Recommended Reads: Garth Nix, Leigh Bardugo and Truman Capote

First published in issue one of Cinders magazine.

Goldenhand by Garth Nix

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Most of you will probably be too young to remember Sabriel and Lireal by Garth Nix but there are few more kickass, capable heroines around. Sabriel and Lireal are necromancers but instead of raising the dead, they send them back to die proper deaths. The pair return to their adventures after more than ten years in Goldenhand and are all well worth a read. You’ll be battling undead zombies in your head for the rest of the month!

Continue reading Recommended Reads: Garth Nix, Leigh Bardugo and Truman Capote

Worlds Collide: When Rainbow met Leigh

This article was first published in issue one of Cinders magazine.

Two fantastic YA worlds collided when authors Rainbow Rowell and Leigh Bardugo came together for a fantastic author event in Dublin in October. Méabh McDonnell was delighted to be in the audience for the event, where she was able to bring us the low down on everything that the two authors had to say about writing, diversity and how to write the perfect kiss.

Rainbow Rowell and Leigh Bardugo are two of the biggest names in YA literature right now. If you haven’t heard of them, you need to race out to your nearest library and demand everything they’ve ever written. You won’t be sorry.

I was lucky enough to attend their recent World’s Collide event in Dublin and literally fangirl all over both of them!

The event was originally born out of NY Times bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo’s launch tour for her new novel Crooked Kingdom, the hotly anticipated sequel to Six of Crows, where she – as Dave O’Callaghan, chief children’s buyer for Easons, Dublin put it – wanted to bring a friend.

And what a friend she brought – Rainbow Rowell, author of the heart-soaring (and heart breaking) Eleanor and Park and the wonderful Fangirl to name but a few of her fantastic novels. The two friends came together in a tour that went from London to Dublin, to Edinburgh to Manchester to read, meet and discuss each of their weird and wonderful approaches to writing, the story behind Rainbow’s name, how to write the best love scenes and overcoming writers block. The evening began with the two ladies swanning onto the stage,  explaining how they met, and how Leigh wasn’t expecting to like Rainbow as much as she did.

Continue reading Worlds Collide: When Rainbow met Leigh