COVER REVEAL - Joyride to Jupiter

Today I can reveal the cover for Joyride to Jupiter, my new short story collection, out in June, from New Island. It will be released June 12th and there will be two launches:

The Gutter Bookshop, Dublin, 14th June, 6.30pm. Lia Mills will launch.

Rosie McGurran Gallery and Studio, Roundstone, Galway, 16th June - Bloomsday! - time & launcher tbc.

Ta-dah! Floaty woman in sparkly shoes and lots of clouds. I love it! Thanks to Mariel Deegan for a fun, collaborative design process.

MISS EMILY - THE COVERS

For the first time in my writing history, I have a variety of covers for one book, which is pretty exciting. So I thought I'd do a round-up of the Miss Emily covers.

Penguin USA and Penguin Canada opted for the same cover for the North American paperback, designed by Olga Grlic. I have always dreamed of that little orange penguin on a cover of mine, so this is good stuff. This one is out July 14th:

The audio book, which also appears July 14th, from Blackstone Audio, is voiced by Irish actress Alana Kerr as Ada, and American actress Tavia Gilbert as Emily. They do a great job. (Alana recently also voiced Anne Enright's marvelous novel The Green Road.) Cover:

The large print hardcover, out 12th August in the UK, will apparently have this cover (is Emily by the sea?!):

And last, but by no means least, here is the edition that will appear in the UK, Ireland, NZ and Australia, as designed by the lovely Sandstone Press, my UK publishers, who are based in the Scottish Highlands. This one comes out August 20th:

Writer Dermot Bolger, who gave me a fantastic blurb, gave Miss Emily a nice mention in yesterday's Irish Mail on Sunday:

Novel cover - final

I got the final cover for my novel which comes out on 7th April from New Island. I love it! I am also thrilled with Gerard Stembridge's blurb which, in its entirety, reads: 'The reader will be seduced by the intimacy and sensuality of this novel and the delicate grief that haunts its pages. Best of all, in a literary world of dazzling but shallow fiction, Nuala Ní Chonchúir's characters and their relationships have about them that most precious and elusive quality: the ring of truth.'

NOVEL COVER REVEALED!

Here is the cover design for The Closet of Savage Mementos, my new novel, out April 7th. Dublin launch April 15th. Galway launch TBC. Whee! Thanks to designer Nina Lyons and all at New Island.

ON COVERS, TITLES & END-OF-NOVEL STUFF

Lionel Shriver - pic from The Guardian

I am in a very weird position at the moment in that I am working on crucial end-of-writing things on two separate novels. It's all good fun but my mind is having to leap from one book to the other in alarming timeframes, and there are plenty of other things going on besides.

This week, I have seen covers for Novel #2,  The Closet of Savage Mementos, (exciting!) and have narrowed it down to two possibilities. The designer is rejigging both at the moment and I am dying to see the finished products. I have just written blurb for that novel too and am waiting to see what my editor makes of that.

Meanwhile, my agent and I are toing and froing across the Atlantic about the title for Novel #3, which she will be submitting to publishers this month. My original title is not all-encompassing enough so we are trying all sorts, from the wordy to the downright plain. Nothing has satisfied both of us yet so we will continue researching, then batting things back and forth until we land on the right title.

In the middle of all this I have two deadlines for stories, one of which is proving baffling to me (the story that is, not the deadline). The other is nearly done but it is mournful and I am not 100% certain it will suit the publication. Hmmm.

I was reading an article about Jennifer Weiner this week in the New Yorker (on gender imbalance in publishing etc.) in which she mentioned personal dressers and personal assistants and all sorts. I'm not quite at that stage (!!) but, sometimes, I feel there should be three of me: The Writer, The Admin Person and The Mother.

All this busy-ness reminds me, too, of that recent Lionel Shriver article in the New Republic, about being pulled 20 different directions as a writer, and which one sniffy commentator called 'a writerly diva fit'. Pfff. Lionel was making the point that being too busy means less time for actual writing (which is very agitating for a writer). A quote: 'Now that every village in the United Kingdom has its own literary festival, I could credibly spend my entire year, every year, flitting from Swindon to Peterborough to Aberdeen, jawing interminably about what I’ve already written—at the modest price of scalding self-disgust.'

I'm with Lionel. I'll end on a more uplifting quote from her about the whole business: 'If sometimes stressful or distracting, even subsidiary commitments are also opportunities: to connect with flesh-and-blood readerships, to air views and grievances, to exploit a more theatrical side of one’s character (I’m a ham), and for pity’s sake to get out of the house.'

COVER FOR MY NEW BOOK

Herewith the cover for my new chapbook of short-short stories/flash, coming from Tower Press, and launching at the American Conference for Irish Studies in San Francisco on Friday the 27th September. Galway and Dublin launches also being planned.

Maria Gasol is the cover artist and publisher Jodi Chilson is the designer. I love the job they did!

BUSY-NESS

 
There is a lot happening in my world these days and I am torn between this, that and the other, busy as busy can be(e). I am having fun reading the stories sent in for my guest editorship of The Stinging Fly. 330 flash stories and 262 longer stories were subbed for the issue so there is a ton of reading to do. There are some absolute gems among the stories - my 'YES' pile is enormous and it is going to be very difficult to trim that down.

I fly out to Delaware in the USA in 10 days or so for a writers' conference run by writer friend Billie Travilini whom I meet at the International Short Story Conference every two years. I have been to lots of cool places in the States and, much as I love NY etc., it is always fascinating to visit smaller, more obscure places like Lewes,a sweet coastal town dubbed 'the first town in the first State'. And it's wonderful to experience these places in the company of other writers.

Other than that I am finishing Novel #3, editing  Novel #2 and prepping for the publication of Of Dublin and Other Fictions - my chapbook of short-shorts/flash that is being published in the USA in September. Cover art has now been secured - I can't wait to reveal it. It is by a Donegal-resident Spanish artist and it is both witty and pretty. The chapbook launch takes place in San Francisco at the American Conference for Irish Studies.

I also had a very productive meeting with the New Island team last week to discuss Novel #2 which will be out next spring. We still haven't locked down the title - I want to use an adapted quote from a poem as the title so I am awaiting permission from Harper Collins in the USA. I got a friendly email from them last week (from an Irish employee!) so I have all fingers crossed that it works out. Again, I hope to reveal the title for that shortly. As the novel is mostly set in Scotland, I have been planning the launch - think whiskey and shortbread and lots of tartan :)

Novel #2 features a paperweight that becomes central to the plot. I own that paperweight and today my friend the photographer Úna Spain is going to photograph it with a view to it being used as cover art for the book. I can't wait to see the images and send them on to New Island to consider.

Also Salt, who published my story collection Nude, have given me permission to digitize the book. I thought it would be a very simple process (it's not really - lots of formatting issues) so my lovely husband has taken over that task and is working on it. Nude for Kindle available very soon! And at a special introductory price.

It's all good.