THOMPSON
Hello! and welcome to the March
newsletter, which will be even more incoherent than the January one, because
as I write this I have just received a belated Mother’s Day e-card from my
girl, who has winged her way back to
Tokyo :”(
It is hard to let go – I can’t tell you how hard it is, even though it is my
job as a writer to find the right words. I said to Malcolm - as we watched
Clara go through security at Dublin airport - ‘My heart is gone from me.’
That’s about as articulate as I can get.
missed opportunities
February was a month of missed opportunities, full of parties that I didn’t attend because I wanted to spend as much precious time as possible with my girl. Ohmigod, how pathetic that sounds! But let it be known that all this heartache will be put to good use, because it’s going into the book I’m working on. And I will have to get my skates on, because I have a deadline, and I was seriously side-tracked last month. The only engagement I kept was in Cork, where I was guest speaker at a library event to lovely, lovely people. Thank-you so much for turning out on a rain-lashed Tuesday evening to meet me! And thank-you also to good friends Gerry and Ann for putting me up and feeding me delicious food and wine in front of a raging fire, and for inspiring in me the idea for a play that I will have to write when I get the time – yikes, yikes – I really do need time, and there just isn’t enough of it.
travel
I have to say that travelling to and from Cork on the train was the most fun – I haven’t done train travel for ages, and got utterly lost in the luxury of a hassle-free journey. The minute I got back to Dublin I wanted to get straight back on the rails and watch that scenery unwind all over again. I think I could happily spend the rest of my life lounging on a train – or watching scenery unfold underwater, and forgive me for the seeming non-sequitur, but I was in touch during the month with the very first exotic scuba outfit I ever dived with – Lady G’Diver in Jamaica, which was the inspiration behind Going Down. While fiddling around on the internet, researching and looking for free-diving sites, I found David Lee. Behold, and be amazed! I will never forget the vision that was David - a submarine angel soaring alongside us sans scuba as we pottered over reefs laden with our weight belts and BCDs (um – we were laden, not the reefs, thankfully). Anyway, the reason I was Googling free divers will become apparent when novel number twelve hits the shelves next year. Like Ferdia in Going Down, my new hero is a diver. He introduced himself recently when I came up with a prologue and first chapter (and a synopsis, as requested by my editor – agh! How scary is writing a synopsis when you’re only just getting to know your characters!), and when the girl Clara read it, she recognized the kindred spirit of adventure that informs the young male protagonist and said: ‘Hey, Mum! You’ve turned me into a boy!’
new beginnings
The
boy lives in the prettiest village in Ireland, where I spent a week last
month admiring the breathtaking scenery and feasting on seafood in
O’Dowd’s Pub and at
Ballynahinch Castle
Hotel and pondering the possibility of relocating to Roundstone.
In Living the Dream and Sex, Lies and Fairytales I have called
the village Kilrowan, and
in the new novel it will be called something else again. New novel, new
characters, new place
names, new editor, new publishing house, new beginnings – it’s all exciting!
I’m even contemplating writing under a new name, so watch this space – I’ll
have more details for you next month.
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
Incidentally, this is your last chance to buy a limited edition of the Clandestine Chapters of Love Lies Bleeding, which the Examiner described as ‘Kate at her sparkling best’, and which garnered a glowing, star-embellished review from heat magazine. The print run has come to an end, and there are only a few very pretty collectables remaining. And I really do mean collectable. Dave Fanning was not far off the mark when he described the Love Lies Bleeding project as the ‘Arctic Monkeys of the publishing world’. A year on, it’s still a www first.
DUBLIN BOOKS FESTIVAL
If you’d like to meet up, the Dublin Books Festival happens in the first week of March, so you might come to City Hall on Dame Street where Cathy Kelly and I are doing a public interview with Sue Leonard of the Examiner on the 8th at 4.00 - check it out on www.dublinbookfestival.com It’s free, and it should be fun, and by coming along and talking to me you might help to distract me from my appalling and all-consuming empty nest syndrome.
THANK-YOU
Thank-you - as ever - for taking the time to read this. As Kate Thompson and as Pixie Pirelli, I have made a lot of friends through this website. Once my new name has been decided upon, I hope to make a lot more.
Love & ♥♥♥
from
Kate
PS: ORDERING BOOKS
to buy
By the way, while Sex, Lies and Fairytales is available to buy or to order in all good bookshops in Ireland, the UK and the Commonwealth, its companion piece Hard to Choos is available to buy direct from booksellers only in Ireland at present. Should you wish to buy the book from Amazon, clicking here will take you straight to the sales point. You can also order Hard to Choos from Pixie's site. Lots of you are wondering where my backlist can be purchased. Amazon is good, of course, but my Transworld titles are also available - with free P&P in the UK - at Bookpost. (Just key in the title name in inverted commas - ie: "More Mischief")
to buy
© Kate Thompson, 2008
site constructed by
