Connemara calling ...

34th CLIFDEN ARTS FESTIVAL, September 15-25, 2011

2011-08-24T13:09:00.000+01:00

If you are at this year's Clifden Arts Festival --- no, no, no, when you are are at this year's Clifden Arts Festival (how could you not be here - it's the best of all the Irish Arts Festivals).. Anyway, when you are here, come and visit me at 11;30 am on Monday, September 19th in the library. I'll look forward to seeing you there.

You'll find many of the things that have led to the demise of The Celtic Tiger inside my latest novel, LAST DAYS OF THE TIGER. To quote Cerri Ellis of Mostly Mystery Reviews: "Pat Mullan blends political intrigue and murder with a unique Irish flavor that goes down smooth. His hero, Ed Burke, is striking - almost an anti-hero in some respects. To unravel the deception and save himself, Burke must test old friendships, and determine who to trust in an Ireland changed by The Celtic Tiger."

If you have a Kindle (and if you don't, why not?) you can get ebooks of my latest two novels (both published by Amazon) here (for an amazing low price) :

LAST DAYS OF THE TIGER and CREATURES OF HABIT

Praise for Pat Mullan's CREATURES OF HABIT

“Creatures of Habit, the shimmer of evil…”

“There are shades of Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and even Tom Clancy in Creatures of Habit, Pat Mullan’s powerful new novel. Set mainly in “Celtic Tiger” Ireland, the punning title displays the shimmer of evil that the novel’s hero, the all-too-human Ed Burke, senses throughout. Pederasty, madness, and murder abide in this complex and fascinating story; a story stolen by humanity’s seemingly bottomless capacity for corruption. Ed Burke is just the man to smoke it out. This is certainly one of the most exciting, and powerful, thrillers I’ve ever read—the complex art of the thinker’s mystery. Great stuff!” E.M.Schorb

E. M. Schorb : award winning author and poet: winner of The Frankfurt Grand Prize in fiction for his novel, Paradise Square; 1973 International Keats Poetry Prize; Verna Emery Poetry Prize for Murderer's Day, his fourth collection of poetry (Purdue University Press). E. M. Schorb’s new novel, Fortune Island, was published in 2009.

Connemara calling ...: ‘And catch the heart off guard … and blow it open’ :

2011-08-20T15:54:00.001+01:00

Connemara calling ...: ‘And catch the heart off guard … and blow it open’ :

Barack O'Bama in Ireland

2011-05-28T14:51:00.000+01:00

Barack Obama had a fantastic day here in Ireland - especially in his great-grandfather's town of Moneygall. He drank a full pint of guinness in the pub - hugged and kissed everyone in the town, especially his distant cousins. I think he was amazed himself at his reception and I believe he felt totally at home here.

The Queen at the Garden of Remembrance

2011-05-20T10:01:00.002+01:00

It's been an amazing week here in Ireland as we see the long history of Ireland and England reach a place I never thought I'd ever see - especially watching the Queen of England lay a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance to the Irish men who fought for Irish Independence on Easter 1916 - and who were subsequently executed by the Crown. As she backed away from laying the wreath she stood and made an unprecedented bow to them. Stunning!

And that was followed at Islandbridge in a joint Irish/British tribute to the thousands of Irish who died, in British uniforms, fighting in World War I and II.

I think people in the world in similar conflict might look at all this and learn from it. I can always hope, can't I?

I think Michael Longley said it best in his poem 'Ceasefire' in these words of Priam:

'I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son'

Galway Noir by Pat Mullan

2010-09-04T14:17:00.002+01:00

Galway Noir

The New Publishing Age
By Pat Mullan

In June I flew from Ireland to New York. As usual I stuffed a paperback - a fat one, about 400 pages - into my carry-on bag. I had really wanted to take a hardback I'd been reading at home but that was impractical.

As my fellow travelers and I waited at the boarding gate in Shannon, many of us fumbled with our books, newspapers, boarding passes, and passports. Even those of us with a practiced expertise dropped our bookmarks or momentarily panicked when we thought we'd mislaid our boarding pass.

But, in the midst of all of this, one mature, conservatively dressed lady of middle-age sat unflustered and unencumbered, completely absorbed in the book she was reading: an electronic book, an e-book reader, slim, practical, elegant. I envied her and promised myself that I would join this digital revolution.

I had written previously, on Backspace, about the Amazon Kindle, when I had heralded its arrival. But my promise to join this digital revolution did not mean that I had a sudden impulse to buy a Kindle or a Sony reader and abandon the printed word. Wikipedia will tell you that 'analogous to the Agricultural Revolution and Industrial Revolution, the Digital Revolution marked the beginning of the Information Age.' And I would call it the beginning of a New Publishing Age. And this New Publishing Age is accessible to all because it has arrived with its own utility, the internet, the 'information highway', where social networks have transformed this digital revolution into a viral revolution.

Competition to provide the vehicles for that highway, the Kindle, the Sony, the iPad will intensify. Already we see the headlines: 'Amazon sells more Kindle books than hardbacks', 'Publishers negotiating for 'new world order' with Google', iBooks the winner as iPad gains positive feedback', 'iBookstore books cheaper to buy in print and via Kindle, 'W H Smith slashes prices as e-book war intensifies', 'Wylie Agency to bypass publishers and license authors' e-book rights', 'Agents and publishers grapple over 'enhanced' e-book rights', 'Stieg Larsson has continued to dominate e-book sales', 'Simon & Schuster launches digital interactive book', 'Random House digs in over e-book rights', 'US author Seth Godin to bypass 'fundamentally broken' publishers' ...

Seth Godin states that the present publishing world is 'fundamentally broken' and says 'I finally figured out that my customer wasn't the reader or the book buyer, it was the publisher. If the editor didn't buy my book, it didn't get published'. He continues: 'Authors need publishers because they need a customer. Readers have been separated from authors by many levels - stores, distributors, media outlets, printers, publishers - there were lots of layers for many generations, and the editor with a checkbook made the process palatable to the writer. Traditional book publishers use techniques perfected a hundred years ago to help authors reach unknown readers, using a stable technology (books) and an antique and expensive distribution system.'

That publishing world is about to change. Bookseller Borders Group in the US has unveiled a new concept - a store where shoppers can mix and burn CDs, explore their genealogies and even publish their own novels. Their chief executive George Jones said, 'If you don't have something you do better than the other guys, then frankly the customer doesn't really need you. This is really intermingling the typical bricks and mortar with the Internet and Digital Worlds.' Simon & Schuster chief executive Carolyn Reidy has appointed Elinor Hirschhorn as chief digital officer. Reidy and Hirschhorn say, "We are determined to avail ourselves to the maximum extent of the digital era opportunities to find, interact, and deliver content instantaneously and around the clock to our readers worldwide. Publishing is at an exciting and transitional moment, with both the nature of books and the relationship among authors, publishers and their readers evolving in new ways."

Open Road Integrated Media, founded by Former HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman to publish e-books drawn from known and unknown authors, is another agent of change that defines my own vision of this new world. Their e-books will be marketed through a proprietary platform "designed to reach consumers where they live, socialize and shop online," Freidman says, "We believe that a story should live everywhere, on all screens, and to that end I look forward to working with authors and agents to create enhanced e-books that place their stories at the front and center of a multi-media universe".

Many years ago I emigrated from Ireland to North America. I did not fly. Instead I went by ship from Liverpool and, as I entered the St.Lawrence, I felt like one of the early pioneers. Today I feel like a pioneer again, an immigrant into this New Publishing Age. I have taken my first tentative steps with my anthology, Pat Mullan's GALWAY NOIR (published on-line by iPulp Fiction www.ipulpfiction.com ) which will be presented to my readers, story by story, segment by segment. From there I will explore this exciting new world.

‘And catch the heart off guard … and blow it open’ :

2009-10-22T13:51:00.009+01:00

‘And catch the heart off guard … and blow it open’ :
at the Clifden Arts Week, September 17-27, 2009.

I live in Connemara now in a place called Recess where smart alecs recently added an ‘ion’ to the road sign turning it into Recession, fitting I suppose for the time that is in it – as they say in the Gaelic syntax; and now syntax becomes sin-tax in my head and I wander off somewhere, wondering if all our sins were taxed would the recession end overnight …

Sub-prime loans, Madoff, global warming, 9/11, Al-Qaeda, healthcare, swine flu, the Real IRA, taxes, emigration, immigration, illegal aliens, the God delusion, paedophile priests, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, the West Bank, Israel, Gaza Strip, outstrip, Hamas, PLO, ETA, cars, pollution, General Motors, Anglo-Irish Bank, too big to fail, bankruptcy, suicides, jail, crisis, depression, recession, bears, bulls, bullies, bears, bares all, airport bombs, train bombs, nightclub bombs, suicide bombers, nuclear bombs, dirty bombs, dirty language, pornography, internet porn, inflation, deflation, derivatives, contracts for difference …

No, no, no, I’ve come to Arts Week in Clifden to dispel all that gloom; this annual week of magic and treasure, treasure free of global speculation, treasure that has only increased in value over time …

Seamus Heaney needed no introduction when he came to read at St. Joseph’s Church but Des Lally outdid himself; and the church was filled to the rafters with people of all ages, young and old, Irish people, Connemara people, people from other countries, academics, farmers, fishermen, bus drivers, teachers, builders, labourers, mothers, teenagers, students, poetry readers, people who never read poetry, people who had never seen a Nobel Prize winner before, fans, poetry slammers, groupies there to see ‘famous Seamus’ …and then he started to read: old poems, new poems, famous poems, heart-rending poems: ‘a four foot box, a foot for every year’ , heart-opening poems: ‘and catch the heart off guard and blow it open’ …

In the Station House Theatre, as I waited for Paul Muldoon, the man sitting beside me said, in awe, “you know he’s the poetry editor of The New Yorker now” and, no, I didn’t know that, I only knew that he lectured at Princeton and that he’d won the Pulitzer Prize for Moy Sand and Gravel (a sand pit has never looked the same to me since then) and I remembered that he’d signed his poems to me all those years ago in London after his reading at the Royal Court Theatre where we’d sat beside Brian Cox (who has since fled to Hollywood) … but I digress, Paul will make you do that, read him and you’ll see what I mean … and suddenly he was there, same face, same hair, a little greyer now, same Ulster voice tinged now with a bit of America … and the time flew by just listening to him until he asked us if we had twenty-five (or was it thirty-five) minutes to give him so that he could read Incantata … who would say no ... and we listened, spellbound, to Paul read the work that he wrote to the memory of his former lover, Mary Powers, who died from cancer… Incantata is a long magical elegy of forty-five eight line stanzas that opens with these lines: I thought of you tonight, a leanbh, lying there in your long barrow colder and dumber than a fish by Francisco de Herrera …

And everywhere: Tony Curtis, poet-in-residence, with his charisma, his captivating poetry, the twinkle in his eyes, welcomed to a reading in the Clifden Library by Paul and Bernie, librarians and custodians of our treasures; reading to a star-struck audience, all listening, listening, knowing that his poems would never sound the same when they read them, wondering if he was born a poet and, knowing, at the end, that he truly was … to be followed, matched, book-ended by Michael Coady, poet-in-residence before Tony, who took us through his hypnotizing recent work, set mostly in Paris ...

People squeezed into the Church of Ireland’s pews as they listened to Cantairi Chonamara commence the evening with Vivaldi’s Gloria – an opening to pepare the audience for Anuna. If music ‘soothes the savage breast’ then Anuna must deserve the award for the most soothing of them all, the men holding us from the moment they moved up the aisle, stopping midway and singing to us, transfixing us, letting us breathe again as they reached the altar, only to immediately submerge us in the dramatic entrance of the Anuna ladies, gowned in medieval attire, beautiful in face and voice, each holding a candle as they moved up the aisles, centre and side, covering us with their presence, their poise, their perfection, their voices, soothing, soothing, soothing …

At the Atlantic Hotel I fell headlong into the visual arts; the work of the artist Alannah Robins. Her work insisted that I explore the walls of the hotel, its exposition space, until I arrived back again at her triptych which dominated the exhibition: the shipwrecked boat, haunting and proud, breaking up now on the Inis Oirr island rocks, captured in three parts; easily a masterpiece commanding all of us to pay homage to those who ‘go down to the sea in ships’ and to Alannah Robins, the artist, a lady of many talents who had enthralled us earlier as mezzo-soprano in her classical music recital in the Church of Ireland, accompanied by Sister Karol O’Connell on the piano, as they presented pieces by Schubert, Mozart, Field and Poulenc…

And what can one say of Eamon Grennan, poet, lecturer at Vassar, NYU, Columbia; a man whose home is here and there: New York for half the year, Connemara for the other half. Former US poet laureate Billy Collins said: ‘Few poets are as generous as Eamon in the sheer volume of delight his poems convey.’ Eamon held us in the Clifden Library with his readings; now he holds us at home as we savour his book, Out of Breath, saying to ourselves ‘why haven’t we read him before, he’s so good …’ and earlier he had surpassed himself in a dramatic recital for two voices, which he had adapted from J.M.Synge’s The Aran Islands. Acted and delivered by Rosalind and Sean Coyne, it was an enthralling performance bringing Synge and the people of the Aran Islands to life in front of us; a performance that, had it been given on Broadway, would surely have captured a Tony Award …

How do I cover poet Michael Longley, appointed Professor of Poetry for Ireland in 2007, and guitarist Redmond O’Toole, selected as the National Concert Hall’s ‘rising star’ for 2009. An event of poetry and music, extraordinary. Michael’s poem, Ceasefire, hangs on the wall in my house and I was stunned by Redmond at last year’s Arts Festival in the more intimate space of the Clifden Library. Redmond has emerged as one of the most innovative and exciting young guitarists in Europe; the first to adapt to Paul Galbraith's new groundbreaking technique and instrument; he plays an 8-string 'Brahms guitar' in the cello position connected to a special resonating box. The additional range of the guitar allows an expansion of the repertoire as well as incorporating original music for classical guitar. This time Michael and Redmond are in a much grander setting, the stage at the Station House Theatre. But they still made us feel intimate, made us feel that they were right there in our living room. Alternating Michael’s poems with Redmond’s music catered to our emotional centre, at once opening us to a unique poetic vision complemented by innovative and exciting music. Michael celebrated his 70th year and Brendan Flynn (founder of the Clifden Arts Week) congratulated him as artist Rosie McGurran presented him with a portrait…

And the Clifden Arts Week would not be complete without one or more classical concerts, many of them held in the intimate space of the Church of Ireland. And so it was there that I went to listen to … and watch … Finghin Collins, one of Ireland’s most superb pianists, a student of the Geneva Conservatoire and sought after internationally …and cellist, conductor and composer Christian Benda, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Sinfonia (and a descendant of the Czech Benda composers dynasty of the 18th century) … yes, listen and watch them (because it was as much a visual experience as an aural) play Schumann, Shostakovich, and Brahms …

Speaking of a visual experience, we had a real treat: the first screening in Ireland of Art O’Briain’s new documentary film, A Subtle Movement of Air, presented by Art himself. The film is a moving portrait of Evald Grog, a Dane who has suffered from Muscular Dystrophy all his life, a disease he has not allowed to prevent him from overcoming the challenges and impediments caused by his condition. It follows him in his personal journey from the simple act of getting bathed to the massive achievement of his pioneering work in establishing support centres in Denmark for people like himself … and now farther afield in Iceland where he has gone to consult, show, exhort all who encounter him, from ordinary Icelanders to government ministers … to get them to follow the example of Denmark. Truly a tribute to Evald Grog – and to the skill and dedication of Art O’Briain in bringing Evald to us. This is a film deserving world-wide distribution. It is inspiring and uplifting.

Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize, green shoots are spotted in the economy, the stock markets may have hit a bottom, the Americans and the Iranians are talking, the US will not build missile bases on Russia’s border, Guantanamo will be closed, Obama bans torture, more green shoots are seen, Madoff goes to prison, there’s some light at the end of the tunnel, the Celtic Tiger is dead, long live the Celtic Tiger, windmills, solar panels, green energy, recycling, bank regulation, slow recovery seen on the horizon, depression avoided …

It seems that the gloom in the world is lifting and some sunshine is peeking through the clouds … could any of that be attributed to the Clifden Arts Week … no, no, no, highly improbable ... and yet …

(author’s note: this has only been a snapshot of the events and people who contributed to this marvellous Arts Week – to see the full schedule, please go to www.clifdenartsweek.ie )

Pat Mullan gave a talk to the students at the Clifden Community School about the importance of dialogue in the novel. He is Ireland Chair of International Thriller Writers. You can find him at www.patmullan.com

Impressions from ThrillerFest 2008

2008-08-08T14:55:00.002+01:00

My wife, Jean, travelled with me to ThrillerFest in New York in July and she wrote this article for our local newspaper, Connemara View

Impressions from ThrillerFest 2008
By Jean Mullan

We arrive to a fanfare of police sirens and an intense gaggle of security men at the entrance of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. As we descend from the taxi on to the red carpet it slowly dawns on us that this welcoming committee is not for the Connemara contingent arriving to take part in ThrillerFest - the annual conference of international thriller writers. They're here to greet Barack Obama who is about to make a speech in the ballroom.

Undaunted, we proceed to the welcoming reception. As the cocktails flow we find ourselves face-to-face with David Morrell - the creator of Rambo - outgoing co-president of ITW. We chat with Raymond Benson, the chosen successor to Ian Fleming, author of the novels immortalising one James Bond. David Hewson, the English author of the Nic Costa series of novels set in Rome, impresses us with his self-effacing, gentlemanly charm and wit.

So who are these intrepid travelers from Connemara? At his first ever writers' conference is the multi-talented Maurice O'Scanaill, our local vet, who has also displayed his vocal talents in The Ceol Theatre production of My Fair Lady and in the bass section of Cantairi Chonamara. You may not know that some years back Random House published three of his books under the penname of Rory McCormac. His mission in New York is to find himself an agent to help him publish his latest work. ThrillerFest veteran Pat Mullan from Recess is also here. An ex-banker and published poet he now has two international thrillers under his belt. His most recent work appeared in the anthology Dublin Noir and two new thrillers are currently under negotiation in a two-book deal.

Old friends and new mix and mingle. In a corner we spy the rock star of thriller writers, Barry Eisler, with his flowing locks and designer jeans, holding court surrounded by a group of admirers. Barry's Rain books featuring half-Japanese, half-American assassin John Rain have been optioned for film by Barrie Osborne, Oscar winning producer of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In the days that follow all things related to the art of writing and selling books are debated, agents are wooed, books are autographed and change hands. Banquet night rolls around - the grand finale - presided over this year by the quirky James Rollins, who turned Indiana Jones and The Kindgdom of the Crystal Skull into a novel. We were fortunate to share our table with Richard Doetsch and his delightful wife, the witty Al Longden, and the irrepressible Tucker Andersen. 2007 Thriller Master, James Patterson, presents the 2008 Award to Sandra Brown, author of 56 New York Times bestsellers. Of many speakers the one that impressed the most was David Baldacci (author of Absolute Power which translated into a gripping movie starring Clint Eastwood). He spoke movingly of his organization dedicated to aiding millions of illiterate Americans and encouraging young people to take up the reading habit.

In a Who's Who of outstanding writers who crossed our paths those who stick in my mind are Douglas Preston whose latest non-fiction book The Monster of Florence is my next read; cigar afficianado, Robert Liparulo, whom we never quite made it to dinner with; the affable JD (Dusty) Rhoades, a lawyer from Carthage, N. Carolina, who we were lucky enough to spend an evening with; and those gutsy women who hold their own in a male-dominated world : the larger-than-life Gayle Lynds and mother of five and author of many, Alison Brennan. Final word goes to Jason Pinter who was totally gobsmacked when Pat produced a full-page article and photo from the June 22nd edition of Ireland's Sunday Business Post profiling Jason's novel The Mark which was recently optioned by Irish film production company, Treasure Films.

Thrills galore in the Big Apple! We look forward to relishing the fruit of the labors of these inspired writers in print and at the movies.

The KINDLE Revolution

2007-12-13T14:01:00.000Z

By Pat Mullan

Kindle: to set alight or start to burn; to arouse or be aroused; to make or become bright - from Old Norse Kynda, influenced by Old Norse Kyndill (Candle).

It’s winter time here in Connemara, time to be indoors with a good book, time to gather around the fire these evenings and watch the flames from the wood kindling ignite the turf and fill our nostrils with that unique peaty aroma. Time for a warm whiskey …

But this year we seem to have mixed up our seasons because we’ve started Spring cleaning. Driven by the immediate need for more storage space, we’ve attacked our attic, finding it crammed to the rafters. We’ve found stuff that’s been there for twenty years, stuff that has no monetary value but holds huge sentimental and emotional value. How do you put a price on that?

We’ve uncovered boxes of books, mostly paperbacks: books that we loved, that we had no room for, that we couldn’t throw away. I read a lot and my wife reads four times as much as me. Of late my reading has been seriously imbalanced: too many thrillers (or so my wife says) but I do take time out to read other works, the latest being Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Douglas Kennedy’s The Woman in the Fifth.

But I digress. Here we are, faced with throwing out boxes of wonderful stories, largely thrillers and mysteries – all great entertainment; none of them classics (yet), and none of them first editions or so attractively bound and produced to make them collector’s items in their own right. And, in case you’re wondering, we do not discard all the books we read/acquire. We have bookshelves in almost every room, filled with everything from Shakespeare to Art. Poetry (an addiction) takes up two whole shelves and we also have a shelf of the collected works of Rudyard Kipling. Paperback thrillers, signed by authors I’ve met or shared panels with at conferences, always find special shelf space on our bookshelves.

In the midst of this Winter cleaning, Jeff Bezos of Amazon surprised us by launching his new e-book reader, KINDLE ! What an emotive name! And I immediately thought that if I had had all these wonderful books on my KINDLE database instead of in my attic, I would not need to dispose of them.

And, of course, that brings me full circle to the traumatic task of getting rid of all those paperback novels in my attic. I’d already boxed lots of them, hoping to take them to a second hand bookstore in Galway. But I had procrastinated. In a sense, I knew that the majority of them would end up on shabby shelves outside the store selling for a few pennies; shelves even more downmarket than the awful remainder shelves at the stationery store further downtown. An ignominious end for books with titles that once made bestseller lists by authors who remain household names.

So I thought: could KINDLE be the solution? I’ve downloaded some e-books in PDF and Microsoft Reader formats in the past for research and other purposes. But I would never choose my PC to read a book. When the Sony Reader came out I was tempted but I resisted. I felt that, if I waited a little longer, the technology and the delivery network would achieve a breakthrough to the next level.

So I thought: could KINDLE be the next level? I read the spate of articles, the most prominent being the Newsweek one, that greeted the launch of KINDLE, ranging from favorable ones from proponents of e-books who are already at ease with the technology to those by opponents who will never be caught dead reading an e-book.

KINDLE uses free (yes, that’s right: free! Amazon absorbs the cost), built-in wireless, called ‘Amazon Whispernet’, to download digital books, magazines, newspapers and blogs. One can still use a PC to download but there’s really no need because Whispernet makes you independent. It uses a superb E-ink display that works well even in bright sunlight. It can hold over 200 titles (that will take care of at least two of the boxes in my attic) and there are almost 90,000 books now available for Kindle, costing $10 or less. Your book, article, newspaper, etc, is stored by Amazon in your own library where you can download it again. And you can download many free e-books using KINDLE’S web browser. Yes, you can browse the web if you wish. Kindle is also an audiobook reader (you can buy directly from Audible.com) and it’s an MP3 player: it has both speakers and a headphone jack. You can subscribe to newspapers and magazines and get your subscription well before the print subscribers get theirs. A single battery charge, which takes about two hours, will last for two days and, if you turn off the wireless feature, that same charge could support your daily reading for over a week.

Critics say that KINDLE is ugly and that its keyboard is awkward, and you need a light for reading in the dark. But you need a light to read a book in the dark now, don’t you? So maybe it’s the Model T of KINDLES and, as the design evolves, it will become more attractive. I still think the Model T is a beautiful machine!

I’ve spent much more time describing the functionality of KINDLE than I had intended. I truly believe that KINDLE and Amazon will revolutionize e-books and convert the non-believers. I don’t want KINDLE to replace the book as we know it. But maybe it can save the trees, spare the pulp, prevent good books from becoming kindling for my fire.

In the meantime, my boxes of books sit waiting for a new home. My daughter sold a huge box of them at a charity bazaar this past weekend, the proceeds going to fund activities at her school. The buyer runs a hostel so I presume he’s going to make them available to his customers. In the future those same customers may be able to rent the hostel’s KINDLE and get access to hundreds of books.

So I decided to put some of my own work on KINDLE and I’ve found their software upload and review platform very easy to work with: customer friendly, simple interface, absolutely no glitches.

I love poetry and I love thrillers and I often find myself torn between both. James Dickey is a poet who raised my consciousness at a time when I had stopped, a time when I had abandoned it, a time when the muse had departed. Well, James Dickey has now departed. He died on January 19, 1997. I suppose he was best known for his novel Deliverance but he also wrote about 20 volumes of poetry. So, I have published the following on KINDLE:

James Dickey’s Poetry: The Religious Dimension (my elegy to the man) and those of you who own a KINDLE (and love poetry) can find it here.

On an entirely unrelated subject (and something more personal) you can also read about my son’s struggle with hemophilia here (this article was originally published in Buffalo Spree magazine)

ELEVEN DAYS IN JULY: A Family Ordeal
________________________________________________________________
You can visit me at: www.thrillerwriters.org/patmullan
...and look out for my short story, GALWAY GIRL, which will appear soon on Amazon SHORTS.

DEADFALL, DELIVERANCE, and DICKEY

2007-11-30T19:31:00.000Z

I called Bob Liparulo's DEADFALL 'A Masterful Thriller' : Terror stalks you on every page of DEADFALL. Threatened by an enemy more evil than Satan, you'll watch even the bravest die. Your breathing will go shallow with fear and your heart will run fast from exhilaration. Robert Liparulo takes you on this heart-stopping game of survival in the Canadian wilderness. But will anyone survive?

Then I read an interview where Bob said the following: "In ten words or less, DEADFALL is an update of Deliverance...without the hillbillies."

I love poetry and I love thrillers and I often find myself torn between both.

James Dickey is a poet who raised my consciousness at a time when I was not writing any more, a time when I had abandoned it, a time when the muse had departed. Well, James Dickey has now departed. He died on January 19, 1997. I suppose he was best known for his novel Deliverance but he also wrote about 20 volumes of poetry.

I have been intrigued by the new Amazon KINDLE reader and I believe that it (and its successors) will find much space beside our traditional books in that future world.

So, I have published the following on KINDLE:

James Dickey’s Poetry: The Religious Dimension (my elegy to the man) and those of you who own a KINDLE (and love poetry) can find it here:

On an entirely unrelated subject (and something more personal) you can read my story about hemophilia here (also on KINDLE) :

ELEVEN DAYS IN JULY: A Family Ordeal

Slan, Pat Mullan.

IRELAND - Clifden Arts Week 2007 Clifden Arts Week 2007

2007-09-20T13:02:00.000+01:00

IRELAND - Clifden Arts Week 2007 Clifden Arts Week 2007
20-30 September -

Celebrating 30 Years of Clifden Community Arts Week 1977 - 2007

If you're in Ireland this month you will NOT want to miss Arts Week in Clifden. Go to the website and take a look; you won't want to miss: Christy Moore, the Dubliners, Altan, Mary O'Malley, Desmond Hogan, ..Argentinian poets Gerardo Gambolini and Jorge Fondebrider, Carol Anne Duffy, Tony Curtis, Shaun Griffin from Nevada, Michael Coady, Sam McAughtry, Billy Roche, Bernard Farrell, Concert with John O'Conor and The Royal Irish Academy of Music, Colm Toibin, Nessa O'Mahoney, John Montague, The Saw Doctors, John Waters, Joseph O'Connor ... and Pat Mullan, of course!

And the pubs are great and the 'craic' is the best ! __
__________________________________________
Pat Mullan will be meeting the students of the Clifden High School on September 24. He will be reading from his crime/thriller novels. Pat is also a poet and will be reading his latest poems.

Pat Mullan is a member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of BLACK ORDER, calls Mullan’s latest novel, The Root of All Evil, “… a razor blade down the spine. So fast-paced, expect whiplash. This is Irish noir with a hero whom you’ll want at your back in any gunfight. Grab a copy and clear your schedule!”
www.thrillerwriters.org/patmullan

___________________________________________________________
Tickets now on Sale: Call 1850-357035 also on sale at Joyce's Newsagents Tel: 095-22611 and Clifden Tourist Information Office Tel: 095-21163 ..or use the website 'contact' page to send an email Email: URL: http://www.clifdenartsweek.ie/

To blog or not to blog

2006-10-10T15:45:00.000+01:00

..that is the question ... isn't it?

As you can see I am not really a blogger. Some use blogs in the same way as they'd use a personal diary. But I've never kept a diary and I don't think that the minutiae of my daily life would be of interest to the world at large!

Others add their unique voices to their blogs. They have used this marvellous blogging medium to educate, enlighten, amuse, irritate, challenge, disturb, inform, report. They have new perspectives on everything from the world of writing to the world of politics. You can see a few of them in my links on the sidebar here: Joe Konrath's A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind , Barry Eisler's The Heart of the Matter. There are many more that I will be adding to my links from time to time.

Now, I don't intend to be ranked in their world. Neither do I intend to maintain this blog space as a daily diary. So I will use it to keep my readers and friends informed about me, what I'm doing, where I've been and where I plan to be, and what I'm writing now.

I have not used it since 2005 (as you can see) so I have made the following decision:

1. I will post a QUARTERLY UPDATE

2. I may also add an item that I think is informative or newsworthy from time to time.

Obviously, my subject matter is the world of writing usually from Ireland (where I live these days) and further afield as well.

A brief update on my recent travels and appearances:

I attended the LOVE IS MURDER conference in Chicago on February 4 - 6, 2005, where I was a guest and panellist. My novel The CIRCLE of SODOM received two nominations: one for Best First Novel and one for Best Suspense Thriller. I was on a number of panels and spoke to various groups. I also met many important authors, New York Times bestselling folks like Anne Perry, James Rollins and Raymond Benson who has written all the James Bond novels since Ian Fleming's death (in fact he has a best seller in the NY Times list at present called 'Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell' (written under the pseudonym of David Michaels). Good contacts, authors, magazines, etc.....

In March of 2006, I attended the LEFT COAST CRIME conference which was held in Bristol, England. It was especially important because INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS, INC - (ITW) - (of which I am a member) were presenting their list of nominees for their very first award 'The Thriller'. I had the pleasure of sitting on an ITW panel with David Morrell and Gayle Lynds (co-Presidents of ITW) and Barry Eisler, chaired by Ali Karim. This is what I wrote about that panel in the ITW Newsletter :

LCC Panel: Covert Specialists as Thrilling Authors

One of LCC's most talked about panels was ITW's "In from the Cold: The Spy Thriller Today". It consisted of ITW members David Morrell, Gayle Lynds (both co-presidents), Barry Eisler and yours truly, Pat Mullan.

The Saturday (March 18) panel attracted about 100 people, who listened to their favorite authors speak. Morrell opened by passionately explaining ITW's mission-to bring thrillers in from the cold and to recognize, warm and assist their authors. The moderator was charismatic Ali Karim-scientist, writer, assistant editor at Shots Magazine (UK), and a man of encyclopedic knowledge of thrillers. He guided the panellists through a wide-ranging discussion, from the post-Berlin Wall era to the aftermath of 9/11. "Who are the new bad guys today?" he asked. "Where are the new threats coming from?" And most importantly: "Is the world safer today?"

Each of us spoke from our personal, diverse experiences. Acclaimed author Morrell shared his thoughts based on his former job as a special operations man. The pioneering Lynds called on her days inside a government think tank, where she had top-secret security clearance. The articulate Eisler spoke about how his time as a CIA agent informs his novels. And I alluded to my stint in the U.S. Army and my years in the murky world of international banking.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the panel was summed up by an attendee, who said: "That panel really held my interest. No one turned the promotion of their book into a dominant topic."

---Pat Mullan

You can read Ali Karim's full report on this conference - just click HERE.

Then in June/July 2006 I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona to attend THRILLERFEST 2006, the inaugural conference of International Thriller Writers, Inc. Once again Ali Karim covered it in his inimitable way -read all about it HERE.

And my most recent public appearance was right here in Connemara at CLIFDEN ARTS WEEK, one of the best events you'll find anywhere:

Clifden Arts Week
2006 programme
18 September
Reading with crime writer and poet Pat Mullan
Reading with crime writer and poet Pat Mullan, of whose latest thriller Tribunal, Ken Bruen wrote ‘ it bristles with ingenuity, and a plot to kill for…..with dizzy narrative and marvellous readability.’ Admission €5
Clifden Library, 4:30pm

You can also see a reference HERE.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON NOW

I am currently working on two new novels, one a crime thriller set mostly in Ireland (titled TRIBUNAL ) - you can read the first chapter HERE.

...and the other a work of science fiction - and you can read the Prologue HERE.

Tribunal ( the opening chapters from my novel TRIBUNAL ) has been published (2006) in the anthology DUBLIN NOIR, edited by Ken Bruen. (published in the USA by Akashic Books and in Ireland and the UK by Brandon Books). You should be able to get DUBLIN NOIR in your local bookstore now.

Here are a few advance reviews for TRIBUNAL:

“Pat Mullan’s latest, TRIBUNAL, is a razor blade down the spine. So fast-paced, expect whiplash. This is Irish noir with a hero whom you’ll want at your back in any gunfight. Grab a copy and clear your schedule!” James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of BLACK ORDER.

"A high-powered legal thriller chocked full of betrayal, deceit, corruption, and murder. Mullan is Ireland's answer to John Grisham, with a smattering of Ross MacDonald thrown in. TRIBUNAL will make your head spin." JA Konrath, author of RUSTY NAIL.

“Pat Mullan is a natural born storyteller with a gripping, engaging style. He may just be the next big thing in Irish crime fiction.” Jason Starr, author of LIGHTS OUT.

“TRIBUNAL bristles with ingenuity, and a plot to kill for … this is a thriller of such high caliber that it transcends all genres … has all the Irish gifts: dizzy narrative, sly humor, and marvelous readability. It rocks! " Ken Bruen, Edgar and Macavity Award winning author of THE GUARDS.

“TRIBUNAL is a tight, intelligent thriller. Author Pat Mullan blends political intrigue and murder with a unique Irish flavor that goes down smooth. His hero, Ed Burke, is striking – almost an anti-hero in some respects. To unravel the deception and save himself, Burke must test old friendships, and determine who to trust in an Ireland changed by the Celtic Tiger. Mullan writes suspense with an edge reminiscent of Bob Ludlum. An author to watch.” Cerri Ellis, Mostly Mystery Reviews.

KEN BRUEN wins the 2005 MACAVITY AWARD

2005-10-11T12:38:00.000+01:00

Ken Bruen has won the 2005 MACAVITY Award for 'The Killing of the Tinker's', his second novel in the Jack Taylor series. Last year he won the 2004 SHAMUS Award for 'The Guards', the first book in his Jack Taylor series. The intro to Ken's website ( www.kenbruen.com )says it all : Bruen is a brilliant, lyrical, deeply moving writer whose characters are so sharply portrayed that they almost walk off the page ...

As I said in my review on BACKSPACE ( www.bksp.org )

"The Killing of the Tinkers is two hundred and fifty-three pages of the best dialogue I have ever read. Believable, in-your-face, and real; you are there, sitting across the table, eavesdropping at the next bar stool. It leaps off every page and makes you part of Jack Taylor's world. The reviews of Ken's work tend to focus on the dark side. But that's not all that captured me. I was grabbed from the first sentence of the first page by the self-destructive soul of Jack Taylor; a soul that could only be cauterized by alcohol and cocaine. Yes, that's dark. But it's too narrow an assessment. If you have a dark side (and how many of us have, if we're honest) you will find a memory or two in the lost evenings and anguished mornings of Jack Taylor. But where there is dark, there must also be light. And that light is there, perhaps dim at times, but it's there. It's there in the women who love him, in the people who still trust him, in the friends who care for him, in himself too: his ability to pick himself up again, his sense of justice, his attempts to find and punish the evil ones. There's the humour too, always there, black humour maybe, but it's the fabric that saves Jack Taylor and the people who populate Ken Bruen's Galway from absolute despair. Yes, Jack Taylor finds his anaesthetic in cocaine and alcohol. But he also finds it in books. It seems at times that he could just as easily be tempted into Charlie Byrne's as into his local pub. If you love to read (and I suspect you wouldn't be reading this unless you do) you'll be able to 'stack' Jack Taylor's selections on your own book shelves as you get lost in this dark trek through the netherworld of Galway."

If you haven't read Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor series, start with 'The Guards', then 'The Killing of the Tinkers', followed by 'The Magdalen Martyrs' and 'The Dramatist' ... and early in 2006 look out for his latest in the series: PRIEST, due out from Transworld in January ..

And once you get addicted to Ken go back and read his absolutely superb White Trilogy books as well as the wonderful 'Dispatching Baudelaire'

THE KNOWN WORLD has won Ireland's Impac literary prize!

2005-06-21T18:08:00.000+01:00

American writer Edward P. Jones has won the prestigious 10th International Impac Dublin Literary Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize last year. He read Joyce's Dubliners at Holy Cross College, where he took a BA in 1972. (He went on to the University of Virginia, where he received an MFA in creative writing in 1981.) "I liked the way he had all these characters living in the same city," Jones says, "I thought, what if I could write about Washington the way Joyce wrote about Dublin." And so he did in Lost in the City (1991) . Lost in the City and The Known World were both shortlisted for the National Book Award in the USA.

Mike McCormack's 'NOTES FROM A COMA'

2005-05-23T10:22:00.000+01:00

I was fortunate to be invited by Mike to the recent launch of his new book, NOTES FROM A COMA, at Nimmo's (near the Spanish Arch in Galway). Highly successful launch, packed to the rafters with people.

The premise of NOTES FROM A COMA is completely intriguing and I'm looking forward to the read. I now own the '1st Signed One' as Mike incribed it to me. The story, ah well, there's more than one, almost parallel universes (I love those things - and I myself believe they exist). Oh, there, I digress. But Mike makes one do that. NOTES FROM A COMA is the story of a Romanian orphan adopted by a Co. Mayo bachelor, Anthony O'Malley. As the book's blurb states " rescued from the squalor of a Romanian orphanage, and adopted by the rural community of west Mayo, the child that is named J.J. O'Malley should have grown up happy. The boy has no gift for it, though, and his new life has a brutal way of giving him plenty to be unhappy about."

Eventually JJ suffers a mental breakdown and volunteers for an improbable government project which has been set up to explore the possibility of using deep coma as a future option within the EU penal system. When his coma goes online the nation turns to watch and JJ is suddenly elevated to the status of cultural icon. Sex symbol, existential hero, T-shirt philosopher - his public now threatens to obscure the man himself. The ultimate reality show!

In the parallel story, five narrators - his father, neighbour, teacher, public representative, and sweetheart - tell us the story of his life... To Mike McCormack this is crucial. Mike believes that our identities are safeguarded and held in trust by those who love us.

As I said - completely intriguing premise.

Mike grew up on a farm in Louisburgh in Mayo. Today he's the writer in residence at UCG (University College Galway). It's taken him seven years to write this book. As he says himself, he's a slow writer. He has two previous books: GETTING IT IN THE HEAD (which won many awards, including the Rooney Prize) and CROWE'S REQUIEM.

An Argument for Writers' Taking Charge

2005-05-11T13:07:00.000+01:00

As you may know (from my earlier blogs here) Johnny Temple of Akashic Books is publishing me in DUBLIN NOIR early next year....

Here's an article by Johnny that I think is superb. Read it and I believe that it will inspire all of you who struggle to stay in the publishing game. It should also be read by every author.

An Argument for Writers' Taking Charge
By Johnny Temple, Poets & Writers
Posted on April 22, 2005

Here's the link

http://www.alternet.org/story/21792/

DUBLIN NOIR

2005-05-06T15:45:00.000+01:00

Just an update on DUBLIN NOIR:

I received the copy-edited page proofs of my TRIBUNAL story (which will appear in DUBLIN NOIR next March ) yesterday from Johnny Temple, the Publisher of Akashic Books. Looks perfect - and that's almost a year before actual publication.

My story, TRIBUNAL (which is part of my current novel-in-progress of the same name) will be one of the first three stories in DUBLIN NOIR, comprising Part I: The Inside Job. These first 3 stories are by Eoin Colfer (the award winning author of Artemis Fowl; Ken Bruen (the 2004 SHAMUS Award winner - he is also the editor); and myself : Pat Mullan

Others in DUBLIN NOIR include: Jim Fusilli, Charlie Stella, Olen Steinhauer, John Rickards, Laura Lippman, Jason Starr, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Weinman

You can see the cover and the first announcement on Akashic Books website here:

http://www.akashicbooks.com/Dublinnoir.htm

It is scheduled for publication in March of 2006 - but they may beat that date. Get it in your local bookstore when it's out. You'll like it!

Best,
Pat.

LOVE IS MURDER Conference in Chicago - Feb 2005

2005-02-15T14:20:00.000Z

I attended the
LOVE IS MURDER
conference in Chicago on Feb 4-6 this year .. Most enjoyable!
I had a great time at the conference where I was on a number of
panels , the most interesting (controversial) one was Brits vs. Yanks:
I was placed in the middle - neutral country - so I could take either
side or both or none, which of course I did do! - on my left for the
Brits: Stephen Booth and Anne Perry .... and on my right for the Yanks:
James Rollins (NY Times Bestseller) and Barbara D'Amato. Great fun!
I held up our side (where we have rights on the English lyric, as
Seamus Heaney would say) .........

Click on here and you'll see some photos from the conference that
I added to my book's page on Amazon. There's also one of me and Kate
at Kate's Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge...and one taken recently in
Galway with Ken Bruen.

You'll have to click on each image to enlarge them:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-images/075969222X/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_all/102-0840216-8835365#gallery

Enjoy !

...well, who am I anyway, you might ask?

2005-01-10T18:50:00.000Z

Don't you just hate formal introductions? I'm a European
(I live in Ireland - the west: Connemara, County Galway)-
and in many ways an American too - so the culture of
'getting to know one' is vastly different on our two
continents - and then complicate it further: when one shows
up at a party or get together here where I live in the west
of Ireland, or in our more sophisticated Dublin, or Paris,
Madrid, or Milan --- or, over there, across the pond: is it
different in Manhattan (where I lived), or Chicago
(where I went to school) , or Miami (where I lived for seven
years) ... ... do people want to know you? or do they want
to know what you do? or how much money you make? and do they
move on once they discover they can't leverage you for some
personal agenda? does all this seem familiar - or is all of
this unfair? you decide.....

..anyhow, forget all that, we Irish just like to ramble on
and on and on -------- but you guys know all that, don't you?

So - to introduce myself... I recently became a member of
BACKSPACE (where I first posted this
introduction) and for my money (wait ! there's little of that!)
this is one of the better places if you're a writer ...
go there yourself :

www.bksp.org

2004-12-23T17:19:00.000Z

Connemara, Ireland. 5.20pm, Thursday, December 23, 2004

...why am I doing this? I really don't know! I don't keep a diary. I've stopped writing letters. I do not bombard people with unnecessary emails.
Do we need to be 'blogged' to death as well? We don't!

So, I ask myself again: Why am I doing this? And my answer is : I don't know! I do promise that I will not fill these pages with drivel (at least what I consider drivel). You'll have to be the judge of that....

Oh, well, I'm a writer. So I must write. Consider these ramblings in that context ...