Behind the Bestseller HeadStuff Podcasts

Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards, ER Murray is the  author of the One Book One City Dublin City Read The Book of Learning, the first in her Nine Lives Trilogy.  


Elizabeth Rose Murray, represented by Sallyanne Sweeney of Mulcahy Associate, London now lives in West Cork where she fishes, grows her own vegetables and enjoys plenty of outdoor adventures. Originally from a working class British family, where writing as a career wasn’t even an option, Elizabeth has created her own opportunities and draws on her childhood experiences of rejection in her writing. A traveller by nature she has worked as a writer in residence in some of the most exotic and remotest places in the world.
 
Elizabeth writes novels for children and young adults as well as short fiction and personal essays. Her books include The Book of Learning – Nine Lives Trilogy 1 (2016 Dublin UNESCO Citywide Read for Children.), The Book of Shadows – Nine Lives Trilogy 2 (shortlisted 2016 Irish Book Awards and 2016 Irish Literacy Association Award), The Book of Revenge – Nine Lives Trilogy 3 (Feb 2018) and Caramel Hearts (May 2016).
 
She also has short fiction and essays published in reputable journals across Ireland, the UK, US and Australia, and has been shortlisted for several notable competitions including Francis McManus and Aesthetica Creative Works. Recent anthology publications include The Elysian: Creative Responses (New Binary Press), Reading the Future (Arlen House) and Autonomy (New Binary Press).
 
In 2012, Elizabeth performed in Ciudades Paralelas: Station – a live writing installation at the Cork Midsummer Festival – and in 2017 she co-created Things That Go Bump in the Night, a gothic storytelling event for children, with author, Caroline Busher.  She is currently working on a performance project that fuses fiction and music.
Keen to encourage new and emerging writers, Elizabeth regularly facilitates workshops for both adults and children. She also provides manuscript reports and online workshops for Big Smoke Writing Factory and Inkwell Group, and is the social media machine for writing.ie.


You can find out more about or chat to Elizabeth via twitter @ERMurray, facebook or instagram.

International bestseller Carmel Harrington writes issue-driven popular fiction and is the author of Cold Feet The Lost Years, which accompanies the ITV series. 



Carmel's uplifting and inspiring books have all been regular chart-toppers, and have captured the hearts of readers worldwide - she is translated into eight languages to date, in eleven territories. Published by Harper Collins, her books have been described by the Daily Mail as ‘beautifully written, emotionally intelligent and moving in the extreme.’ 




My Pear-Shaped Life was published in Ireland, UK, Australia, New Zealand and US in April 2020, and is a joyful, uplifting book for those of us who sometimes wake up & feel we’re not good enough. Spoiler alert: we are!



Sam Blake delves into Carmel's fascinating process, how she finds her characters and how she develops them, coming up with plots that will make you laugh and also make you cry, as well as getting her top tips for writing a bestseller.

Behind the Bestseller is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network

Theme Music by Tim Nerney 

Jane Casey is one of the strongest voices and most successful voices in Irish crime fiction - living in London but Irish to the core, she straddles both countries perfectly, bringing a gritty realism and authenticity to her character DS Maeve Kerrigan.  Married to a criminal barrister, who also works as a Sepcial Constable with the Metropolitan Police, she has a unique insight into the brutal underbelly of urban life, from the smell of a police cell to the darkest motives of a serial killer. Her books are addictive international bestsellers and critical successes.

Jane's novel 'The Stranger You Know' won the Mary Higgins Clark Award in the US and she has also been shortlisted for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year Award four times as well as the CWA Dagger in the Library Award.  Her ninth police procedural , The Cutting Place is out now and has been acclaimed as her best yet, but where does she get her ideas from and how important it the chemistry between her characters? With Sam Blake in Dublin and Jane Casey in London mid lockdown, find out Jane Casey's tips to apply to your own bestseller.

Behind the Bestseller is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network

Theme Music by Tim Nerney   

Research is one of the keys to Alex Barclay’s incredible success, with ideas developing from chance conversations with experts. Sam Blake quizzes her on her unique process, character building and how she tackled her first stand alone. Finding out how she writes and why isolation is so important to her, 


Alex Barclay is a former Irish journalist turned crime writer who was the first Irish female crime writer to get a significant deal that spawned No 1 bestsellers in multiple territories, with her debut novel Darkhouse. Darkhouse was the first of two novels featuring NYPD detective Joe Lucchesi. The book, set in Texas, New York and County Waterford, achieved strong reviews and was translated into 18 languages.


After two novels in the Joe Lucchesi series, Barclay created Ren Bryce series, a bipolar FBI detective who took her through six more books. She has also branched out into YA fantasy and more recently has written the standalone I Confess plus a new YA novel.


Barclay studied journalism with French at Dublin City University, graduating in 1996. Her course included a period of study in France, at Nanterre University in Paris, when she lived and worked part-time. Subsequently she also trained at the Gaiety School of Acting, afterwards appearing, for example, on television with Podge and Rodge. Barclay worked for magazines including U Magazine and the RTE Guide before turning to crime writing.

Behind the Bestseller is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network

Theme Music by Tim Nerney  

Being taken on by a high profile literary agency should have been the start of Hazel Gaynor’s career, but unfortunately they couldn’t place her Titanic novel The Girl Who Came Home. With the Titanic anniversary rapidly approaching, Hazel decided to self publish and opened the door to the career as an international bestseller. Drilling into how Hazel achieved this, Sam Blake discusses how she created her own opportunities and the bestselling books that followed it. Delving into how much research goes into bestselling historical fiction, creating unforgettable characters and the incredible buzz when a celebrity tweets about your work, Sam Blake quizzes Hazel on the keys to her success.


Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning, New York Times, USA Today and Irish Times bestselling historical novelist. Her 2014 debut novel The Girl Who Came Home—A Novel of the Titanic hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, and went on to win the 2015 Historical Novel of the Year award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Her second novel A Memory of Violets, was also a New York Times bestseller, and her third, The Girl from The Savoy was an Irish Times and Globe & Mail bestseller, and a finalist for the 2016 Irish Book Awards. Her 2017 release The Cottingley Secret hit the Globe & Mail and USA Today bestseller lists. Last Christmas in Paris (co-written with Heather Webb) was also a Globe & Mail bestseller, and won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award.
Hazel’s 2018 release The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, inspired by true events surrounding the life of Victorian lighthouse keeper, Grace Darling, was a top 10 Irish Times bestseller for five consecutive weeks.
Summer 2019 will see the publication of Meet Me In Monaco, Hazel’s second collaboration with Heather Webb. The book is set against the back-drop of the iconic wedding of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco.
All Hazel’s novels have been received to critical-acclaim and are translated into ten foreign languages and published in seventeen countries to date. Hazel lives in Ireland with her husband and two children and is represented by Michelle Brower at Aevitas Creative, New York.

Behind the Bestseller is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network

Theme Music by Tim Nerney 

Non-fiction is a different beast to fiction, and in this episode Sam Blake chats to Darach Ó Séaghdha, the Irish writer, podcaster and Irish language activist. The author of Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language (Head of Zeus, 2017), and Craic Baby (Head of Zeus 2018) Darach won Ireland AM Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the 2017 Irish Book Awards with Motherfoclóir. Revealing how his Twitter account @TheIrishFor grew into a book, driven by his personal journey and relationship with his father, a gifted linguist, Darach reveals the key issues with taking an online presence into print. Sam Blake delves into the writing process and deciding what exactly goes into a book.



Brought up in an Irish speaking household, Ó Séaghdha's father and mother used to speak Irish together but spoke English to their children. When Ó Séaghdha's father became very ill, Ó Séaghdha became interested in learning Irish and used Twitter to share interesting Irish phrases and words he came across. 



Ó Séaghdha describes Irish as "the amazing buried treasure". In his writing he wants to show people how they, through Irish, can make sense of the world around them, through words and phrases that do not exist in the English language. 



He runs the popular Irish-language-trivia Twitter account The Irish For. He is also the main host of the podcast Motherfoclóir, part of the Headstuff Podcast Network, a fascinating podcast focusing on elements of the language.



The follow-up to Motherfoclóir, published in 2018, Craic Baby: Dispatches from a Rising Language, explores the very new and very old parts of the Irish language from a personal perspective, covering the topics multilingualism, Brehon Law, Gaelscoils and especially lexicon.

Behind the Bestseller is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network

Music by Tim Nerney