The Nature of Sex A friend of mine recently tagged me in an online blogging chain called The Next Big Thing, a series of questions about writers’ next projects. The idea was to draw attention to writers and their blogs…

Tickling the Palate Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and Eamon Maher (eds) Peter Lang, 235 pages, €35 The book is divided into three sections: Literary Representations of Irish Gastronomy, Culinary and Dining Traditions in Ireland…

Tuesday, 4 November 2014 GUEST POST BY IRISH WRITER JAMES LAWLESS My Guest this month is Irish Writer James Lawless, whose novel Peeling Oranges I so enjoyed and commented on, HERE http://lifetwicetasted.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/a-ommentary-on-peeling-oranges-by-james.html on Life Twice Tasted. Readers will be interested…

When I picked up a copy of Peeling Oranges by James Lawless, I was expecting a blood bucket of a revenge tragedy that IRA-UDA gang wars tend to produce. Upon reading the blurb that mentioned the Irish-Spanish connection, I figured…

A Commentary on Peeling Oranges by James Lawless The central character Derek, around whom Peeling Oranges is built, is reading yellowing letters from his mother, a heroine of revolutionary Ireland, to the man Derek thinks is his father, then in…

Short story shortlist (alphabetical order by first name) Ag Jones Andrew Haysey Andrew Lloyd-Jones Angela Readman Anne Elliott Avril Joy Brian Millar Carole Burns Caroline Hopkinson-Woolley D Artis David Dawson David Malone David Swann Edward Hamlin Emily Wills Emma-Jane Hughes…

THE HALLOWEEN PARTY A small boy is playing with a dog in a field. Boy cannot speak, but he makes signs to Dog. Dog is a cocker spaniel (almost) with sad eyes, a bit lame in one leg, but still…

Peeling Oranges — book giveaway on Goodreads until 31 October. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21541445-peeling-oranges

Peeling Oranges: The Provenance of a Novel. In the nineties I wrote a short story called Diaries about Derek Foley, who sifted through the diaries of his late father, a diplomat in Franco’s Spain, and discovered things to question his…