Saturday, January 27, 2024

Me and My Demons

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How do you like the family portrait that now adorns the top of this page? Yes, that is myself sitting at the keyboard, no doubt diligently ...
Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away

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  When I had taken all the obvious pictures, I just started pointing the camera around the beach zooming in on things that might be interes...
Saturday, September 16, 2023

Back to Deauville

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  “Yes. Tell me, are you familiar with the Deauville Film Festival?”   “Dough ville? Uh, no.”    “Deauville is in Normandy. For six years...
Monday, April 24, 2023

Indy Selling Success Story

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Things to have come full circle in the book business—well, at least in my book business. When I published my first novel nearly nine years, ...
Sunday, January 15, 2023

Same Books, New Portal

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Something on this blog has changed. At the top of this page, if you click on any of the three links for my own online bookstore Afranor Boo...
Monday, December 19, 2022

Hand of Maradona

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  To my surprise Donal called out after him, “Just for the record, mate, you lot most definitely stole the World Cup.”   He stopped in his...
Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Colonel Mustard’s Return?

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I have always loved the tone, quality and entertainment value of readers’ letters to The Times (“of London”). It was sort of a dream come tr...
Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Stamp of Approval?

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In a generous gesture to honor a humble writer residing on its soil, Ireland’s national postal service, An Post, has released a new commemor...
Sunday, October 2, 2022

Who’s Who?

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Madame Bovary, c’est moi . That is what 19th-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert is reported to have replied when asked if the title c...
Saturday, September 24, 2022

Traduttore, no Traditore?

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Sometime during the past few days, as I write this, my words are being or have been read out at a poetry festival. This is not something tha...