Catch a(n Amazon) Rising Star and Put it in You Pocket...

Now that Declan Burke has put the Crime Always Pays blog out to stud, someone has to come up with cheesy puns for blog titles. It might as well be me.

Anyway, it's been a while - just over three weeks, in fact - and a busy three weeks it has been. Most of my time has been taken up by finishing the sequel to THE TWELVE (a.k.a. THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST), and giving it a very quick spit and polish before sending it to my agent, and a couple of critique angels. Now I am filled with dread, wondering what my agent Nat is going to think of it. Nat Sobel does not mince words, so I am bracing myself.

There has also been a rather splendid development, which I would like to illustrate with the following image:


THE TWELVE has been selected by Amazon UK's reading panel as one its eight Rising Stars for autumn 2009. Once every six months or so, Amazon chooses eight debut novels as part of the Rising Stars initiative to highlight new authors. I am delighted to be one of them. And there's more - at the end of the promotion, whichever book has the most good reviews will be deemed the winner! So, if you've read THE TWELVE, please do me a solid, and click here right now to see my Amazon page and submit your review. And as an extra favour, you could spread the word and encourage other people you know have read it to do the same. My book is the first to be featured, and the page includes a brief Q&A with yours truly.

In other news

More press reviews of THE TWELVE have been coming in, including the Sunday Tribune who said it was "A stunning first novel", while London Lite said it was "an unqualified triumph."

It may have escaped your attention, but the USA publication of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is fast creeping up. I've temporarily taken down the dedicated website for it with a view to revamping it in the coming days. I will have much more to say about that in the coming weeks, including getting all gushy and excited about the accompanying American tour where I will cross the entire continent just a few days, and meet lots of people I've been dying to meet for ages, including a certain Betsy Dornbusch, and hopefully Aerin Bender-Stone. Which is nice.

I'll make another blog post next week in which I will officially reveal a very poorly kept secret about an event in Belfast this coming November...

Launch Night

I promised a proper report on Friday's joint launch with John Connolly at No Alibis in Belfast, and I'm going to do my best to summarise things here. It might be a bit ramshackle, but two days on my memory is a little hazy. There was so much happening, so many people I met, that I'm now struggling a little to keep it all straight.

Anyway, I arrived at Belfast's famous Europa Hotel (the world's most bombed hotel, fact fans) about an hour or so before heading to No Alibis, which is about ten minutes walk away on Botanic Avenue. I got myself all dressed up and headed off. It was a warm evening, so I had a good idea things were going to get sweaty. David Torrans had told me to expect a large crowd, and No Alibis isn't the biggest shop in the world.

I arrived at No Alibis a little less than an hour before kick off to find David and his crew getting the place ready for the event. David has designed his shop very cleverly in that all the book cases are on wheels and can be pushed out of the way to open up the entire shop floor for seating. In addition, a newly constructed stage was positioned half way down the venue, allowing people to sit around it, rather than just in front of it. See, this is why David Torrans is well known for hosting the best author events around.

My PR, Hilary Knight, arrived shortly after, along with her husband Michael who was taking photos for local papers. Gerard Brennan was also an early bird, and I managed to capture him on video (see below). Things started to get a bit hectic as the venue rapidly filled up, and a photographer from Ulster Tatler magazine snapped the comings and goings, including me with my mum, some old friends of mine, and author Brian McGilloway. John Connolly arrived fashionably late, but redeemed himself by bringing the beers.

The event itself went brilliantly. Of course, it was really John's reading, and I was the support act, but Mr. Connolly was very generous in introducing me and allowing me time to read and involving me in discussions. If you ever get the chance to attend a John Connolly reading, then you should most definitely go; John is a great entertainer, and his readings are a lesson in delivery, plus his wit and skill as a speaker make the whole thing an enjoyable experience. It would be fair to say John carried my sorry arse for the evening, and I deeply appreciate it.

As it turned out, this was the biggest ever turnout for an in-store event at No Alibis, with just over a hundred people in attendance. This was more to do with John's presence than mine, but I'm not complaining. We sold a load of books, and I lost count of how many I signed. I met loads of nice people from as far away as Texas and Los Angeles, as well as old friends I hadn't seen in years, and a lovely couple who used to live across the road from my mum - I was particularly touched that they made the effort to come.

Afterwards, it was off for a drink with John Connolly, David Torrans, Brian McGilloway and some of the crew who'd helped out. You really couldn't ask for better company over a pint or three. All in all, it was a great night, and I must express my deepest gratitude to David Torrans for organising such a wonderful event, John Connolly for his continued generosity, and everyone who turned up - particularly those who bought my book.

I'm hoping to have a video diary of the day put together some time this week, and also some photos from David, so stay tuned.

In Other News...

A very nice review appeared at the Shots Magazine website over the weekend, and Publishers Weekly named THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (aka THE TWELVE) as one of the top Fall debuts. What's also notable about the PW feature is that my agent represents not only one author on that list, and not two, but THREE books selected by PW out of the hundreds of debuts to be published in the USA this fall, the other two being Eugenia Kim and Lou Manfredo. This is why Nat Sobel is a legend in the publishing business.

200th Post: Extended Review of BLOOD'S A ROVER by James Ellroy

To celebrate my 200th missive to the blogosphere, I hereby bring you my expanded review of the new James Ellroy novel, BLOOD'S A ROVER. This appeared in a shorter form over at Gerard Brennan's Crime Scene NI blog, but for anyone who wants a more in-depth preview of this book, read on. Due to its length, this piece has been formatted via CSS voodoo for easier reading. Special thanks must go to my agent Nat Sobel for sending me my advance copy of this fine novel.

BLOOD'S A ROVER by James Ellroy: Extended Review by Stuart Neville

After eight long years, James Ellroy finally brings us the conclusion to the American Underworld Trilogy, and his most personal novel since his 1987 breakout, THE BLACK DAHLIA. BLOOD'S A ROVER fulfils yet confounds every expectation.

The novel takes its title from the A.E. Housman poem, 'Reveille'. The couplet in question reads: "Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; Breath's a ware that will not keep." The imagery of the title implies the scope of these 600-plus pages of conspiracy, violence and obsession that traverse all levels of political society, as well as the book's many geographical settings. But the wider theme of Housman's poem -- the brevity of life, and the imperative to live it well and fully -- perhaps gives a better clue to the soul of the novel.

Following a brief prologue that drops the reader into the middle of a bloody armoured car heist in 1964, the novel-proper begins its four-year journey in 1968 by introducing Ellroy's triad of protagonists. Cop-turned-narco-chemist Wayne Tedrow Junior is back, older and more battle-hardened than when we last saw him spattered with the blood of history in THE COLD SIX THOUSAND. FBI heavyweight Dwight Holly is promoted from supporting player to centre stage as he works for and against a fading J. Edgar Hoover and his nefarious schemes. And there's a new face: Donald 'Crutch' Crutchfield, a young would-be private investigator who stumbles, begs and blackmails his way into the murky waters of Ellroy's American nightmare. Of course, we also have the all-star cast of historical figures that is a signature of the American Underworld Trilogy. We have Hoover in physical and mental decline, Howard Hughes at rock bottom, Richard Nixon on the ascendant, and any number of political and showbiz players of the time. As with the previous entries in the trilogy that began with AMERICAN TABLOID, the historical figures are shown no pity as the author delights in dragging them through his mire.

The plot is a classic Ellroy labyrinth: the Mob attempts to create a new Havana in the Dominican Republic; Hoover and the FBI set out to bring down the Black Power movement; a dismembered body in an abandoned house is connected to bad voodoo in Haiti by a trail of hijacked emeralds. These seemingly disparate stories overlap and intertwine to form a dense, propulsive narrative that has one constant: a woman named Joan Klein, political agitator and object of obsession for all three protagonists.

So far, so Ellroy, you might think. Yes, all the Ellroy trademarks are present and accounted for. Three-headed point-of-view? Check. Document inserts to fill in the blanks? Check. Borderline oedipal fixations on women? Check. Dirty cops, dirtier politicians, brutal violence, booze, drugs, guns, snappy chapters, fragmented prose, startling imagery, it's all there. But what surprises the reader, what sneaks up and beats us around the head with a leather sap, is that Ellroy takes everything we expect from him and turns it on its head. He takes his time, allowing us the comfort of his familiar structures and stylistic tics, then in one shocking revelation after another we realise that nothing in this story can be taken on face value, not even the narrative itself. When the author takes our expectations and uses them against us, it is virtuoso stuff, the work of a master.

And here's the biggest revelation of all: prepare to forget everything you think you know about James Ellroy's politics. Those ugly facets of the macho persona he writes so well -- the racism, misogyny and homophobia -- might well have led you to believe Ellroy is so right-wing he makes George W. Bush look like a pinko. And that's apparently what he wants us to think; he wilfully plays up to that reputation, describing his own views on his Facebook page as "reactionary". But if a novel can give an insight into a writer's true nature, then BLOOD'S A ROVER belies that public image. In these pages, Ellroy mercilessly examines the cost of fascism to man and society. He shows us the broken lives left in the wake of government agencies acting outside their own laws to crush those who oppose them, and the terrible price the men who misuse power must pay for their crimes. That's not to say Ellroy has gone red on us; the far left is treated with equal disdain as his fictional ideologues ultimately prove to be as misguided and self-serving as their real-world counterparts. Taking in the overall arc of the trilogy, the true message becomes clear: those who abuse power to serve their own political and personal agendas at the cost of society will suffer for their sins, whether they lean to the left or the right.

James Ellroy's deconstruction of post-war American history is at its very core a political statement covering a total of around 1800 pages over three books. Many won't like what he has to say about the country's not-so-distant past, and by association its present and future. By forcing us to look again at events and personalities we thought we knew, even if it is in the guise of fiction, Ellroy also makes us look at the world we live in today with a questioning eye. The symbolism of the gemstones that reappear throughout the novel crystallises when a Haitian character explains: "Emeralds represent 'Green Fire' in voodoo text. They shine light on a dark history."

The ferocious polemic of BLOOD'S A ROVER would not have a fraction of its impact if it were not balanced by its surprising humanity. The character Don 'Crutch' Crutchfield is ostensibly based on a real-life private eye who still operates today, but the depiction on the page is closer to Ellroy's own confessions of a misspent youth. Crutch is a voyeur, a degenerate who spies on women, tails them, and breaks into their homes. His private eye gig provides a means to scratch this itch. Ellroy has spoken openly about his early days and the unsavoury pastimes he indulged in. Crutch becomes an avatar for the author's younger self, revealing more of Ellroy than any fiction he's written since he confronted his own mother's brutal murder in THE BLACK DAHLIA.

Wayne Tedrow Junior, a naïve sheriff's deputy when we first met him in Dallas at the time of Kennedy's assassination, has become a shell of a man, hollowed out by the horrors to which he has been privy. The metaphor of zombification as he is seduced by the voodoo lure of Haiti is apt. The chance of forgiveness from a woman who should hate him, but instead takes him as her lover, drives him to forsake everything he has stood for until now.

In the character of Dwight Holly, J. Edgar Hoover's pet thug, Ellroy explores most deeply the human cost of violence. At the core of Holly's journey is a love affair that is, uniquely in Ellroy's world, not based on obsession or expediency. It is a real honest-to-God relationship that offers hope of redemption, albeit tainted by the duplicity Ellroy seeks in all things.

The female characters in BLOOD'S A ROVER stand in contrast to those who populated his earlier works. They are more than objects of desire; they are not there simply to frustrate, entrap and betray the male protagonists, or serve as surrogates for whatever ghosts haunt the author. There are aspects we can recognise: some are older than the men who desire them, filling the oedipal role; one carries a scar, continuing the tendency for Ellroy's women to be physically or emotionally marked. But their characterisation and roles in the story carry more weight than we have ever seen from Ellroy in the past, particularly the Red Goddess Joan. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that shortly after completing BLOOD'S A ROVER, the author turned in a memoir called THE HILLIKER CURSE that deals with his relationships with the women in his life. One gets the impression Ellroy has worked out some inner turmoil that is reflected in these pages, and the novel is all the richer for it.

The meaning of Housman's poem, that man must not waste his life, begins to resonate as the protagonists strive for atonement against desperate odds. This emotional maturity gives BLOOD'S A ROVER a beating, bleeding heart that arguably no other novel in James Ellroy's oeuvre has had before. And that heart is what makes it all so visceral, beautiful and horrific. BLOOD'S A ROVER is everything and nothing you wanted it to be, and the trilogy as a whole must be considered a landmark in American literature. Simply staggering.

Friday Night in Belfast: Good Times at No Alibis

Friday night past was one of the best evenings I've had for a very long time. Due to a string of coincidences and a special alignment of the planets, my agent Nat Sobel and his lovely wife Judith Weber happened to be in Belfast on the same day that Colin Bateman launched his latest novel, MYSTERY MAN, at No Alibis on Botanic Avenue. Nat and Judith had been touring Ireland for most of the previous two weeks, driving almost the entirety of its coastline from Dublin to the south, then up the west coast to the north. Unfortunately it rained constantly, but again due to sheer blind luck, the skies cleared for their visit to Belfast.

I met Nat and Judith at the Crown Liquor Saloon, opposite the Europa Hotel (Europe's most bombed hotel, fact fans) on Great Victoria Street. The Crown is a Belfast landmark and a must-see for anyone visiting the city, and after a quick drink there we strolled towards Botanic Avenue and No Alibis while we talked about the city and its recent history.

We were welcomed at No Alibis by its excellent proprietor, David Torrans, and the man himself, Colin Bateman. This was the first time Colin and I had met in person, and I'm happy to report he's a thoroughly nice chap, even if he has an irrational aversion to jazz. The reading was a resounding success with the shop filled to bursting. And who says humour doesn't travel? Nat and Judith, both native New Yorkers, just about bust a gut laughing with the rest of us at Colin's unique brand of Ulster comedy. Comedy is, of course, one of the hardest things to pull off in a novel, but Mr. Bateman showed us all how it was done, and his delivery in front of an audience is something to behold if you ever get the chance. Although Colin Bateman is easily Northern Ireland's most successful novelist, and he's a big name throughout Europe, his profile in the USA isn't high. With MYSTERY MAN being picked up by Richard & Judy for the summer season, I think that could be about to change; my American friends, keep your eye out for this book.

Another coincidence is that Mystery Man is in fact set in a crime bookshop on Botanic Avenue called No Alibis. David Torrans is absolutely insistent that the novel's narrator is not him. Regardless, I know David and his fantastic independent bookshop left a big impression on Nat and Judith, especially the great success he'd made of the reading. Nat was truly delighted to see not only an independent bookshop thriving in such turbulent times, but also the great support of the people of Belfast. He positively marveled at the turnout, and the queues of fans waiting for Mr. Bateman to sign their books. So well done to David Torrans and all at No Alibis - it takes some doing to wow a hardened publishing veteran like Nat Sobel, but you certainly did it. Roll on the 15th of May when American thriller scribe Michael Connelly comes to town, which will be another triumph for David.

After the event, Nat and Judith departed for their hotel. I stayed on at No Alibis to get a pint and a catch-up with the man behind Crime Scene NI, Gerard Brennan. To my delight it turned out that John Connolly also happened to be in the audience, so the evening wound up with John, Colin, Gerard, David and I heading out for dinner and drinks. Good food, good beer and good company; our conversation was polite and wholesome and involved absolutely no dirty jokes or swearing. Honest. *cough*

And finally...

I'm just a couple of entries away from my 200th blog post and I'd like to make it a special occasion. As I've previously posted, I have in my possession an advance copy of James Ellroy's latest, BLOOD'S A ROVER. So for my 200th post, I'm going to write a special essay about the new book (over and above a straight review, which I hope to supply to the aforementioned Gerard Brennan when I've finished reading it). What I will say for now is that Blood's a Rover is a most surprising novel. I had wondered if it would be closer in style to AMERICAN TABLOID or THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, and on first impression it was the former. But as I sink deeper into Ellroy's intoxicating murk, I'm beginning to realise it's like neither. It marks a departure for Ellroy in many ways, but the greatest is its tenderness; don't worry, Ellroy hasn't gone soppy on us, but where I am now in the book, it's exhibiting something his previous works could be described as lacking: a human heart.

Oh, and here's little tidbit for Ellroy fans: after the upcoming memoir focusing on Ellroy's relationships with women (apparently turned in hot on the heels of BLOOD'S A ROVER), his next work of fiction will travel back in time to 1948 Los Angeles and feature a certain Irish cop who loomed large over THE BIG NOWHERE, LA CONFIDENTIAL and WHITE JAZZ...

Blood's a Rover by James Ellroy: Perks of the Job

There are many, many perks to having Nat Sobel as your agent. Here's one of them:



My doorbell rang at 8:30 this morning, and it being a Saturday, I was a little discombobulated. I woke up pretty sharpish when I found this baby on my doorstep. Apart from the early hour, the timing is perfect. I'm just finishing up John Ajvide Lindqvist's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (which, by the way, is the best vampire novel since Bram Stoker's DRACULA). So, I will be cracking open Ellroy's long awaited conclusion to the Underworld USA trilogy some time this weekend, and I can't wait. I have been told that BLOOD'S A ROVER is a masterpiece.

I shall blog about it when I'm done (fancy a review, Mr Brennan?), though that might be a week or two. I am a tortuously slow reader; Ellroy's isn't the easiest writing to chew and digest, and this is a pretty hefty chunk of book at more than 640 pages. I have leafed through, and from the odd sentence that I've read, it seems closer in style to AMERICAN TABLOID than THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, but that's only a first impression. Oh, and the first section of the book is titled "CLUSTER FUCK".

This is going to be good.

The Ghosts of Belfast to be Published in the USA by Soho Press

I'm delighted to report that THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST will be published in the USA by Soho Press, the independent New York house. Laura Hruska acquired it as part of a two-book deal from my ever-excellent agent Nat Sobel, and the book has found a wonderful home. Soho Press publish a range of literary and crime fiction, often set in foreign locales, and quite a few UK authors pitch their American tents there.

I'm particularly excited to receive this news among the doom and gloom currently shrouding the publishing industry. This report at TheBookseller.com was especially discouraging. It's good to know there are still publishers like Soho Press, and indeed Harvill Secker in the UK, who are willing to take a chance on a new author even in these uncertain times.

I'm told I'll have a cover design for the UK edition very soon, and when it appears I'll share it here along with some breaking news...

BLOOD'S A ROVER by James Ellroy: Looks like it'll be worth the wait

A blurb has appeared over at the Sobel Weber Associates website about the long-awaited conclusion to James Ellroy's American Underworld trilogy, BLOOD'S A ROVER. I, and I know many others, can't wait to get my hands on this book. It's looking like it'll appear in Autumn 2009, so only another year to go.

Details on the novel's protagonists are sketchy (two rogue cops and a kid private eye are mentioned), but there are a few tidbits about plot and settings. We've got the FBI infiltrating black power militants, the Mob having a crack at the Dominican Republic, and "voodoo vibe in Haiti", which apparently "be bad gre-gre". Howard Hughes and J. Edgar Hoover will also reprise their roles as pervasive tumours in American society.

Nat Sobel was telling me a little about the book the other day (one of many perks of having such an excellent agent). Now, in my experience, Nat is never prone to excessive enthusiasm or hyperbole, but he is very excited about BLOOD'S A ROVER. He reckons it's Ellroy's best work to date. The word "masterpiece" was used, in fact. Make of that what you will. Personally, I can't wait.

PS: If you check the Sobel Weber home page, you'll see my ugly mug a couple down from the great man himself. I can't tell you how surreal that feels. Check out the other two featured books, too. THE FALCON'S TALE looks intriguing, and the massive movie deal is hardly surprising given the premise. And SNOW ANGELS looks like another breakthrough for Scandinavian crime fiction, which has seen such success with the likes of Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell.

My Take on American Tabloid

Further to yesterday's post, I've been bumped up the queue in Moonrat's Celebrate Reading series, and my article on American Tabloid by James Ellroy can be found there now. As part of the piece, my agent Nat Sobel kindly agreed to answer a few questions about working on the book with Ellroy, and he also shared a couple of tidbits on the third in the trilogy, Blood's a Rover, and the author's future plans.

Thanks to Nat for taking the time to answer my question, and to Moonrat for letting me post the article.

Opportunity Knocks: How Nat Sobel Became my Agent

As promised, here's the story of how I managed to get one of the most respected literary agents in the business without sending a query. I didn't realise how long this would be when I started writing it an hour ago, but I've wanted to post about the experience for so long, you're getting a great big burp of it in one go.

Exactly a year ago I was writing the third act of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST's first draft, then titled FOLLOWERS. If you use the menu on the left, you can even read my journal of the process, along with some other nonsense. At around the same time, I sold my first short story, and my beloved Northern Ireland formed a proper government. In the blog, I wondered if it would stick - it did.

I finished that draft the following June, and did a couple of quick revisions before sending it off to my kind beta readers (waves at Bets and McK).

While they were hacking it to pieces, the novel's protagonist Gerry Fegan kept nagging me, wanting to come out and play again. Just for a little while. As with the novel, I woke from a dream one night with the story in my head. I grabbed the PDA by my bed, started tapping away with my stylus, and knocked out a short story over the next couple of days. I called it THE LAST DANCE, and posted it over at Elektra's Crapometer (which seems sadly neglected these days). It got a mixed reception, from the negative, to "meh", to glowing praise.

I got the notes back from the critiques. A couple more revisions took until the end of August, then the dreaded synopsis needed doing. I never queried very widely on this novel - I'd say half a dozen at most. I'm not sure why. Largely, I think it was because I knew this book needed not just an agent, but exactly the right agent. You see, it's a dark, dark novel with about as troubled a protagonist as you're likely to come across. It's violent, visceral and foul-mouthed. Clearly, this wasn't going to be every agent's cup of tea, and I needed someone who knew how to sell a dark thriller.

We're often told to look up the agents who rep our influences, so because James Ellroy is one of my favourite writers, and one I know I've been shaped by, I found my way to the Sobel Weber Associates website. But I looked at that client list, and thought, woah, way out of my league.

So, still wondering who to turn to, I started other projects (I've got a hard drive full of first chapters here), including submitting a couple of the short stories I had knocking around my computer. One of those was THE LAST DANCE, which I submitted to Thuglit. Lo and behold, on my birthday (was that a portent?) I got an email from Lady Detroit telling me I'd be in the next issue. Cool. So, the story appeared at the end of February. I updated my website, got a few shout outs from other writers, felt pleased with myself, and got back to a particularly busy time at work.

On March 10th, as was normal at the time, I was working late at my office. I casually checked my personal email, and there was a message from a Nat Sobel. The name was familiar, but it didn't click just yet. I read the message, and I remember certain words popping out: "I read your story … literary agent … Followers … interested in reading the work … James Ellroy … Joseph Wambaugh."

*Nat, if you're reading this, I'd ask you to skip the next few paragraphs as I fear it might diminish the cool and professional demeanour I've presented you with so far*

I've quipped to various friends that I fell off my chair, but it's not far from the truth. I had to read the email several times to get it to sink in. I spent about an hour pacing, re-reading it, hyper-ventilating, and Googling Nat Sobel. Turns out his favourite way of finding new writers is through short story publications. He found Richard Russo and FX Toole that way. Hmm, thinks I. So much for query letters and slush piles.

So, I sent off a partial, fully expecting Nat to reject it. To my shock and delight, he expressed some reservations, but requested the full (and in record time). I duly sent it off, again fully expecting Nat to realise it was all a terrible mistake, and reply with a thanks, but no thanks. Instead, and again to my amazement, he came back in less than 48 hours and said, given some substantial revision, he would like to represent me.

At this point, I felt a mixture of excitement and terror I've never experienced before. On the one hand, here was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to snag one of the industry's best agents, and on the other, a chance to blow that opportunity. I don't mind admitting, I was scared. Thankfully, I had some great friends to turn to for support and encouragement (including talking me down from a fit of madness that almost saw me stripping out the novel's central premise), and I can't thank them enough.

So, this is the reason I dropped off the radar around mid March. The revision took the guts of two months, and throughout the process Nat was available for advice, and the occasional stern warning that the results better be good. Working under Nat's guidance has been one of the greatest learning experiences of my life, and as the local saying goes, he is a gentleman and a scholar. What's more, even as I worked on it, I could see how much better, bigger, and deeper Nat's input was making the book.

Three critiques from my blogging friends and another bit of polishing later, the manuscript was turned over to Nat. Cue exactly one sleepless night. Less than 48 hours later, I have one of the most respected publishing professionals in the world representing my book. How does that feel? Strange, and scary, but terrific.

Now things are moving fast. I already have a holding page up at www.theghostsofbelfast.com, and more revisions and general business to do, so it'll be a hectic few weeks. Once again, I want to thank all my blogging friends for your encouragement and support, not just in recent weeks, but throughout my brief writing career. I would never have gotten this far without you. And thanks to everyone who has stopped by to congratulate me, I'll be visiting you all in the coming days.

There'll be a few more blog posts in the near future, if I have time, where I will pontificate on the importance of short stories, my view on finding an agent that "fits", and how absolutely essential getting good critique is. Thanks for reading. :)

Introducing my agent, Nat Sobel

I am thrilled to announce that I'm now represented by literary agent Nat Sobel of Sobel Weber Associates, New York. Nat Sobel is one of the longest established and most respected agents in the business, and his clients include: James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia, American Tabloid), Joseph Wambaugh (The Choirboys, The Onion Field, Hollywood Station), Pulitzer winner Richard Russo (Nobody's Fool, Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs), F.X. Toole (Rope Burns - adapted for the screen as the multi Oscar winning Million Dollar Baby - and Pound for Pound), Robert Jordan (the Wheel of Time series), Tim Dorsey (the Serge Storms series), and many more.

If you'd like to know more about Nat, check out the Sobel Weber Associates website. You can also read an excellent in depth interview that recently appeared at the Poets & Writers website.

There a few blogging friends I must thank for their support over recent weeks:

Sex Scenes at Starbucks - Betsy, without your encouragement and belief, THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST (like the new title?) would never have been written, and your recent support has been above and beyond the call of duty.

McKoala - From the first draft, through to the latest, your insights have been invaluable.

Josephine Damian - Where would I be without your tough-love critique and booty shakes?

And also, a shout out to Moonrat, whose advice came at just the right time.

How Nat came to be my agent is a story in itself, and I'll post about it in the next day or two (clue: it wasn't through the slush pile). Stay tuned...