Blog
‘I’m not afraid to just write, experiment, have a bit of fun’ ‘Line’ is a novel with a premise that feels at once appalling and darkly familiar, where the characters...
“Line is about people that live in a queue or line for so long, for multiple generations, that they have forgotten its purpose. The fear of losing their place motivates them…There are rumours swirling around about what is at the top of the line but the biggest drive for people to stay in the Line is that their parents and grandparents sacrifice their lives so that they could inherit their place. It would be almost sacrilege to just renege your place and the sacrifices of your ancestors for your own selfishness”
Big thanks to Maeve Mulrennan for her interview, which you can read over at The Honest Ulsterman - or below. Niall Bourke’s début novel Line will be published by Tramp...
Panenka – Book Review
Panenka – Rónán Hession (Bluemoose Books, May 2021). A celebration of the things other novels often avoid – and all the better for it. A wise man recently told me there...
The Erection Specialists
My story 'The Erection Specialists' was published in The Honest Ulsterman on 22nd September 2020 - and if you are interested you can read it here. It is entirely...
What I’ve Been Reading
Some of what I've been reading this year in no particular order: Tennis Lessons (Susannah Dickey - Doubleday): Equal parts funny and poignant, it chronicles a young...
What Is Pisa – And Why Should We Care?
With the U.K sitting in 18th position in the latest Pisa rankings, and the predictable furore about whether this is a justification or indictment of recent educational...
Ofsted: it’s loathed by many – but are there really any credible alternatives?
When Labour’s Angela Rayner announced she would scrap Ofsted, I was surprised she was met with such widespread opposition. I mean, I expected some dissenting voices...
Emerging Poets: routes to publishing your debut collection
One thing I’ve been asked regularly at readings and events (well, by ‘regularly’ I mean ‘more than once’) is how emerging poets can go about building up to getting...
WHAT I WAS READING IN 2019
What I was reading in 2019 (and what I'm looking forward to in 2020): What I’m currently reading: Minor Monuments (Ian Maleney) (Most of) what I read in...
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
A list of what I’ve been reading over the last year or two (and I’m sure I’m missing a few) – I hope to review at least some of them soon if I get time: In the ‘to-read...