “Penguin stepped in very quickly after the Novel Fair”
Niamh Boyce, author of the bestselling The Herbalist, on how the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair led to her first book deal It didn’t occur to me to be a “writer”… I’d always written poems, but for myself. When I moved from Galway to Laois I was looking for something creative to do, so I did a short story workshop in Athy’s town hall. When I started writing short stories, I realised how much I loved it. The character of the herbalist appeared ... Read the Post...
Liz Nugent: “When Penguin Ireland took it on I was delighted…”
The No. 1 International bestseller Liz Nugent, whose latest novel Strange Sally Diamond has topped the Irish charts for weeks, explains how she landed her first book deal with Penguin Ireland... (Note: This interview was originally conducted and posted in 2015. The manuscript referred to in the interview is Liz's hugely successful debut novel Unravelling Oliver) The writing has to come out somewhere… I was working in RTÉ’s Fair City office but on ... Read the Post...
How Donal Ryan Got His Dream Book Deal
Booker-nominated author Donal Ryan on getting published after 47 rejections (This interview was originally posted in February 2015) Where did the inspiration for The Spinning Heart come from? I’d been thinking for years about writing a novel in the polyphonic form, thinking that if I ever did, it’d be burnt or shredded like nearly everything else I’d ever written. I started once, years ago, to write a novel set in an apartment complex, where ... Read the Post...
