Tom White – Only What There Is

 

Tom was born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal in 1949. Hew as educated at LurganCollege and then at Trinity College Dublin. During the course of his career he was worked in Ireland, Australia and England. His jobs varied from being a Civil Servant, a Trade Union official and working with an undertaker.

 

He returned to Ireland in 2001 to live in Co. Mayo. It is here where he became involved with the local “Pen and Ink” creative writing group in Kiltimagh. His love of literature and a life time of writing convinced him to publish some of his work. Poetry publishers in Ireland are struggling, and can usually only publish the poets that are famous or easy to market. This is why Tom decided to self publish his work with us at Selfpublishbooks.ie.

 

He sent us in all the information he had, the file of the book, a picture and blurb for the cover. We did the rest from cover design to formatting to get the file print ready. When asked what he thought of the self publishing process, he said that it was relatively painless. We were all delighted when he decided to drive down from Co. Mayo to our factory in Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork to pick up his books. He made a journey of it and made the most out of it.

Tom picking up his books

Tom is donating half of the books he printed to the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland and giving plenty to friends and family.

Honest and accessible, this poetry displays a love of the sound of the ordinary language, and a love of humanity.

“I am not sure I have ever met quite the depth of seeing, and describing, the emotions we all experience at times, that I find in Tom’s work. He is powerful. This effect is partly achieved by the way Tom breaks the rules.”

Margaret Wilson, “Empathy” magazine.

Free bookmarks

Selfpublishbooks.ie will be rolling out some new services for our authors over the next few weeks and months. We hope that it will make the self publishing as easy as possible for writers and organisations.

The first new service we would like to announce is a free one, yes free. From now on, whenever you order your books, we will give you  free bookmarks. This can be given to your customers at book launches or at other similar events.

The bookmark has two sides to it. At the front there will be a smaller version of your book cover all in colour. At the back are our contact details, also in colour.

A simple little gift that we want to give our clients that we hope you will all like. We will also give you the bookmarks if you are coming back to us after selling your books and want a reprint.

We at selfpublishbooks.ie, hope you like them.

Delia O’Callaghan – Honeysuckle to Handcuffs

 

Lettertec was delighted to print, Honeysuckle to Handcuffs, written by Delia O’Callaghan. In 2012 Delia was one of the finalists in the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition.

In 2008, while living in Boston, U.S.A.  Delia joined a creative writers’ workshop at the Boston Centre for Adult Education. Taking on board the expert’s advice to write about what she knew, Delia started a novel about an Irish girl living and working illegally in Boston.

The following year, Delia, took a trip back to Ireland, in a disastrous twist of faith which turned her life upside down – she found herself locked up in the San Diego Correctional Facility. Ironically, although Delia’s worst nightmare came to fruition, she now had the new material she desperately needed and Honeysuckle to Handcuffs was born.

 

Books for Delia

When Boston-based Irishwoman Delia O’Callaghan meets Frank, she can’t believe her luck…

 

He’s everything any girl could wish for; rich, charming, handsome and fun. Whisked up into a world of ritzy restaurants and jet set living, it looks like all of Delia’s dreams are set to come true – that is, until US customs catch wind of Delia’s lack of a Green Card when she tries to return to the States after a trip home to Ireland for her sister’s wedding. Frank returns to Boston without Delia, leaving her stranded in Ireland with a big red ‘DENIED ENTRY’ stamp in her passport.

 

Determined to get back to the love of her life, Delia devises a hair-brained scheme: if she can’t get into America a legitimate way, then she’ll do what hundreds of thousands of people do each year: she’ll sneak-in through the Mexican border. What’s the worst that could happen… right? She asks herself, half-heartedly. But when the plan goes wrong. So wrong, in fact that Delia finds herself locked up in the San Diego Correctional Facility with a foul-mouthed, religious, drug-trafficking, yet protective, lesbian cellmate, Teresa. Not to mention Officer Lopez: the six-foot-two prison guard, identifiable as a woman only through her lack of an Adam’s apple. How is Delia going to cope? And will there be a happy ever after?

Honeysuckle to Handcuffs is the hilarious, fish-out-of water true story of one woman’s journey who discovers that over the course of nearly a month in jail and a series of disastrous but comical events that there might be more to life than Rolexes, fancy cocktails and fine dining.

 

The book is to be launched on the 8th of October by Brent Pope in the Bodega, Cork at 7pm.