fiction studio books

Fiction Studio Books celebrates its first anniversary today. As part of the festivities, we’re offering the e-book version of Jeremy Burns’s new novel From the Ashes free, and our entire 2011 e-book catalog for either $.99 or $1.99 at several online booksellers. Just click on the links on any of our book pages to seek out the deal at the bookseller of your choice.

A year ago, I published my novel Blue under my newly created imprint. To tell you the truth, the only thing I had in mind when I created this imprint was providing a home for Blue. Having spent my entire adult life in book publishing, I had a clear idea of how I wanted to publish that novel, so I didn't feel the need to approach anyone else about doing it for me. All I needed was an infrastructure, something my friends at National Book Network were willing to provide. I decided to call the imprint Fiction Studio Books because I'd been running a company called The Fiction Studio for ten years.

That was really as far as my initial thoughts went. That phase lasted about four hours. Then my imagination caught up. I knew plenty of very good writers who felt either disenfranchised by or disenchanted over traditional book publishing. What if I opened Fiction Studio Books up to them as well? What if I let a trusted handful of colleagues know that I was open to writers they knew who might feel the same way? What if, instead of a vertically structured publishing house, I instead set this thing up as a horizontally structured writers collective?

Fiction Studio Books began to take form at that point. I would be its curator. I had to love every book on the list, but that certainly left a great deal of room, because I have ridiculously broad tastes. I would also be its publisher, lending my thirty-plus years of study about the book publishing world to the process. And the other authors on the list would be my collaborators. We were at a true inflection point in the industry, and it made far more sense to have many keen minds working through this stage than just mine (especially since mine was often so far from keen).

In 2011, Fiction Studio Books published fourteen titles, and I think we have much to celebrate as we come upon our first anniversary. We can celebrate our commercial success: three of those books were national bestsellers and a fourth reached the top 100 on the Kindle bestseller list. We can celebrate our critical success – our books regularly receive acclaim from reviewers, bloggers, literary luminaries, and New York Times bestselling authors. We can celebrate our range: among those fourteen titles were literary novels, thrillers, fantasy stories, and historical fiction. We published a book set in a psychiatric facility, another at LAX, one in a small town in Canada, and another in a small town in Italy – 14th Century Italy, a novel of the near future, and one that involves the distant past. We can celebrate our characters, which have included a hunted serial killer, a haunted artist, and a haunting seer. I'd certainly like to celebrate the collegiality between Fiction Studio's authors, evident publicly in their lusty participation in this blog and the way they cheer each other on from our Facebook page.

I have no idea how many books we'll publish in 2012. One of the benefits of the new publishing paradigm is that publishers don't need nearly as much prep time as they once did, so the list can stay unformed much longer. We've published three titles in the first three weeks of the year, again reflecting the range of the program: Jessica Keener's gorgeous, lyrical Night Swim; Jeremy Burns' complex and chilling From the Ashes; and Thérèse’s funny and wise India's Summer. I can promise you that this doesn't mean that we're going to publish fifty-two books this year – I invest a great deal of myself in every book, and there's only so much of me to go around – but I think there's a very good chance we'll wind up with more than fourteen. There are several very fine books in the pipeline (including new titles from some of our 2011 authors), and just today I read another that I think is simply beautiful. There will even be another one from me.

While I can't be clear on the specifics, I can tell you that every book on this list will be here because it touched me in some way and I therefore think it might touch you. I've been offered the opportunity grow the list quickly by acquiring large collections of books, and I've resisted this, choosing instead to let the list grow organically. This publishing program might never be huge, but I think our books will continue to carry a great deal of weight.

Anniversaries are arbitrary events. The first anniversary of Fiction Studio Books is no less arbitrary than any other. Anniversaries do, however, allow for reflection. And when I reflect on what we've done in our first year, I come away feeling very satisfied.

* The title of this post, by the way is from the Little River Band’s “Happy Anniversary.”

To continue this conversation, visit  http://www.fictionstudiobooks.com/Fiction_Studio_Books/Home.html

What can you say about women?

Since my first novel, Lagan Love, was published there is one question I have been asked a number of times: Was it difficult to write female characters?

I have often wondered at that. Is it because I am a man and therefore it is assumed that I would have difficulty in understanding women? Or is it because my female characters are so compelling that they engender amazement? I would prefer to think it was the latter but that would fan vanity and I have learned to be cautious about that.

I believe that good writers ‘create’ characters through observation. We meet all kinds of wonderful characters every day and, with a little bit of imagination, some of them can find their way onto the pages of a book. (This is another reason why we should behave ourselves with consideration for others because who wants to see their selfish, rude or indifferent, selves in public.)

However, most people would agree that men and women have difficulty in understanding each other. (I believe this is because women have a tendency to feel while men think or not think. This of course is a generality in lieu of a much longer discourse – perhaps the material for a future book!) Perhaps this is why we are inundated with one dimensional, or stereotypical, characters. Men in romance stories are too often cast in a mould; tall, dark, handsome, brooding or injured, but putty in the heroine’s long slender, manicured fingers – the stuff of fantasies – not unlike the large-breasted females who wear their hair tightly-bunned and frown through thick framed glasses until some guy unlocks their sensuous butterfly with a kiss.

While all of this is delightful in its own place – much like having delicate French pastries for breakfast – it can be fattening to the mind. Many of the women I have known in my life are far more interesting and I consider myself lucky in being able to see that.

My mother set me straight from the beginning. She was raised by her father who was a senior police officer during Ireland’s Civil War. He moved constantly so my mother was packed off to a convent school where she developed her brilliant mind. In the 1930’s she went to University – a feat in any country at that time and remarkable in Ireland.

How she met and married my father is another story but, after raising 6 boys single handed, she returned to her prime passion – intellectualism!

She ran with an interesting crowd too; one of Ireland’s most prominent female novelists, Ireland’s first female President and, for balance, two priests. One was a noted historian and the other a poet! What impressed me about all of this was how she could hold her own in any conversation. Nothing was beyond her and while my friends only got to see their mothers as cleaners, cooks and nursemaids, I saw mine as a power in the world.

From all of this I realised that women range from angels to succubi – if you believe in such things. They have all the complexities, virtues and vices,insecurities and assuredness, ambitions and considerations that you might associate with men – only for me, women are far more interesting.

Being Irish is not as easy as it looks!

In the multiculturalism of Canada, all of us can celebrate what we were while taking our place in the unified mosaic of what we might all become. It sounds wonderful in theory but for me, it wasn’t that easy. You see I am Irish – born and raised there and exported to Canada in my early twenties.

When I arrived I probably did not match most people’s expectations of Irishness as I did not have red hair and I did not wear a little green bowler nor carry a shillelagh. I never uttered the phrase; ‘Faith and Begorrah,’ and I couldn’t Riverdance to save my life. Nor did I use ‘Irish Spring’ toiletries as I never heard of them until I came here. Back in the auld sod I used ‘Old Spice’ and ‘Lifebuoy.’

When I got off the plane in Malton, I was under pressure from the beginning. Ireland’s contributions to Canada were many; both great and small. I was following in the footsteps of the likes of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, who Wikipedia describes as: an Irish Nationalist, Catholic spokesman, journalist, and a Father of Canadian confederation. He fought for the development of Irish and Canadian national identities that would transcend their component groups.

Less well remembered was Patrick J. Whelan who was accused and hung for the murder of the aforementioned McGee and who gave Canada its first, and to date, only political assassination. That some say Whelan was framed is the point I am trying to make. When you are Irish you come with certain expectations regardless.

I am reminded of this every year on the eve of Sheila’s day – or as most people would say: Saint Patrick’s Day. (Note: short form is St. Paddy’s Day and never St. Patty’s Day which is, as far as I know, some hamburger chain’s promotion of green meat and probably should be avoided!)

Every year, on the 17^th of March, Canadians of all colours and stripes dress up in green and act a little foolishly, in a manner they presume to be Irish. I am offended by that. Most real Irish people of my acquaintance would never do things in such fashion and when acting foolishly would do it on a grand scale – like bailing out a bankrupt banking system or lining up in their thousands to welcome Brian Mulroney to Dublin. (But, in defence of my race, we did refrain from hosting the ‘Shamrock Summit’ that featured Mulroney and Ronald O’ Reagan warbling through ‘When Irish eyes are smiling!’)

For many years I played music in Irish bars and for Irish Musicians, Saint Patrick’s Day was like Christmas – Green Christmas. Every bar in town wanted Irish Musicians and we could actually make some money – the green that makes all eyes smile!

My adventures playing music in Irish bars were many and I hope a few will find their way into my second novel but one is worth mentioning in this context. During a break we were approached by a swaying bleary-eyed young student type who insisted on buying us a round of green beers despite the fact that we were drinking Guinness – a dark stout. Burdened as we were by the strict rules around accepting hospitality we drank his beer as we listened to him ramble on about his Irishness. He was, he assured us: “One 64^th Irish blood on his great-great grandfather’s side.” We advised him to avoid nosebleeds and went back to singing about Unicorns and Whiskey in the Jar.

It is the curse of my race that we are burdened by images of Leapin’ Leprechauns and crocks of gold; drunken pishogeries and beguiling charms that we learn in school at the behest of the Irish Tourist Board – to lighten the purses of dollar laden visitors!

The reality is very different and this was one of the driving forces behind my first novel Lagan Love. Through it I wanted to let the reader wander the streets of Dublin, back in the nineteen-eighties, before the Celtic Tiger came and changed everything. I wanted to let the reader in on a way of life that tolerated the future while suffering the past. Check it out – you might like it.

Lagan Love takes the traditional love story and ramps it up several notches . . .

Ireland has produced more than its fair share of talented authors and poets: James Joyce, Patrick Kavanaugh, Austin Clarke, Brendan Behan, William Butler Yeats, and many more. With his stunning debut novel, Lagan Love, Peter Murphy is well on his way to adding his name to that impressive list. Named after an Irish song, Lagan Love is an atmospheric tour de force set during the Celtic Twilight in mid-1980s Ireland. This romance with supernatural overtones evokes the pagan beliefs that still thrive in Ireland, despite the best efforts of the Vikings, the English, and the Catholic Church to drive them out like Saint Patrick did with the snakes.

Aidan Greeley is Ireland’s rising poet, and he leads Janice, a promising young painter from Toronto, through the veil of the Celtic Twilight into the world of Irish folktales and myths. What they find on the other side threatens to destroy them both. Fame comes at a very high price. Is Aidan willing to sacrifice his shot at fame and glory for his love of Janice, or will he end up sacrificing Janice? Will Janice’s friend Sinead be able to save her before it’s too late? And is Gwen Fitzwilliam, the wife of the wealthy Maurice, merely Aidan’s patron and lover or something much darker – a creature out of Ireland’s myth and lore, a leanan sidhe, or lenanshee, a fairy spirit who inspires lovers to ever-greater creative heights, but at a price. Will the price be Janice’s love and soul?

The main characters first meet at smoke-filled Grogan’s pub. One reviewer has compared it to the bar Cheers from the television show (“where everyone knows your name”), but that seems a rather simplistic analogy. The pub serves the town’s rough-hewn workers, farmers, and lost university students, a place where you can raise a pint to toast a friend or get roaring drunk to forget your problems, at least for a night. Here Aidan meets Sinead and begins an affair with her, and here he does the same with Janice, with whom he falls in love and starts to think may be his one true love.
Murphy draws on Ireland’s rich history, tangled web of politics, culture, literary giants, myths, and legends to weave a wondrous tapestry of a novel. Aidan’s insights, his teaching Janice about the struggles and hardships that Ireland has had to go through to make it the country it is when he meets her, and Murphy’s introspective and very quotable observations about the human psyche make Lagan Love much more than a run-of-the-mill love story.

The author tells the novel from the many and varied points of vies of its characters, even allowing us glimpses into the insatiable desires of Gwen. An impressive feat, that such a range of emotion and characterization could be achieved by a first-time novelist. The reader sees what is going on through the eyes of whichever character is on center stage at any given time. It’s sometimes difficult for a male author to write from a believable point of view of a female character like Sinead, Janice, and Gwen, but Murphy does a masterful job, making them come alive for his readers.

Lagan Love takes the traditional love story and ramps it up several notches, with a supernatural twist that makes it an instant classic. I would highly recommend Lagan Love to anyone who loves supernatural romances, urban fantasies, and great literature in general. I can’t wait to read what Peter Murphy writes next. If it’s anywhere near as good as Lagan Love, it will be well worth the wait.

This Book Review is provided by: Curled Up With A Good Book
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This entry was posted in Book Reviews, Lagan Love Reviews

What if this is the last Christmas?

"Both the Hopis and Mayans recognize that we are approaching the end of a World Age... In both cases, however, the Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead. Our moving through with either resistance or acceptance will determine whether the transition will happen with cataclysmic changes or gradual peace and tranquility. The same theme can be found reflected in the prophecies of many other Native American visionaries from Black Elk to Sun Bear."
— Joseph Robert Jochmans

(This was written last year but I thought I'd better stick it up again - just in case!)

And what might you ask has this got to do with Christmas?

Well, if the world were to end on 12-12-2012, this is the last one and that is not as bad as it sounds.

Think about it: you could go crazy and buy everything your heart desires on a no-money-down-pay-later scheme. As long as you time it properly – you’ll be fine. (However, I should caution you that I once believed that I would not live past 30. In fact everyone who knew me agreed. But I did and was totally unprepared.)

But even outside the commercial aspect – which you have to admit it would solve most of the world’s economic problems. And there is the matter of going out in a blaze of glory. You could make this the finest Christmas of your life.

You could be like old Ebenezer and soften your heart and let some joy in. You could be like Santa Claus and spread a little cheer into the lives of children everywhere or you could just be a nicer version of yourself.

You could erase your naughty list and give everyone a clean slate.

You could try to see everyone else’s point of view – you know – like the soldiers in the WWI who came out of the trenches to play a little footie in no-man’s land.

Any of this will do becaue if any of what Mr. Jochmans says is true – this could lead to that better future.

And if he is wrong then at least we go out with some dignity and not as a snarling rabble of discontent.

I suppose it is a choice and what better time to make a good one than Christmas – whatever it means to you!

Nollaig Shona Duit.

Christmas – a time for family – whatever family means.

Christmas is a time of mixed emotions; a time of largesse and extravaganza but also a time tinged with sorrow of Christmases past. As a child I didn’t know this and could only look forward as the day drew near and the mountain of presents grew beneath the tree. “Can we not just open one now?”

“No, they won’t let us, we have to wait ‘til Christmas Eve.”

But as the Christmases piled up I noticed something else. After dinner my brothers would gather the dishes from the table to the kitchen. There, organized, we all pitched in. We would work together and pretend that we didn’t enjoy it. It was not for us to say how much we loved each other and how much we meant to each other. That type of talk was only acceptable with drink taken. So we told each other by the delight we took from doing things together even if we grumbled throughout.

“Get your arse in gear and get those dishes clean.”

“Would ever go and shite!”

“Shite! Is that how you talk at Christmas?”

“He talks shite all the whole year.”

“What are you little gob-shites laughing at?”

“Leave them alone, will ya? Let them have Christmas – the auld fella will spoil it soon enough.”

“Is he still sleeping?”

“Yes, thank Christ, let him sleep ‘til tomorrow and we can all enjoy the day.”

Being the smallest and the least useful I was given the simplest of tasks and received wondrous praise. I belonged to a family, even if only on days like these.

“Good man, Peter, you’re after doing the work of an army – an Irish Army.”

“He did fuck-all.”

“Shut your mouth you or I’ll . . .”

One year, while they were busy repairing the ties that bound them all together, I slipped away un-noticed. I went back into the living room. It was darkening but the firelight danced against the walls and the lights on the tree sparkled. My mother sat and stared into the memories that flickered among the glowing embers and dark caverns of the coal fire. She was smoking and crying and didn’t notice my small shadow as I flitted around the edge of the room.

Back then I couldn’t understand why anyone would cry at Christmas because I had neither regrets nor remorse. Christmas was the purity of love risen like a ghost to banish all sadness.

My mother turned to answer my question and smiled at me.

“My mother died on Christmas Eve”, she said in that voice she used to tell children to mind their own business. I never asked again and in the following years I stayed with my brothers and let her alone with her sadness. It was the last Christmas of innocence and I had started down the road away from childhood.

And there was the year when my father came home less drunk than he might have been and went into the attic to check on the chimney fire.

“Bartley! Be careful now, you’re not as young as you used to be.”

“Erra Christ, woman, do you not think that I can manage?”

“Bartley,” my grandfather cautioned, “we could ask one of the lads. Sean? Would you ever go up and have a look?”

“Erra Jasus, Am I not man enough to do a man’s job?”

All it took was one misplaced step and we had a new memory of Christmas. His booted foot broke through the plastered ceiling and dangled into one of the bedrooms.

“Oh! Look,” Dick said to the foot protruding from the ceiling, “it’s Santa Claus.”

Christmas became a continuum and over the years I measured myself by them. In the early ones I had a mountain of presents to build a wall between my happiness and what was going on around me. My family knew this, as their generosity was enough that it has stayed with me through all the years in between. Many of my early years were difficult times for my family but they always found a way to offer me some shelter until I was too big to hide.

Sometimes my father couldn’t work but most of the time his money never made it to our house. It was given to publicans. But in those years there were family concerts when those of us who could play instruments did and others sang and my mother would dance a jig. She was so light on her feet.

I doubt the music was good but to us, then, there was nothing better. For one evening we lived in such excess and in defiance of the world and all of the terrible things that happened in it. Despite dysfunction and disharmony we sang away the heartaches and the tears. We forgave each other every little thing that had happened in the year and were one in this communion of compassion. The coal fire blazed late into the night but we would not retire. We would wring every moment of pleasure from the day in the glorious unification of family and were more content than at any other time. And when we sang Silent Night we sanctified our cause with an affiliation with the godchild.

Silent night

Holy night

All is calm, all is bright.

On Christmas Night we could take a break from our wars. We could meet in the open spaces between our competing personalities and for a while, forget the pain we caused each other. We shared the bounty of Christmas and the largesse of the goodwill it inspired. And, when we felt the loneliness and separation that accompanies feelings of good, we clung to each other for comfort and assuredness that we would survive. Like snow, a peace would settle on all of our lives. For one evening we could share the humanity and love that often eluded us.

So if most of my earliest memories are of grey days and black and white photographs then Christmas was that splash of colour. The Red of Holy Berries; of Blood and Wine spilled in sacrifice and in carelessness; anger and rage; and the Green of Christmas Trees, the colour of the world outside in the cold damp rain.

Happy Holiday Season?

What the Hell are you supposed to call the damned thing now with people going around forcing the word ‘Holiday’ instead of our all of exclusive, term-laden, insensitive labels that we drag from the murky depths of our empiric, exclusive, bigoted, xenophobic Eurocentric traditions?

I’m okay with Christmas being called Christmas even though it might be more accurate to call it ‘Saturnalia’, or ‘Yule’ or whatever the ancient Celts called the Winter Solstice when the decline of the Sun was reversed – even though celebrating it in December is definitely exclusive to the Northern Hemisphere.

But I also have learned that those who are different to me have celebrations at this time of the year too.

There’s a very interesting list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winter_festivals.

Perhaps in the Spirit of Christmas I might find the time to learn a little more about them (– and that’s the audience participation part. Let me know what you are celebrating.)

Because of my culture I know more about Christmas and I do like to stop and think how it all came about. The days of Saturnalia were days without fear of censor by law and courts were closed. I believe that it was a socially recognised as a time to blow off a little steam – like after losing a battle to the Carthaginians. And, like all good pagan festivals – it ended with human sacrifice to appease the Gods or to pay for sins – not unlike when the bills arrive in January! The same excess echoes in so many Christmases when over-indulgence cause tears, fears or worse.

The Nords had a Yule celebration and with it; snow tipped coniferous trees and a benevolent visitor from the North. Throw in a few Celtic touches like Mistletoe and Holly and we can all feel cosy by the fire! Though I am sure that the Celtic tradition of a laden table was humour that if the sun did finally vanish over the horizon – never to return – at least they could go out on a high note.

Christmas, as the Christians observe, was the result of negotiation between the Pagans of Rome and the recently established Hierarchy. With Saturnalia sanitized Christianity spread north and assimilated the other traditions. What resulted is one of those times when souls are etched with the deepest memories and some of those are amongst the happiest we get to have. And while it is also the time when disparity is most obvious, along with alienation and aloneness; the amalgamated spirit of all of the fore-mentioned traditions has often inspired acts of kindness that are normally beyond us.

That is what I am talking about when I wish someone a ‘Merry Christmas’ and I am not offended when they respond with ‘Happy Holidays’, ‘Happy Hanukkah’, ‘Happy Kwanzaa’ or any other celebration of humanity. I am okay with it all because I am sure that each festival is as sacred, or cursed, as the other and I am sure there is an element in each that would encourage us to reach out and, for just a little while, all play nice together.

So, please, have a very happy Holiday Season no matter which foot, or hand, you kick with!