One of the Shadow Voices

What an honour! My short story ‘The Boughs Withered When I Told Them My Dreams’ will be reprinted in the forthcoming anthology, Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction – A History in Stories, edited by John Connolly. It’s the title story from my 2019 collection of short stories.

Even if my story wasn’t appearing in this volume I would be excited at the publication of this much-needed overview of the Irish tradition of Gothic/supernatural fiction. Kudos to John for taking on this mammoth task and to Hodder & Stoughton for publishing it!

Here’s the blurb:

Lemuel Gulliver, Dracula, Narnia — the history of Irish fiction is a history of genre fiction: horror, romantic fiction, science fiction, crime writing, and more. Irish writers have produced pioneering tales of detection, terrifying ghost stories, and ground-breaking women’s popular literature. In a single volume, John Connolly presents the history of Irish genre writing and uses it to explore how we think about fiction itself.

Deeply researched and passionately argued, Shadow Voices takes the lives of more than sixty writers – by turns tragic, amusing, and adventurous, but always extraordinary – and sets them alongside the stories they have written to create a new way of looking at genre and literature, both Irish and beyond. Here are vampires and monsters, murderers and cannibals. Here are female criminal masterminds and dogged detectives, star-crossed lovers and vengeful spouses.

The physical book is a hefty tome, since it’s a hardback and 1,100 pages, and the first printing will be limited to 3,000 signed copies.

The first 1,000 signed hardcovers will come with a specially designed tote bag and an envelope of reproduction postcards, while supplies last.

All of the below shops will have signed hardcovers with the special extras while stocks last. Most will ship worldwide, but you should factor in the cost of shipping with such a large book.

Alan Hanna’s Bookshop, Dublin
Bookstation, Rathcoole
Bridge Books, Dromore (bridgebooks@hotmail.co.uk or via Twitter @BridgeBooksDro1)
Dubray Books, Bray
Goldsboro Books, London
The Gutter Bookshop, Dublin
Kennys, Galway
No Alibis, Belfast
O’Mahony’s Books, Limerick
Easons
Waterstones, Cork
Topping & Company, Bath, Edinburgh, Ely, and Saint Andrews

There will be a launch at Gutter Bookshop in Dublin on the publication date on 28 October, and another event at Queens University, Belfast on 3 November. These are ticketed events so book them quickly!

A shout-out to Kennys in my home county of Galway, which is offering 19% off the retail price as well as free shipping in Ireland – a terrific deal.

As usual, huge thanks to Ian Whates at NewCon Press who published my collection – this flows from his decision to back my work.