Bernie Mcgill's Blog

The weather in these parts has the distinct feel of Autumn about it just now, a season I always associate with the true beginning of the year. It’s probably got a lot to do with all those years spent at school and University, followed by more years of ferrying offspring to school (and now also to University), but I think it’s to do, as well, with the changing of the seasons, the lengthening of shadows, the lighting of lights, the turning of the year. That sense of hunkering down, of the nights drawing in, is very resonant with me. It always feels like a creative time, a new beginning, and there’s plenty to look forward to in the weeks ahead.

As mentioned in previous dispatches, this September, I’ll be returning to Queen’s University to take up the post of Writing Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund. I’m looking forward to working with students across the University on their essay writing skills, so if you know of anyone, from any discipline, who would like some help, do put them in touch. They can make an appointment via Rachel Carson in the School of Arts, English and Languages (scroll down for Rachel’s contact details). I’d be very glad to see them in my little office in the Seamus Heaney Centre on University Square.

On 22nd September, I’ll be having a short sojourn in Italy, at Pordenone Legge Book Festival, celebrating the launch of the Italian translation of The Watch House, published by Bollati Boringhieri, and translated by Simona Garavelli as Le parole nell’aria (The Words in the Air). I studied Italian with English at Queen’s and I’ve spent some time in Italy over the intervening years, so in many ways, this feels like completing a circle to me.  I’m very excited to have been invited. The Book Festival programme is packed with events. (John Banville is there the same day as me. Nice company, indeed.)

Back in the country again, I’m teaming up with friend, hatha yoga teacher and life coach, Michelle Gibb, to run a series of workshops titled Dropping Your Gaze: A Day of Mindfulness and Writing. We’re running the workshop in the Festival Yurt (where else?) in Bangor Castle Walled Gardens at Aspects Festival on Friday 14thSeptember, at Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy, on Saturday 27thOctober, and at Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart on Saturday 10th November. Whether you’re new to writing or have been writing for a while and are looking for a way to rejuvenate your approach, this day of guided mindfulness and writing exercises, is designed to refresh and enhance your writing skills and leave you with a simple toolkit that you can use in your everyday practice. Alongside focused writing exercises, we will look at: the importance of breath work and how to calm your breathing; how reducing the mind chatter can help centre your writing focus; visualisation guidance and advice; short and simple brain gym exercises. All writing levels are welcome. (I’m hoping it’s going to do me some good as well.) There is a café at Seamus Heaney HomePlace. For the Festival Yurt and Flowerfield workshops, it may be wise to bring a packed lunch. Follow the links above for booking information.

Bookish events later in the year include Victorian Mavericks with writers Nuala O’Connor and Caroline Busher at the Pearse Museum, Dublin for Red Line Book Festival  (7.30pm on Tuesday 9th October); a panel discussion on The Glass Shore with Sinéad Gleeson, June Caldwell and Fiona O’Rourke at Strule Arts Centre for Omagh Literary Festival and the Benedict Kiely Weekend (12 noon on Saturday 13th October), and an event for the C.S. Lewis Festival, Belfast, on the evening of Saturday 3rd November. Keep an eye on my Events Page  for updates as we sail gaily on into the creative new year.

 

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It’s been a busy few weeks. The Watch House was published in paperback in May with a fancy map of Rathlin and a bonus short story. Since then there have been events at Belfast Book Festival, book group visits, and workshops with some overseas visitors at Ireland Writing Retreat in Donegal. I’m looking forward now to some quieter weeks ahead with a chance to get to grips with a new writing project.

I’m also very excited to announce that in September 2018, I take over from the very talented Sheena Wilkinson as Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast. Big Boots to fill in indeed! Royal Literary Fund Fellowships offer professional writers the opportunity to work for two days a week in a university setting helping students to develop their writing skills. I’ll be based at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s, but working with students from across the disciplines, offering one-to-one help with essay and dissertation writing. Sheena continues as an Advisor with the Royal Literary Fund and will be keeping me on track over the course of the next couple of years. You can read more about the Royal Literary Fund here. A number of very well-known writers have made endowments to the fund but here’s one of my favourite facts: in 2001 the Fund sold its share of the merchandising rights in the work of A.A. Milne to Disney. The increase in endowment provided an opportunity to broaden the Fund’s reach. Since the Fellowship Scheme began it has placed 400 writers in posts at 120 higher education institutions across the UK. Even more reason, if more reason were required, to love Winnie the Pooh.

I’m involved in a couple of things over the summer: from Monday 23rd to Wednesday 25thJuly I’ll be facilitating the Fiction Writing workshops at the John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh. The Summer School is one of my highlights of the year so I’m thrilled to be getting my hands on one of those fabulous dangly lanyard things that afford admission to events with the likes of David Park, Michael Longley, Imtiaz Dharker, Liz Nugent, Mary O’Donnell, Sheila Llewellyn, Ruth Carr, Maria McManus, Michael Hughes… the list goes on. Full programme of events at the John Hewitt Society.  It’s well worth heading over for a day or two (or if you’re lucky enough to have been awarded a bursary – for the whole week). The Summer School continues until Saturday 28th July.

On Thursday 23rdAugust, I’ll be taking a Fiction Writing workshop at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast from 1pm-5pm. You can book online via the Linen Hall or Tel. 028 9087 2219. Price £20.

In between times, I’ll be packing in as much writing as I can. See you on the road. I’ll be trying to get into some Big Boots.

“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

 

 

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I was delighted to have been awarded an Individual Artist’s Bursary earlier this year from Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council towards my Words in the Air project. My idea was to work with the children from three small primary schools along the Causeway Coast, namely Dunseverick, Barnish and Rathlin, that between them form a triangle that spans Rathlin Sound. Inspired by the wireless experiments conducted by Marconi’s engineers over 120 years ago (the subject of my most recent novel, The Watch House) I was interested in the idea of the children from these three schools, separated by a stretch of water as well as by a stretch of land, ‘speaking’ to each other across the airwaves. The plan was to encourage the children to write imaginatively about the places and the people that are dear to them and to capture their ‘Words in the Air’. As you can imagine, the project has made for an interesting mix of work – we’ve had tales of magic potions and odes to mischievous pets, descriptions of far-flung and fantastical places, stories of whole worlds that are made of chocolate, of mythical creatures and of ancient crones, of monster invasions and of carnivorous pugs. And we’ve also had some of the sweetest, most endearing tributes from the children to the places and the people that are special to them. I recorded the children’s voices and have sent their words off to be professionally mixed by a sound engineer who will attempt to remove the noises of squeaky chairs and maybe some of the giggles. When it’s done each school will receive a copy of the sound file containing all of the children’s voices. I hope to find a way to share it elsewhere. It melts my heart a little each time I listen.

As part of the Words in the Air project I’ll be leading an adult writing workshop at The Manor House on Rathlin from 2-4pm on Thursday 31st May during the Rathlin Sound Maritime Festival. The workshop is free but places are restricted. To book phone the beautifully refurbished Manor House on 028 2076 0046. If you’re not an islander, you’ll need a ferry timetable  (quickest crossing is on the passenger ferry – just twenty minutes from Ballycastle). That same evening of 31stMay, I will be reading from The Watch House in conversation with writer and filmmaker Margot McCuaig  at 7pm in the serene surroundings of St Thomas’ Church on Rathlin. Margot is a Rathlin resident in part-time exile in Scotland. It’s a real honour to be taking part in the festival and to have the opportunity to talk to Margot and to read from the book on Rathlin. No booking required – just turn up. The last ferry leaves Rathlin at 5.30pm at this time of year, but if I were you, I would take the opportunity to spend a night on the island. There are plenty of beds available, from The Manor House, to B&Bs, to self-catering cottages and apartments, to hostel and bunk accommodation, to the newly-sited camping pods. I happen to know that at 9pm on 31stMay, the West Lighthouse Seabird Centre is hosting a special evening opening. You can head out there after the reading, watch the sun go down and the West Light come to life as its red beam shines out over the sea and over one of the biggest seabird breeding colonies in Europe. (Free entry; donations to the RSPB appreciated.) The Festival runs from 25thMay to 3rdJune. Keep an eye on the Rathlin Sound Maritime Festival website for more details of events in Ballycastle and on Rathlin. And for an opportunity to win return ferry travel and a voucher for The Manor House, sign up to their mailing list for updates (winner announced 19th May 2018).

If you’re not so sure of your sea legs, the Belfast Book Festival programme  has just been launched – no ferry crossings required. I’ll be at Books, Paper, Scissors Bookshop on Stranmillis Road (just opposite the Museum) at 6pm on Wednesday 6thJune, chatting to presenter Helen Mark about The Watch House (because I’m not done talking about it yet). This is a free event so do book ahead. Here’s the link.

I’ll be back at the Book Festival on Wednesday 13thJune at 6.30pm, and am delighted to be reading with Sue Hubbard, author of Rainsongs, a book set on the Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry. We’ll be talking islands and peninsulae at the Crescent Arts Centre. (Admission £8/£6; book here.)

On Saturday 16thJune, I’ll be taking an all-day-and-into-the-evening (10am-8pm) intensive fiction writing and editing workshop with fellow writer Sheena Wilkinson. On the Same Page is an opportunity to write, share your work and learn how to take your skills to the next level. From the first spark of inspiration to sending your work out into the world, Sheena and I will guide you through the process, drawing on our own experiences in publishing and offering practical advice for the submission process. Full details and booking here.

More news later with writing activities in July and August. Keep an eye on my Events page for full details. Until then, I’ll see you about.

 

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The next few weeks are shaping up to be pretty busy so here’s a bit of a lowdown on where I’ll be (for at least some of the time) and what will be going on while I’m there.

On Sunday 8thApril, I’ll be visiting the Book Club at Seamus Heaney HomePlace to chat to the members there about The Watch House. This is the nearest book club to my own home place in Lavey and I’m delighted that they’ve chosen The Watch House to read. Book club visits can be a bit scary for an author.  Many are fuelled by coffee and cake; some by wine and nibbles; a few, apparently, by bitterness and fury. In my experience, the wine-drinkers tend to be the most affable but I’ve had book clubbers suggest rewrites (too late!), add new plot twists (where were you when I needed you?), point out historical inaccuracies (there goes months of research out the window) and some who have downright hated the book. They don’t tend to hold back just because the author happens to be in the room. I’m hoping they’ll go easy on me on Sunday.

Wednesday 11thApril is my first One City One Book event for The Long Gaze Back when I’ll join writer Jan Carson and fellow Long Gaze Back contributor Anne Devlin at 6pm in Finaghy Library in Belfast for chat and readings from the award-winning short story anthology. This is a free event. Everyone is welcome. For more details on the full programme of One City One Book events for April and to book a place for the Finaghy Library event, have a look on my Events Page.

Thursday 12thApril I’ll be at Blanchardstown Library in Dublin for a second One City One Book event, along with anthology editor Sinéad Gleeson and fellow contributors Lia Mills and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne. Again, everyone is welcome to this free event. Full details and booking here.

From Dublin to Glasgow and to Crossways, the Irish Scottish Literary & Cultural Festival organized by Irish Pages where, on Saturday 14thApril, together with writer Beatrice Colin, I’ll be reading at 3pm at the Vic Bar in the Tron Theatre. Free event. All welcome. More information on the event and booking here.

Sunday 22ndApril I’ll be back at the picturesque and very welcoming Ballyeamon Barn in Cushendall, home of storyteller Liz Weir, for an all-day writing workshop. The workshop is fully subscribed but if you’d like more information on staying at the Barn (which has an excellent loft for a mini writing retreat) or on future workshops or activities there, have a look at the website and contact Liz.

Thursday 26th April at 6pm at Hodges Figgis Bookshop in Dublin is the launch of Reading the Future: New Writing from Ireland, edited by Alan Hayes and published by Arlen House. The collection will be launched by Joseph Madigan TD, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. I’m delighted to have an extract from a new short story included in the collection.

Saturday 28thApril I’ll be at the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry, giving a talk on book promotion as part of Mindshift’s An Expert’s Guide to Promoting Your Book where I’ll join Mary Byrne, PR Director at Harper Collins Ireland; Patricia Hamilton, Director of Aspects Festival, Bangor, and Michelle MacMullan, Senior News Anchor at Newstalk. Full details and booking on the Irish Writers’ Centre website.

From Derry to Hillsborough and the Hillsborough Festival of Literature and Ideas organised by the John Hewitt Society where on Sunday 29thApril I’ll be one of five writers taking part in readings for English PEN at 6pm in the Market Room at the Courthouse, followed by Small Town Stories at 8pm in the same venue along with musician Joshua Burnside and poet Damian Smyth.

There’s more to come in May with workshops and a reading at the Rathlin Sound Maritime Festival – details announced a little later in the month so keep an eye on my Events page if you’re interested. I hope to see you somewhere along the way.

 

 

 

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Happy New Year one and all. It’s been a while since I’ve been here – it’s been a very busy few months with events around the publication of The Watch House and Female Lines  – but I thought I’d start the new year on a new footing. I can’t guarantee I’ll keep this up for any length of time. Life seems to get between me and here. But for now, here are some upcoming events that may be of interest to fellow writers and readers.

I’m delighted to have an extract from a new short story (‘Small Steps’) included in the latest publication (Reading the Future: New Writing from Ireland) from Arlen House, celebrating 250 years of the Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dublin. The book contains new writing from over 250 authors covering fiction, poetry, drama, Irish language, crime, young adult and children’s writing, alongside archival images. Income from the publication will go towards a fund to support the literary community in Ireland. Reading the Future will be launched in January 2018 (further details to be announced but copies are available now from Hodges Figgis).

The new term of creative writing starts at Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart on Wednesday 24th January 2018  7pm-9pm. For those who would like to dip their toe in the water, on Saturday 3rd February 2018, I’ll be taking a one-day Fiction Writing workshop at Flowerfield from 10.00am-4.00pm. For full details on both, visit Flowerfield’s sparkly new website, or telephone 028 7083 1400 or email info@flowerfield.org. There’s a smorgasbord of creative courses  and workshops  on offer for the incoming term.

On 27th February 2018 I’ll be taking the first of eight weekly sessions of a Begin Your Novel course at the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry  (7pm-9pm). This course is organised and enrolled via the Irish Writers’ Centre (IWC) in Dublin. If you’ve got an idea for a novel that’s been worrying away at your brain, then maybe this is the year to start. You’ll find full details of the course and how to enrol on the IWC website. Come and join us.

On 8th March 2018, organised by Women Aloud NI for International Women’s Day, I will join writers Margot McCuaig and Claire Savage for a panel event in Waterstones Coleraine at 12.45pm, where we will be discussing  ‘A Sense of Place’ and the ways in which the landscape of the coastline has impacted on our writing. The discussion will be followed at 1.30pm by readings from women writers in the Causeway Coast area, coordinated by (and including) the indefatigable Jane Talbot, author of the exquisite The Faerie Thorn & Other Stories. Later that evening, several of us will join the Literary Ladies at Primrose on the Quay in Derry (7pm) to finish off the celebrations. All Women Aloud NI events on International Women’s Day are free to enter and everyone is welcome to join us. There is more information on the events and the participants on the Women Aloud website.

I’m looking forward to catching up with the Book Club at Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy  on 8th April 2018 to discuss The Watch House with the members there. The Book Club is led by Carol O’Doherty and Patricia Broderick, and meets on a monthly basis. For more information, visit the HomePlace events page. The excellent HomePlace Spring Programme for 2018 includes visits by Jimmy McGovern, Marian Keyes, Wilko Johnson, Olivia O’Leary, Malachi O’Doherty, Sean Hillen and many more. Take a gander at the programme here.

I’m delighted to be taking part in events around The Long Gaze Back, the One City One Book choice for Dublin in 2018, with dates pencilled in for Finaghy Library, Belfast on Wednesday 11th April (6.30pm) and Blanchardstown Library, Dublin on Thursday 12th April (8pm). Keep an eye on the website for the full programme which will be announced in the coming weeks.

In between times, I’ll be continuing to work for Poetry Ireland’s Writers in Schools programme, a scheme that part-funds writer visits to schools with support from the two Arts Councils in Ireland, north and south. If you know of a school that would be interested, please direct them to the Poetry Ireland page. I’ll also be working on a top secret project for Big Telly Theatre Company about which I can tell you absolutely nothing. (Shouldn’t really have mentioned it.) I’ll be taking a few sessions with Portglenone Writers’ Group and some workshops for Primary School children at HomePlace on World Poetry Day. That should keep me out of mischief as far as Easter, and a little beyond, at which point I may have more news. I’ve been concentrating in the last few months on writing short stories (you can, if you like, read an extract from ‘Glass Girl’, published in Female Lines, on the RTE website) but there’s an idea for a novel brewing. It keeps throwing me lines at inconvenient times, like when I’m in the shower, or chopping onions, or walking the mad dog, and have no means of writing anything down. It’s a crafty ploy to distract and entice me. One of these days, I’m going to have to sit down at the laptop and make a start.

 

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Now that the dust has settled a little on the publication of The Watch House, I thought it would be a good time for an update.  Here are some upcoming events. It would be good to see you somewhere along the way.

Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart

Thursday 21st September 2017 at 7pm

Launch of The Watch House in conversation with Eimear O’Callaghan, author of Belfast Days: A 1972 Teenage Diary

In association with the John Hewitt Society

Admission Free, everyone welcome but please reserve a place by phoning

028 7083 1400 or email reception@flowerfield.org

 

 

North Down Museum, Bangor 

Sunday 24th September 2017 at 3pm

Reading from The Watch House with David Park, author of The Truth Commissioner and The Poets’ Wives, introduced by writer and broadcaster Malachi O’Doherty

An Aspects Festival event. Booking details here.

No Alibis Bookshop, Botanic Avenue, Belfast

Tuesday 17th October 2017 at 6pm

Reading from The Watch House, in conversation with Jan Carson, author of Malcolm Orange Disappears and Children’s Children

A Belfast International Festival event. Full programme details to be announced: https://belfastinternationalartsfestival.com

If you’d like to find out a bit more about the book, have a look at the video we made on Rathlin. (Forgive the state of me – I’d been on a ferry.) And if you fancy a bit of code-breaking, just for fun, you can type the string of Morse from the video in here to find out what it says. In the meantime, I am delighted to share these rather splendid early reviews.

‘Beautiful and lyrical, tender and fierce; one of those rare novels, with the power to break you clean in two.’ Guinevere Glasfurd, author of the Costa shortlisted The Words in My Hand.

‘McGill writes about life, love and telegraphy with a poet’s clarity’ Sunday Times

‘A novel to haunt you’ Sunday Mirror

‘Totally absorbing and full of unexpected twists’ Sunday Business Post

‘A lyrical, wonderfully atmospheric novel’ Sunday Express

‘McGill proves once again she is a masterful storyteller . . . historical fiction at its absolute best’ The Lady

‘An evocative novel that’s brimming with suspense… [it] reels you in and keeps a grip on you until the very end’ The Incubator

‘[McGill’s] assured style and eye for detail make The Watch House a pleasure to read, a fast-paced tale that rarely flags, with a complex and beguiling heroine at the helm’ Irish Times

‘Hard to put down, this atmospheric book will stay with you long after the final heart-rending denouement, setting McGill firmly into the panoply of modern Irish writers’ Irish Independent

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Sleepwalkers

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Published by Whittrick Press. Available to order in paperback and on Kindle, on Kobo, on iTunes and in print from No Alibis Bookstore in Belfast.

Darkly moving and beautifully written, Bernie McGill’s debut collection of short stories explores the lives of women across the generations. From the storm-battered coastline of the north of Ireland to the sleeping villas of Andalusia, McGill’s characters grapple with the consequences of affairs, bereavement, alcoholism, illness and murder.

Compassionate and quietly powerful, McGill’s stories capture intimate moments of loss, love and healing in a troubled age.

‘McGill’s plotting is masterful. These are “killer-blow” stories but [she] carefully guards against sensationalism. Her talent for combining keen observation with a kind of symbolic import is evident. Everything is very precisely described, and yet, more unusually, there is a lyric quality to the description. McGill herself brings not only an awareness of literature, but a poetic sensibility to how she layers her short stories as a poet would layer an image – conscious that meaning is ambiguous, contradictory, polyvalent.’ Dr Tess Magennis, Queen’s University, Belfast

‘Bernie McGill has a seductive way of easing the reader in and out of a story, without the need for killer opening sentences or twist endings. Hers is the voice of an authentic storyteller who guides the reader through her fictional world with authority… I rarely read the first story in a book and immediately re-read it, nor do I finish a short story collection and turn straight back to the beginning. In the case of Bernie McGill’s Sleepwalkers, I did both.’ Safia Moore in The Incubator Journal (p.67)

‘A writer to watch out for’ Sunday Tribune

Watch the trailer:

 

 

The Glass Shore
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‘The Glass Shore’

The Cure for Too Much Feeling

(1 October 2016)

‘The Cure for Too Much Feeling’ is anthologised in The Glass Shore, an anthology of short stories by women writers from the nine counties of Ulster, spanning three centuries. It is edited by Sinéad Gleeson and published by New Island Books, Dublin, in 2016.

Continue Reading

 

The Long Gaze Back

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A Fuss

(1 September 2015) (New Island has got it wrong!)

‘A Fuss’ is anthologised in The Long Gaze Back, an anthology of short stories by Irish women writers spanning four centuries. It is edited by Sinéad Gleeson and published by New Island Books, Dublin, in 2015.

 

 

The Best British Short Stories

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No Angel

(10 April 2011)

‘No Angel’ is included in Sleepwalkers & Other Stories, is anthologised in The Best British Short Stories 2011, published April 2011 by Salt Publishing and edited by Nicholas Royle. It won second place in both the Michael McLaverty and the Seán O’Faóláin Short Story Competitions 2010, and is also published in Scandal and Other Stories (Linen Hall Library, Belfast, 2010) and in Pigs’ Feet, White Socks & Hoovers (Southword Editions, Cork, 2013).

 

Brand

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Family Ties

(1 December 2009)

Published in Brand magazine Winter/Spring 2009.

 

 

 

 

Zoetrope:All-Story

Sleepwalkers

(1 Dec 2008)

‘Sleepwalkers’ is included in Sleepwakers & Other Stories. It was first Prizewinner in the Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest (US) December 2008.

 

 

The Winners of the Bridport Prize

Home

(1 September 2010)

‘Home’ is included in Sleepwalkers & Other Stories. It was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in October 2010 and published in The Winners of the Bridport Prize 2010.

 

My Story

First Tooth & Service Interrupted

(10 April 2006)

‘First Tooth’ is included in Sleepwalkers & Other Stories. It was originally published, along with ‘Service Interrupted’ in My Story, Blackstaff Press/BBC Radio Ulster, Belfast, April 2006, edited by Pauline Currie.

 

 

The Barefoot Nuns of Barcelona

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Epistle & A Still Life

(21 November 2005)

Published in The Barefoot Nuns of Barcelona & Other Short Stories, a collection of stories from the Orange Northern Woman Short Story Prize, Greer Publications, Belfast, April 2005.

 

 

 

 

 

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‘Beautiful and lyrical, tender and fierce; one of those rare novels, with the power to break you clean in two.’ Guinevere Glasfurd, author of the Costa shortlisted The Words in My Hand.

‘McGill writes about life, love and telegraphy with a poet’s clarity’ The Sunday Times

‘McGill proves once again she is a masterful storyteller . . . historical fiction at its absolute best’ The Lady

‘A novel to haunt you’ Sunday Mirror

‘Totally absorbing and full of unexpected twists’ Sunday Business Post

‘Endlessly intriguing and exhilarating’ Dublin Review of Books

‘An evocative novel that’s brimming with suspense… [it] reels you in and keeps a grip on you until the very end’ The Incubator

‘[McGill’s] assured style and eye for detail make The Watch House a pleasure to read, a fast-paced tale that rarely flags, with a complex and beguiling heroine at the helm’ Irish Times

‘Hard to put down, this atmospheric book will stay with you long after the final heart-rending denouement, setting McGill firmly into the panoply of modern Irish writers’ Irish Independent

‘There are messages in the air, a closeness like the kind that comes before a storm, a listening, a holding of breath.’ It is summer, 1898, on the small Irish island of Rathlin and the place is alive with gossip. A pair of strangers has arrived from the mainland, laden with mysterious radio equipment, and the islanders are full of dread. For native Nuala Byrne, abandoned by her family for the New World and trapped by a prudent marriage to the island’s ageing tailor, the prospects for adventure are bleak. But when she is sent to cook for Marconi’s men and is enlisted, by the Italian engineer Gabriel, as an apprentice operator, she becomes enthralled by the world of knowledge that he brings from beyond her own narrow horizons. As Nuala’s friendship with Gabriel deepens, she realises that her deal with the tailor was a bargain she should never have struck.

The Watch House is a gripping story about the power of words to connect us, and the power of suspicion to drive us apart.

Read the first chapter here.

The Watch House on Amazon.

 

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Here it is: the cover of my new novel, The Watch House (previously known by several titles, more latterly as The Book), which will be published by Tinder Press on 10th August 2017. I’m particularly happy about the mapping of Rathlin placenames on the cover. The novel is set on Rathlin Island at the end of the nineteenth century and at the time of the Marconi wireless experiments between there and Ballycastle. If you’re a book blogger or an online (or offline) reviewer and you’d like to get your hands on a review copy, then send a little tweet to @Phoebe_Swinburn at @TinderPress and she just might send you a copy. The Watch House is also available on Net Galley so if you’re a librarian, bookseller, educator, reviewer, blogger or person in the media, you can sign up to read a review copy for free. We’ll be launching the book at Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart on 21st September 2017. More news of that later in the year.

 

In the meantime, for the truly bookish among you, there are some wonderful events coming up at Belfast Book Festival (7th-17th June 2017) and International Literature Festival, Dublin (20th-28th May 2017). I’ll be at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, at 5.30pm on Tuesday 13th June for readings and discussions on The Glass Shore, along with anthology editor Sinéad Gleeson and fellow contributors Rosemary Jenkinson and Jan Carson where we’ll be talking short stories, women writers and the North. Hope to see you there.

The Watch House is available for pre-order in paperback and on Kindle here.

The post The Watch House appeared first on Bernie McGill.

Here it is: the cover of my new novel, The Watch House (previously known by several titles, more latterly as The Book), which will be published by Tinder Press on 10th August 2017. I'm particularly happy about the mapping of Rathlin placenames on the cover. The novel is set on Rathlin Island at the end of the nineteenth century and at the time of the Marconi wireless experiments between there and Ballycastle. If you’re a book blogger or an online (or offline) reviewer and you’d like to get your hands on a review copy, then send a little tweet to @Phoebe_Swinburn at @TinderPress and she just might send you a copy. The Watch House is also available on Net Galley so if you’re a librarian, bookseller, educator, reviewer, blogger or person in the media, you can sign up to read a review copy for free. We’ll be launching the book at Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart on 21st September 2017. More news of that later in the year.

 

In the meantime, for the truly bookish among you, there are some wonderful events coming up at Belfast Book Festival (7th-17th June 2017) and International Literature Festival, Dublin (20th-28th May 2017). I’ll be at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, at 5.30pm on Tuesday 13th June for readings and discussions on The Glass Shore, along with anthology editor Sinéad Gleeson and fellow contributors Rosemary Jenkinson and Jan Carson where we’ll be talking short stories, women writers and the North. Hope to see you there.

The Watch House is available for pre-order in paperback and on Kindle here.