Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#239 - Gráinne O'Brien
170 Plays18 hours ago
Children's/YA author and award winning bookseller, Gráinne O'Brien joins us to chat about writing a verse novel, the role of a bookseller and the literary scene in Ireland.
Support the show on Patreon! 💖 And get extended episodes, ad-free and a week ahead of everyone else. 🙏
For audio listeners:
Listen to The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes, Jamie's other podcast with Melissa Welliver and Naomi Gibson! 📚
Follow on socials! 🥳
Recommended
Transcript
Significance of Writing in Storytelling
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh, a spicy question. love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of, it's kind of a gamble.
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I have with me a children's and young adult author and award-winning bookseller, Gronja O'Brien.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello. Hello. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. How are you? I'm great, thanks. I always love the award-winning bookseller that gets thrown in. That's what I'm always looking for in an introduction. I'm like, can I say award-winning? It just makes everything more exciting. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Overview of Solo, the Novel
00:00:45
Speaker
um We'll get to the book selling stuff, but I always kick this podcast off with the whatever the latest kind of publication is for an author. And in your case, that was a month ago, you published your young adult novel Solo with Little Island Books.
00:01:03
Speaker
um Tell us a bit about it. Yeah. So Solo is a verse novel. So it tells the story of Daisy, who is 17, 18. seventeen eighteen She's, it's very much a coming of age novel. She's right on the cusp of figuring out who she's going to be, um, when she finishes school and goes to college.
00:01:23
Speaker
She has been trained and training as a um, professional competitive recorder player. um Competitive. Yeah, exactly. which It does exist um as a thing, you know. and And ah she she's very much into music, um wants to kind of play in an orchestra and all that kind of stuff. And her boyfriend breaks up with her and she can't.
00:01:53
Speaker
play the recorder anymore and she's very much kind of stuck as she enters this last year of secondary school as we call it in Ireland when she's about to do her Leaving Cert which is the main exam that we take in Ireland in order to get to college.
00:02:13
Speaker
And culturally, the Leaving Cert is quite unique, I
Cultural Impact of the Leaving Cert in Ireland
00:02:16
Speaker
think. um We watch it like sport. um Once you've done it, they report ah Leaving Cert, which people always find really astonishing. They report Leaving Cert results in the paper in Ireland.
00:02:28
Speaker
you know Oh, wow. Yeah, when the results come out, there's always a photo in the papers of students getting their results and, you know, the the best student, ah you know, with the most points and all that kind of stuff is commentated on. So the Leaving Cert is a really huge pressure-filled year for yeah for teenagers and and it's it's a real cultural turning point for us.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. as well. We all know it's coming. It happens at the same time every year. We're always guaranteed two weeks of nice weather. um when the exam is on. So we're all kind of waiting for that Leaving Cert sunshine because we all have memories of sitting our Leaving Cert like sweating.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so to send her a book around that time was really ah ah interesting for me to do, to go back there and to have other people react to it um because it is a teenage, it's a novel for teenagers, but adult adults have really reacted to it as well for that, the Leaving Cert being one of the main reasons, so.
00:03:30
Speaker
Okay, and I'm guessing that was the kind of inception point for the whole thing. You wanted to write something around that time. I wanted to write a book about a girl who was struggling and a teenage girl who was struggling. And to me, the Leaving Cert that time. can't, you know, certainly for me, when I was teenager, it was the year that I struggled with the most. So, yeah, it was really important. I think for the emotional truth of Daisy's story, she had to be doing her Leaving Cert and to have that exam looming over her really big deal me.
00:04:05
Speaker
for me Yeah. I mean, I can imagine,
Anxiety of Leaving Cert Results and College Placement
00:04:08
Speaker
yeah. way I had no idea that that's how they posted the results. That's terrifying. Yeah. Like when ah we were younger, when I did my Leaving Cert, now it's all online, but when I did my Leaving Cert, they used to literally print the points, like each individual course. I'm not sure if they, they might still do it, but like, so you get your exam results on a Wednesday, right? And then the college results...
00:04:33
Speaker
places don't get released till the Monday, the college offers. So you have these like two or three days where you don't know whether or not you got into college. It's probably changed now. But what they used to do was they would print the points from all the courses from the year before in the paper, the day the Leaving Cert results came out. So you'd go through the paper and try to guess whether or not you have made your course based on the points from the last year.
00:04:58
Speaker
wow. But the points change based on demand. So, okay right you know, you could you could, you know, go in or out five or 10 points. So you'd spend the whole weekend trying to wait. And then on the Monday, then the offers would arrive or not, as the case may be.
Solo Novelist's Inspiration and Writing Style
00:05:16
Speaker
Wow. What a scary time for a teenager. Yeah, those three days. For me, everyone talks about results day, but for me, it's the three day wait. It was the three day wait, you know, trying to find out whether or not you got in. I think that's the real crunch point.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, and because unless you've absolutely smashed it out the park and you're like, yeah, well obviously I'm getting my offer, then you're in the kind of limbo of being like, oh, how did everyone else do? And how did that skew the... 100%, exactly. Like how what was the demand for the course, you know? Yeah, wow. yeah Okay.
00:05:44
Speaker
um That's cool. And that's that sounds like a really interesting... Yeah, like you said, I'm sure that creates a really interesting... ah setting almost and and kind of tension within a novel yeah to talk about and discuss. Yeah. And it's so little work as a writer. You just have to say, she's in her leaving her ear and immediately the reader, the Irish reader, clenches.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yes. You don't need to say anything more than that. Oh, we know the stakes are high here. Yeah. yeah And I can tell you, as someone who doesn't wasn't familiar with what that was, if I read that, I'd be like, what earth is this insane ceremony that they do in?
00:06:22
Speaker
It's like the Hunger Games out there. Yeah, I mean, because they do have like A-levels and SATs and all those kind of things, but there's just something about the Lee Wizard. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just because Ireland is so small.
00:06:33
Speaker
um There's something just so culturally significant about it that we've just adopted it as a kind of a thing that we all watch. just how it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah Okay. Everyone goes through it.
00:06:44
Speaker
Exactly. It's character building. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah. I had a couple more questions about the book. Yeah. How do you make playing the recorder competitive?
00:06:57
Speaker
So in Ireland there are things called FLAZ, which are like music competitions where ah musicians will play and can compete for like medals.
00:07:12
Speaker
um So there I suppose it's not really a sport, but we do you kind of get together and i suppose you can make anything competitive, right? Like I sing in a choir, we've managed to make that competitive.
00:07:24
Speaker
um But yeah, they're they're kind of weekend festivals where and musicians, young musicians usually will kind of play and and they're doing their exams and and their music exams and all that kind of stuff.
00:07:37
Speaker
Um, so I had her, Daisy going to Flas, um, and playing and kind of, you know, winning all the medals and getting all the praise, I suppose. It's really more about be her being admired for what she's doing with an instrument that's actually viewed as quite mundane, you know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I wanted ask was, uh, you mentioned it as we came in, but then didn't really...
00:08:05
Speaker
go into too much but this is a verse novel so it's yeah written more like poetry than prose yeah so it's a verse novel it was very much um i never set out to write a verse novel i wouldn't have had a lot of background in poetry but i it was really the music that took over um and i was kind of halfway through the idea And when it became obvious that it was going to need to be a verse novel, um because Daisy is so music is such the foundation of who she is as a person to write her story and not have the music be beating all the way through the book.
00:08:46
Speaker
um just wasn wasn't going to work. um And verse was the was kind of the medium, the vehicle for which I chose how to do that. But the music and musical terms and the and the idea of like a two four beat in a bar, all of that kind of stuff is is what informed it more than say poetry and poetry structures. Right. Okay.
00:09:10
Speaker
So yeah, so it's verse, but it's kind of musical verse as opposed to poetic verse. Okay. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. Does that add a lot more kind of complication to writing a novel when you're when you're adding that kind of additional structure on top of the sort of normal structure you would expect from a story? In a lot of ways, it actually made it a little bit easier for me because music has rules.
00:09:32
Speaker
Right. And if you were going to write something with a musical, like, for example, you know, the all the so all the all the poems in solo are named after um like musical instructions that conductors will do. So on a piece of music, you'll see like crescendo, um diminuendo, allegro, and and the musician knows what is going to happen in that process.
00:09:59
Speaker
piece or how they're supposed to play it. um And there are all of these different ones that if you are a musician, you'll know, you know, Italian, French, German, kind of the great Russian, the composers of their day would have obviously used their own words.
00:10:13
Speaker
um So by kind of anchoring in that, I was able to say, okay, like crescendo, you know, a poem where she is getting louder, or she's angry, like the crescendo, calling it crescendo kind of led to that.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah. So for me, because I don't have a poetic background, but I do have a musical background, ah it actually made it a lot easier for me to set the rhythm and the structure in music.
00:10:42
Speaker
um I'm working on a new book now and it's verse again, and it's more poetry based and I'm finding it a lot harder um And i don't want i'm just like I don't want to repeat the same thing. So i have to yeah I keep trying to make it a little bit more musical and then have to tomorrow remind myself I've done that already.
00:11:00
Speaker
Okay, right, okay. yeah Well, I was going to ask, yeah, are you going to keep writing novels in the style of verse or are you going to go back to prose? um I think that with verse, you have to, the book kind of has to earn, like, because there are a lot of books that could be verse but could also be prose.
00:11:17
Speaker
Right. um And I think that the book has to be, it has to be, has to kind of earn the verse. um So i the next book that I'm working on is kind of a split between prose and verse at the moment. Like it could, it could change. But um I think that as long as it serves the story, i probably will. But I also, like I like to write prose as well. Like I was working on an adult novel when I got the idea for Solo and I kind of put it aside. I really want to go back to it at some stage.
00:11:48
Speaker
um So I think I'll just, um I'm open to whatever form the book needs to be. That sounds so like... whatever form the book tells me it needs to be. But that kind of the way I am about it. Like I don't want to ever get stuck in one idea.
00:12:04
Speaker
So you're really, you're really kind of writing across a lot of different styles, a lot of different genres, age groups, because you're, this is actually your second publication. you The first thing you published was a Limerick fairy tale, an illustrated children's book.
Gronja's Writing Journey and Publications
00:12:19
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So that was a picture book. um It was published by O'Brien Press, which is another children's um publisher that's based here in Ireland. And Lumeric is the city that I live in And they have done these series of different counties in Ireland. And um Yeah, Limerick Fairytale was a lot of fun. It was a retelling of Cinderella.
00:12:41
Speaker
um And it's it was, the idea was to kind of show Limerick in a really positive light and parts of the county that you wouldn't normally see depicted in fiction because it's very much like the city is the centre, but there's amazing...
00:12:56
Speaker
parts of the county and it was just a fun project I wrote it during lockdown during one of the lockdowns um during COVID and it was just it was just fun um and joy and it was published and illustrated beautifully um by Lina Stowawi who did the illustrations and Yeah, it's a big hit. People of Limerick love it. Limerick has gone all over the world. It's been amazing because it came out, you know, when it came out, I was meeting a lot of grandparents who were sending it to grandchildren they'd never met all over the world because of COVID.
00:13:28
Speaker
you know who had never seen him i had never been able to travel so um yeah i've signed books i've signed to my fairy tales for malaysia new zealand australia yeah taiwan um hong kong just all these mad different places in the world for grandparents who really wanted their grandchildren to see limerick and know what was like because they hadn't had a chance to visit yet Oh, that's nice. yeah And O'Brien Press, no relation, I'm guessing. Nope, not at all No relation. It's a very common name. Just coincidence.
00:14:02
Speaker
um Yeah, so writing across all these different things, do you do you identify as an author of any specific age group or genre or do you just write whatever kind of story comes to you, whether that's children's all the way up to adult? Yeah.
00:14:20
Speaker
I just kind of write whatever comes to me. I'm incredibly lucky that my agent represents adults and children. So um ah the conversation is always there. you know, what you want to work on next? What will we focus on next?
00:14:35
Speaker
You know, what story is kind of captivating me the most ah at any one time? i guess because of my bookselling background, it's it's so easy to fall into different um ways that the market defines a book and an age range and whatever. And that is just unfortunately something we have to do in order to sell books.
00:14:58
Speaker
So for me, it's just like, write the best story that I can and then look at it with my agent Sallyanne or whoever and just say like, what market is this book for um and then maybe adjust it based on that like a teenage ah a book about a teenage girl doing her leave is a book for teenagers you know by um by its market um you know a picture book it just is what it is but um the story i think sometimes if you get too stuck on like I'm writing a book for children or I'm writing a book for 9-12 or I'm writing a book for YA or whatever it can feel really stifling whereas if you just write the book the first draft and then go back to it and say okay
00:15:42
Speaker
this is something I think I want to publish, so what market does it fit into? And then kind of see what, ah if it's going to be a YA book, what points does it need to hit? Or if it's 9 to 12, what content is appropriate and isn't?
00:15:55
Speaker
um yes Or if it's adult, if it's fantasy, if it's whatever. You know, there are rules to all of these genres that we unfortunately have to follow. so Yes. Yeah. So that it can be put in the right place so that the right person can see it to know that it exists to buy it.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. um And speaking of being a bookseller, you're ah you're a book you're an award-winning bookseller at at Kenny's Bookshop in Limerick.
Role and Responsibilities of a Bookseller
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah. Kenny's is in Galway. So I live in Limerick. Oh, Kenny's in Galway. That's very important. But you live in Limerick. Right. They're in Galway. Okay. That's part of their identity.
00:16:37
Speaker
Kenny's Bookshop in Galway. Yes. Just to confirm for everyone listening. ah So I've... have had have had a couple of booksellers on before and I've talked about bookselling, but as a bookseller firsthand, what is the role?
00:16:53
Speaker
ah What is your role in the whole kind of process of of um a bookshop? So I... Kenny's is a very different kind of bookshop.
00:17:05
Speaker
um It's primarily online, um but we have been expanding out a physical presence um for the last number of years. now It's a family business, so um I'm working for the third generation of Kenny's to own it.
00:17:25
Speaker
Wow, okay. Yeah, and it's they're very established in what they do um and and we do it really well, um which is like online, we ship all over the world. We have an incredible reputation um for online sales.
00:17:45
Speaker
um But I'm traditionally hand seller. So I would have, before I moved to Kenny's, I was working in a brick and mortar bookshop um You know, very much on the shop floor side, the retail side, the recommending to customers, all of that kind of stuff.
00:18:00
Speaker
And I became the children's buyer there. um So I oversaw all the children's books and the children's section. And when I moved to Kenny's, I took on a more like active role in buying across ages, genres, all that kind of stuff.
00:18:16
Speaker
um So my day to day is basically like meeting with publishers, um looking at our sales, what we're selling or ordering more, coordinating with the shipping department to let them know like we have, a you know, however many pallets of books coming. and And we do talk in pallets like we have so much stuff coming in and out of the building every day.
00:18:40
Speaker
um And just kind of like. trying to make sure that all the cogs are turning to make sure that we have the books that we need for the customers that are buying them. um And then we have like our retail customers and our online customers, which are, who are buying two very, you know, very different types of stuff. So,
00:18:57
Speaker
um and then trying to be on top of you know the book that's taking off that day for whatever reason good or bad you know because sometimes a book will be taking off because it's got word of mouth and it's gotten a good review and it's you know, really just absolutely everybody's loving it and sometimes it's taking off because, you know, it's making headlines for reasons that are a little unsavory, but, you know, like it's selling. So, you know, right I mean, don't leave in the podcast that I'm talking about this old path, but it was certainly, and we just, you know, it's it's those kinds of things that you're just kind of like, is this going to last?
00:19:40
Speaker
Is this something that's taking off for a reason? you know, is it like, why are people, why are people reacting to this? Why are people ordering it? Why are people buying it? I mean, the big one for us at the moment is that book, The Let Them Theory, um which is just selling over and over and over again um in a way that I haven't seen a book like that kind of continuously sell. Like you kind of see books like that take off for a month or two, but it's just continues to sell, you know, so it's like constantly just making sure I have enough of that and
00:20:12
Speaker
um and the balance between having too much and not enough. It's like gambling. Yeah. and And obviously making sure you've stocked enough classics whilst also checking out what the new thing is. Absolutely. And like yeah we're very like Kenny's, we want to have the best range.
00:20:33
Speaker
So everything is, yes, having the latest Richard Osman, but also having... you know, Divergent Suicides and Clockwork Orange and, yeah you know, anything that anyone wants to to have. And also, you know, having as like as diverse sections as possible so that if someone comes in and they're really into craft, well, guess what? I've got 30 different books on all the different crochet that you can do, you know, um
00:21:04
Speaker
and kind of just work like Kenny's will try anything you know we've we've just expanded that our manga section is really big now yeah um and all that kind of stuff and and just making sure that yeah every customer that comes in the door can kind of find something that they want you know do you have and i've seen this in a lot of bookshops recently do you have the um tick tock made me buy a section We do not.
Influence of TikTok on Book Sales
00:21:32
Speaker
We embrace TikTok. yeah and But that, for the type of business that we are that is actually incredibly hard to manage because so much of our stuff is online.
00:21:44
Speaker
um and our orders are online, we have to have a system where if you go to the bookshelf, the book has to be there. Right, yeah. Yeah, so if and if you start to break out all those other sections, it's not going to be where it's supposed to be and it's going to be over here.
00:22:00
Speaker
BookTok is just an animal on its own, you know, and again, very unpredictable, you know, and and you know that thing of like watching a book and watching it take off um Like I used to say in my old job, you know, if you're at the customer service desk and a woman in her early 20s comes up and and asks for a book and that book is five years old and 20 minutes later, a woman of the same age comes up looking for the same book, order 15, because that book is taking off on either Instagram or TikTok and will be out of print or out of stock with the supplier in a week.
00:22:34
Speaker
you know okay or also ask them why are you looking for this book and inevitably nine times out of ten they'll be like oh I saw it on Instagram or I saw it on TikTok it happened with um Colleen Hoover I think I remember when Colleen Hoover first started we sure we couldn't get them anywhere they all went into repint within about a week Yeah.
00:22:55
Speaker
Yeah. And now all of her books are like like everywhere. We're getting made into films. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the other thing about TikTok, which I imagine must be a bit of a logistical nightmare, if you are a bookseller or or a bookshop trying to kind of stay on top of, if you did run a book, ah a book talk section is that it's so fast.
00:23:17
Speaker
It's moving so quickly all the time. Exactly. And what's, what's popular that week is not going to be popular the week before. um you know, all you can do is your best to try to make sure you have them all in as as fast as possible and and get the range. And um I like to, if I see and one author, if I see one of the books kick off on TikTok, I try to order the entire backlist, you know? Yeah. and Because inevitably, if they if people like one book,
00:23:44
Speaker
they like i love tiktok i love it i love book talk i love how organic and random it is and i love how passionate the readers are about the books and i just i like just love it i love watching people try to scramble around me included figuring out like what's going to be what's going to be the next big thing and like having no idea what it's going to be i just love it yeah it's great it's added a level of unpredictability into book selling that we Absolutely. Yeah.
00:24:11
Speaker
I'm sure some of the big publishers are aren't that pleased about it. but I mean, some of the big publishers are getting books on BookTok too, you know. and But it is harder, I think, than, you know, that kind of influencer thing.
00:24:28
Speaker
You know, all it takes is one person with, you know, ah very small following to put up a really impassioned review or ah really gorgeous book um or a really gorgeous, gorgeous edition they've gotten. And for some reason, it just turns up on other people's algorithms and it takes off. And yeah.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah. grace And then for some reason it can't be replicated. Like you can't just do the same thing. it doesn't pick up in the same way. no It is a mystery. The algorithm. yeah um It is they quite, I would say about book talk though at the moment, quite genre specific.
00:25:05
Speaker
It can be, yes. Yeah. it's Very much into romance and fantasy. Fantasy and romance. And I would say it's certainly kind of geared that way at the moment.
00:25:20
Speaker
ah There was a time when it was more kind of like people were rediscovering the Brontes okay yeah Dostoevsky and kind of all of that kind of stuff.
00:25:33
Speaker
But it does seem to be going back now into the kind of romance-y stuff. um But, yeah, you know. We'll see where it goes. We'll see where it goes. i do think it's very reflective of what's going on in the world at the time as well. I think people just want something light, right?
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah. At the moment, I think readers are looking for a bit of you know, bit of escapism and yeah not to work too hard for their books. I certainly am.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah. So to conclude on bookselling, for anyone listening who might be interested in following that as a career path, where would you recommend that they start?
Career Advice for Aspiring Booksellers
00:26:11
Speaker
I mean, i really genuinely, i started just covering tills for Christmas.
00:26:16
Speaker
um I suppose if you're considering it like get into a bookshop and work as hard as you can and, you know, accept that you don't sit around and read all day.
00:26:27
Speaker
um Unfortunately, that is a romantic idea, but it doesn't happen. um but you really have to love books and you have to love people. um to be really good at it and you have to be able to sell something. ah the one One of the best skills um for booksellers is being able to sell a book you haven't read um because you can't read them all.
00:26:51
Speaker
But if you are across what people, what is popular and what people are experiencing, you can diagnose the book that they need um and help them find it, you know. Yeah. um so And also the best question to ask a person who asks you for a recommendation is what mood are you in?
00:27:11
Speaker
Because you could spend 20 minutes talking to them about, you know, profit song. But if they're not in the mood for a chunky booker winner, they're actually in the mood for, you know,
00:27:26
Speaker
a crime page turner you know it's it's it's you have to set yourself up for victory by asking them what kind of book they're looking for and oftentimes they haven't thought about it until they're asked you know okay okay yeah what kind of answers do you get when you ask people what mood they're in it'll be like, oh, a lot, a lot at the moment is like, I just need something light. I, and but, or it'll be, i want something funny, but not slapstick.
00:27:56
Speaker
Um, I want something short. Um, I want something, you know, kind of and sometimes people will be like, oh, I want something really dystopian or, um,
00:28:08
Speaker
um and more power to them you know so um yeah and then i have answers for all those questions yeah you must you must have to maintain a broad knowledge across all genres from like psychological thriller to like cozy fantasy yeah i mean you absolutely need to know what's out yeah you know you don't necessarily need to have read them all but you definitely need to know what's out what's coming what's generating hype.
00:28:34
Speaker
um I have a really good relationship with all of the publishers and the reps and I trust them implicitly. So when they tell me something is going to be big, I do believe them, you know, um a lot of the time because we've just worked together for so long now that, you know, if someone tells me, I really think that you should back this, you know, I sit up and pay attention. Yeah.
00:28:57
Speaker
yeah And then there are, there are books like, you know, that you know you're going to sell loads of, you know, the rest of it you don't even have try. Sure. Like the next Richard Osman or the next fourth wing book or whatever. Dan Brown is coming out you know, whatever. Aren't they coming out the same day or the same week? Yeah. So that would be, I think it's Super Thursday. So there's a day where in the run up to Christmas where publishers will drop all of their big titles on the same day it's madness yeah it is how does this industry work yeah it's mad uh it's exciting day though i think um yeah super thursday is called i think yeah i think they're coming out on super thursday yeah yeah and it's just so wild Yeah, and that all of the excitement builds up to that day and all of the books, that like, you know, the books that they are backing for Christmas um that they know are going to be big.
00:29:53
Speaker
and And I know it sounds mad, bosh the great thing is that people will come in looking for Richard Osman and then they'll take three other books because they'll see that three other amazing books have been published that day.
00:30:05
Speaker
the The main thing is to make sure all the books are get there. and Right. Yeah. Yeah. You have them. Yeah. But the publishers will be on top of that. Like that those books will have arrived to to the bookshop like two days before and they'll have been embargoed and then we, you know, we can sell them on the Thursday. It's always a Thursday.
00:30:22
Speaker
but Yeah. and Those are the high priority books. They always get there on time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, great, cool. So we are at the point in the episode where I ah pack you up and ship you off to a desert island and ask you if you were stranded all by yourself on a desert island with nought but a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
Gronja's Literary Preferences and Final Thoughts
00:30:44
Speaker
um So I would take Notes from a Coma by Mike McCormack. Okay. So Mike McCormack is an Irish writer. He, if his names aren't familiar, came, he's been working and writing in Ireland for years, but became very much in prominence again um when he wrote a book called Solar Bones, which got long listed for um everything and won the end the Dublin, um i think it was the Dublin Literary Award
00:31:20
Speaker
um And it was one sentence long. Solar Bones. Okay. oh um But long before he wrote Solar Bones, he wrote Notes from a Coma.
00:31:31
Speaker
And Notes from a Coma is a book. It's kind of a future. It's technically sci-fi. um It tells the story of an Ireland that has a prison overcrowding problem.
00:31:50
Speaker
And in order to solve that problem, they ask for prisoners who have life sentences to volunteer to be put into a coma instead. Okay. And shorten their sentences.
00:32:02
Speaker
Right. So it's like a proposed um government program. But in order to, but it's still in the testing phase. And so they ask volunteers from the general public to be put under these comas.
00:32:21
Speaker
And the story of Notes from a Coma, it tells the story of JJ, who volunteers to be put it into a coma. And Notes from Coma is it's told in two parts. So the top part is JJ, his life and why he made this decision to volunteer for this programme.
00:32:38
Speaker
And the bottom part tells the story of the programme. and how it's being perceived by the world. um okay yeah, it's just an incredible, incredible book. And so, I mean, I know we say this about books all the time, but so ahead of its time, but honestly, like it it talks about, you know, reality television. And I mean, I read this book when I was in college, when I was studying English in 2009. Um, and maybe 2008,
00:33:02
Speaker
okay
00:33:05
Speaker
10 or 11 like when I was doing my BA in English and it's you know 20 years later and I ah reread it recently and it's just like the whole it's almost like Truman Show-esque like the whole world becomes obsessed with watching these people yeah in a coma and learning about JJ um and I just I'd never get tired of it because it's too I'm cheating it's like two books in one yeah but Yeah, yeah, it kind of is. The dual perspective. Yeah, exactly. Because you read it about JJ first and then you read about the project second.
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. i must add that to my list. That sounds really interesting. And Solar Bones too, but Notes from McCormick is my favourite. Did you say Solar Bones was one sentence? It's one sentence long, yeah, the entire novel. But it's a very long sentence. It's a very long sentence. Okay, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Yeah, yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
That's what I thought. A sort of stream of consciousness kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. It's really experimental. It's really cool. And I was, as as a person who had loved Notes from a Coma and championed it was me. I loved seeing Mike get that.
00:34:07
Speaker
moment in his career as well. buts solar bones Yeah. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool choice. i haven't had that one before. So always exciting to add a new one to the library. Yes. um Next up, we are going to get into a bit more publishing journey stuff like querying agents going on sub and then some of Grosje's extracurriculars, including the literary service and the Silver Apples magazine. That will all be in the extended episode that you can find at patreon.com slash rightandwrong.
00:34:39
Speaker
um Getting picked up on BookTok and now having a huge resurgence. And that Colleen Hoover had been out but forever. Forever. Before she suddenly became a sensation. Yeah.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. ah That brings us to the end of the episode. Oh, lovely. Thank you so much, Gornja, for coming on and chatting with me, telling me all about your kind of work within publishing as well as your writing and and all that fun stuff. It's been really great chatting with you.
00:35:10
Speaker
Thank you. It's been a delight. And for anyone listening, Gráinne's YA novel, Solo, is is out now in all the usual places. You can go and get it.
00:35:22
Speaker
um And if you want to keep up with what she's doing, you can find her on Instagram at grarrightsandrontu. To support this podcast, like, follow, and subscribe, join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes, and check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:35:38
Speaker
Thanks again, Gráinne, and thanks to everyone listening. We'll catch you on the next episode. Shout out time. One of my amazing patrons, Lee Foxton, is querying their debut novel. It's a family drama, commercial fiction along the lines of Jojo Moyes and David Nichols.
00:35:54
Speaker
Fingers crossed. I am rooting for you. Good luck.