New Galway Literary Magazine

Delighted to hear that Skylight poets are going to include my poem "Oil Seed Rape" in their forthcoming new magazine which will be launched in  Galway in January.  I will be looking forward to receiving my copy and I may even go down to the launch which will take place on the 10^th Anniversary Over the Edge launch 24^th January, 2013 in Galway City Library.

Book Launch

Thursday 15th November is the date set for the launch of the Meath Junior Writers Anthology.  The event will take place in  the Navan Library an d as many as 26 young people mostly from the Navan area have contributed their work to the publication.    This is the fifth  collection of work from this group which has been on the go now for thirteen years..    These young people who range inage from 9 to 15 meet every Saturday Morning in the Navan Library where under the direction of poet Tommy Murray they learn how to write poetry, short stories and essays and indeed all aspects of creative writing.   Many of them have won prizes over the years and all a re skilled in  reading their work in  public

New Website Announcement

Our New Website is now up and running with some interesting links to sites that I have been involved with, including  Irish Writers Online,  The Bard of Armagh and Poetry Ireland.  Well worth a visit

Picture shows the band at last night's Scurlogstown celebration where more than 150 People enjoyed a night of music, poetry and song. Spotted there were Paul Kerr from Trim, Ollie and Brigid Doherty , Joe Regan from Rathmoylon, Rosemary Swan from Kilmessan , Noel French ,and all the members of the Olympiad. I got the chance to read two long poems 'On Being Politically Correct' and 'On the Wagon. both of these poems are on the Bard of Armagh DVDs.   All in all a great night

Meath Writers Christms DVD

A meeting of the Meath Writers Circle will take place in The Trim Castle Hotel on Thursday 25th inst for the purpose of completing the Christmas DVD.   The DVD which is actually the second such production from the circle will feature sixteen writers and will be ready well in  time for  Christmas.
Tomorrow night (Saturday )will see a number of the writers reading at the Scurlogstown Celebration in Jack Quinn's pub. 

Package Publishing

With the number of self publishing enterprises growing by the week  a closer look will show that most of them are a complete rip off.  Writers are being charged for services that they could easily do themselves.  Take the copyright law for example where in some cases these print/publishers retain as many as thirteen copies and for  local consumption manuscripts that don't in fact need all these .  Then there is the ISBNs and the Bar codes.  What ever the need for these by virtue of the proposed market the prices are too high. The only answer is to shop around and if your book is just for local consumption  then dispense with a lot of the extras especially the promise to sell copies online

Launch in Fergie's

A huge crowd turned out for the launch of Peggy Murphy's CD in Fergie's pub Kilmessan on Friday night.

Peggy herself read some of her poems and John Byrne told jokes for what was to be a wonderful evening of entertainment.  The music was supplied by Paul Hennessy and tea and sandwiches were put on by the hostess Helen. It was great to see so many members of the Meath Writers Circle there and it was even better to see that Peggy had very few if any copies of her CD left when the night was over.    The picture shows  Peggy with Frank busy at the top table