2012!
01 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
I’m hoping to do a year in review post, in terms of writing and reading, but right now I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and that 2012 brings great and wonderful things for us!
And the winner is…
25 Jun 2011 1 Comment
Thanks to all who entered my giveaway for The Demon’s Surrender. And thanks to the random number generator, I can announce that the winner is…
Joy Kenney!
Please email me at hcorcoran (at) gmail (dot) com with your address, so I can send your book to you! And thanks again to all who entered. 
Post-NYC placeholder
01 Jun 2011 2 Comments
I was going to make this post this time last week, but thanks to a volcano, I wasn’t sure I’d be travelling.
I’m just back from six days in New York City, where I attended the Backspace Conference, met a lot of awesome writers, and bought many, many books. (Many.)
This was part of the conversation between the taxi driver and me at Dublin Airport:
TAXI DRIVER: *while lifting my suitcase into the car* If this is full of money, you are the richest person I know.
ME: It’s… books. *sheepish look*
…
(upon learning I work in a bookshop)
TAXI DRIVER: Wait, you work in a bookshop, and you went to NYC and brought back a suitcase of books?
ME: Let me explain US and UK book rights to you…
I have a proper post about the conference coming up, but for now I wanted to say: I went to NYC, yay! I met some great people, yay! I bought so many books, yay!
Pennies for Japan
08 Apr 2011 1 Comment
I had already planned to do this, but it has unsettling timing with Japan suffering a 7.1 earthquake on Thursday, in the same region as last month’s devastating one. Japan still needs help.
My friend Clovia is donating money to Japan through Pennies for Japan, which is designs (Hamsa, Tree of Life, and Lady Uzume) pressed onto pre-1982 elongated pennies. I received mine earlier this week, and the pictures seriously don’t do the real thing justice. They are beautiful. Clovia is also able to drill and cord them, so they can be worn as well, if you like. I’m wearing my Tree of Life penny to work today. They also come with little notecards which explain the designs. If you don’t want to open an Etsy account and have a PayPal account, Clovia will do a direct purchase through Paypal. Payment is sent to clovis at coppercamel dot com.
(I attempted to take pictures of mine, but the camera on my phone didn’t like that.)
Her website is The Copper Camel, with a link to her Etsy store on the main page (I’ve included a sample link to one of them). Clovia also does custom work, some of which I’m already eyeing some stuff for next Christmas. They’re definitely worth checking out.
To use Clovia’s own words (a little paraphrased): She’ll trade you some shiny for a good deed.
(And believe me, they are shiny. Wonderfully shiny.)
The crickets are no longer chirping
13 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
So, yes, things got quiet here for a while. Not unintentionally, but life went crazy and the blog turned silent as a result of the life balance scales attempting to sort themselves out.
I’m in the middle of drafting several posts, so please bear with me! Activity will resume shortly. (I feel like a train station or airport announcer, apologising for a delay. 
)
Is it Autumn yet?
31 Aug 2010 8 Comments
A sheepish confession: I’m not the biggest fan of summer. My not-so-secret theory is that there are redheads in my family, so I’m unlikely to be best friends with combined sun and high temperatures. Heat is totally not my thing, and I live in a temperate climate. (Places that have really hot summers scare me.) Autumn unofficially begins in a few hours, and I can’t wait.
Autumn (to me, anyway) means new sweaters, writing in dark evenings, and the return of the Starbucks Red Cups (frantic writing with Eggnog Lattes, mmm. Always a good combination); scarfs and crisp mornings. It also means the approach of Christmas (not so good when you work in book retail, until it’s 6:01pm on Christmas Eve and you’re freeeeee. Ahem). Sometimes it even means snow–though I can do without the chronic craziness we had last year, which involved my clinging to lamp posts and unintentionally breaking out some Saturday Night Fever moves, thanks.
My autumn plans involve rewriting the steampunk Alice book (temporarily on hold while I finish rewriting the werewolves) and writing the first draft of a YA contemporary idea that’s been slyly beckoning to me for a few months. (Why is is that Shiny New Ideas always strut up when you’re knee-high in revising and contemplating the distance between your laptop and the window?) As always, there is a teetering to-read pile(s) to work through, and I have some review posts in the pipe line.
What are you looking forward to this autumn? Any plans, small or not-so-small?
Irish Publishing News (playing catch up)
18 Jun 2010 3 Comments
(Apologies to anyone who clicked into the post I made a few days ago and then found nothing. I felt weird posting small excerpts of writing in this blog, so I deleted it soon after hitting ‘post’. It won’t be happening again, sorry!)
It’s been a while since I’ve updated, which is mostly because I’ve been buried away writing, and I’ve been trying to make as much progress as I can. I have some book recommendation posts in the pipe line, in particular a post about the best YA LGBT books I’ve read as June is Pride Month.
(I was thinking about writing a post about why the werewolves wasn’t specifically written with lesbian characters in mind–it was more a case of reaching Chapter Three and realising my MC liked her best friend–but it also feels weird to talk about a book I’m querying. Hmm. Thoughts?)
But for this post, I’m going to talk about some Irish publishing and children’s books related things. In mid-May, I was lucky enough to attend the first half of the annual CBI conference (Children’s Books Ireland). It was great to be there, surrounded by people so passionate about children’s books, and I got to chat with some lovely people.
Highlights included Marcus Sedgwick, before whom I embarrassed myself terribly while he was signing books, and Elena Odriozola, a Spanish illustrator whose talk was fascinating. There was also a very inspiring speech from Siobhán Parkinson, the inaugural Irish Children’s Laureate, about the importance of libraries for children and reading. I was unable to make the second half the following day, but I already can’t wait for next year.
Another piece of news is that Derek Landy, author of the stupendous Skulduggery Pleasant (known as Scepter of the Ancients in the US) won the Irish Book of the Decade award, beating stiff competition from the likes of John Banville and Sebastian Barry. Yup, a children’s book won from a shortlist of primarily adult books (there were a few other children’s writers like John Boyne and Eoin Colfer). The award was done through public vote, and it was wonderful to see such an amazing–and popular– book win.
And now I go back to writing. Book recommendation posts coming soon!
Query critique contest
23 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
Author Gretchen McNeil is offering a query critique. Click here to check out the contest guidelines!
Happy Chocolate Day!
14 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
While I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day (on the one hand, it’s always good to know people care about you; on the other , why does it have to involve pink and sparkles, and be on this day?), I still hope everyone has a lovely one. Even if you’re not in a relationship right now, why not let friends and family know that you care about them–Valentine’s Day can be about platonic love, too.
Me, I had Chinese food (to also celebrate Chinese New Year) and still have a small mountain of chocolate, and my sister and I wished each other a happy Valentine’s Day through text messages. All and all, it’s a pretty good one.
AW Blog Chain: Guilty (or comfort) pleasures
01 Feb 2010 10 Comments
I’m taking part in Absolute’s Write‘s first blog chain of 2010. The theme for this blog chain is guilty pleasures. There have already been many posts, all of them amazing and tough to follow! I’m going to try my best, though.
My guilty pleasures are… well, there’s not much guilt in them, so much as I know they’re comforting. Like many other people, I find myself giving the chocolate and cake displays a speculative glance after a bad day (especially a bad day at work). Some days Peanut M&Ms just make everything better.
On the other hand, there are certain books and authors that I deem ‘comfort reading’. I usually save their new releases for a day off, if I can, or I reread them after having a bad day. I don’t consider them trashy or ‘easy’ books–one person’s favourite reread can be the book someone else couldn’t finish–but I know what to expect. I can lose myself in the pages for as long as I like, and there is no higher praise for a book than that.
One of my ‘comfort authors’ is Sarah Dessen. While her latest book, ALONG FOR THE RIDE, was released in the US last June, it’s finally been released over here now. Sarah is one of my favourite authors, though I came to her late. I don’t consid
er her books too light or fluffy, since they do tackle serious topics but don’t get bogged down by them, but they are comfort reads nonetheless. I can’t wait to sit down with her latest UK release and get stuck in. And even though her books often work from a similar formula, each situation is treated a little differently; no book is exactly the same as its predecessor. And for a little while, at least, I can get lost in someone else’s story, whose problems may be similar to ones I faced or still face, or completely different to any I’ve experienced. It’s a bit like the appeal of reality TV or talk shows–your life could be much, much worse.
So that’s 
what I’m going to do once I’ve posted this blog–I’m settling down with a cup of tea and ALONG FOR THE RIDE. I’ve already read about 70 pages and I can’t wait to get back to it. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to finish it. Otherwise, I’m going to try and read as much as I can before I have to get some sleep for work (and this is why it’s better to save a favourite read for a day off, so you don’t need to get up early the next morning!)
Other authors I consider comfort reads include: Jacqueline Carey, Tamora Pierce, Sarah Waters, Ilona Andrews, and Robin Hobb. As you can see, I also consider authors of the huge fantasy tomes to be comfort reads; one of my favourite things is to settle down with Jacqueline Carey’s latest book and read, and read, and read.
So, yes, Peanut M&Ms can sometimes make everything better. But Peanut M&Ms and a good book can make everything awesome.
The Chain:
Claire Crossdale – http://theromanticqueryletter.blogpost.com
Fresh Hell – http://freshhell.wordpress.com
shethinkstoomuch – http://shethinkstoomuch.wordpress.com
lostwanderer5.blogspot.com – http://www.lostwanderer5.blogspot.com
Lindzy1954 – http://www.lindsayncurrie.webs.com
RavenCorrinnCarluk – http://www.ravencorinncarluk.blogspot.com
Forbidden Snowflake – http://alleslinks.com/
AuburnAssassin – http://clairegillian.wordpress.com/
DavidZahir – http://zahirblue.blogspot.com/
Charlotte49ers – www.amandaplavich.com
collectonian – http://collectonian.livejournal.com <– PREVIOUS
vfury – http://helencorcoran.wordpress.com/ (ME)
Bsolah – http://benjaminsolah.com/blog <– NEXT
JackieA – http://sherrygloagtheheartofromance.blogspot.com/
LadyCat – http://carolsrandomness.blogspot.com
AimeeLaine – www.aimeelaine.com/writing/blog
