Why Did I Choose To Publish Independently?
(This piece originally appeared in Dueling Librarians) Why Did I Choose To Publish Independently? Short answer to the above question: I...
The movie that still leaves Psycho standing
Hell, not just Psycho. It’s better than The Innocents, The Evil Dead, Paranormal Activity and The House of the Devil. It’s even better...
The Fabricator: the story behind the novel
December 31, 2011 was the only New Year’s Eve of my grown-up life that I stayed stone-cold sober. For I had made a New Year’s...
Swiss Army Man & the weirdness of walk-outs
Today I saw the oddest headline in The Guardian. DANIEL RADCLIFFE’S FLATULENT CORPSE PROMPTS SUNDANCE WALKOUT. And beneath it were the...
Letting Go
A few years ago, after having read Flann O’ Brien’s novel At Swim-Two-Birds for the third time and dug my way to somewhere near the...
This is how you Troll Yourself
SCAT: Mister Herron, I’d like to thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak to you on Skype. COLM HERRON: Think nothing...
Pulling Ribs: how reality works in my novels
I need to be emotionally engaged before I can begin writing a novel. And that emotional engagement has nearly always involved an...
BROOKLYN: Which is better – the book or the movie?
There’s a saying we have in Ireland that you’d nearly think was coined for Colm TóibÃn’s novel Brooklyn. Namely, if you’ve the name of...
Letting Go of Moral Certainties
The Catholic Church had a stranglehold on my thinking until I got to my early thirties. Our church leaders were in important ways close...
Dear Reader: prepare to drop your guard
What builds up readers’ guards? When you consider that the five most popular genres right now are (in descending order) ......
