Out of the rapids…

Posted on 14/11/2024 by Mary Marken

Hopefully on a more even keel from here on in…

Video – Avril Lyons – NO AUDIO

The video is of the Sheffield Launch of Belfast Song on 7th November at Nether Edge Bowling Club. The air was buzzing as over 65 people packed into the venue. It was both nerve wracking and wonderful in equal measure.

Nerve-wracking in advance: This culminated in waking up in the early hours of Thursday morning feeling as if I was coming down with something. I took a paracetamol – but I was in a panic. ‘Have I got Covid? What if I’ve got Covid? How could I have Covid? I’ve had the vaccination …’ Eventually common sense kicked in: ‘I’ve got a bad case of nerves. And I need, if at all possible, to get back to sleep.’ Which I did.

And on the night, once everyone had settled into their seats, I was able to settle into mine: I could simply relax and go with the flow. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed every bit of it. It was a great event with which to mark the end of this first intense phase of publishing and promoting Belfast Song.

photo Kevin Hickey

This first phase, which started in October 2023 with beginning the work on the website, has been characterised by a steep learning curve on all fronts … In any new enterprise, it takes the courage to be an amateur … even more so, the older you get. It has also been marked by using email and WhatsApp to build on existing contacts and beginning to use Facebook to extend existing networks. All in all, I’ve wanted a strong one-to-one relationship with anyone interested in the book. That has been very rewarding, with exchanges by email or in person about relatives working in mills or growing up in Belfast. I’m delighted to say that those promoting the book most strongly are those who have read and loved it. However, I need more people to post reviews – as that way the positive message about the book spreads further. So, if you would be willing to do that, you could leave a review on:

Troubador
NetGalley UK
Amazon or other online provider from where you have purchased a book.

I’m pleased to have had two good launches, but I won’t be doing any more. In this next phase, I will be looking for opportunities to fit in with what others may be organising – whether it be events in libraries, bookshops or festivals.

Interest still continues in Belfast. I did a telephone interview with belfastmedia.com which resulted in another article in the Andersonstown News.

There’s also been interest from abroad. I did a telephone interview with Talk Radio Europe for their Book Show on 15th October. This was broadcast at 6 pm on the evening of my Sheffield launch. There’s a 7-day catch up period. So, fingers crossed, I’ll be able to tune in by Thursday 14th November.

However for now, I’m looking forward to having the rest of November to take stock and think about next steps. By the end of of November, the first quarter figures from Troubador will be available and I will be able to consider how it has been going at their end. I still have 35 of the 200 books that Troubador delivered in August which should tide me over Christmas. I have invitations to speak to local groups from January. And I can talk with Troubador about a reprint.

That’s me for now. Your comments are always welcome.
Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Belfast Song successfully launched in Belfast…

Posted on 02/10/2024 by Mary Marken

I’ll start with the headlines in The Irish News on 30th September, ten days after the launch. If you wish, you can read it online by free subscription to the Irish News.

(The article states it is available through Troubador Publishing, available in bookshops and from Amazon. However if you buy a hard copy from Amazon I will end up paying Amazon £1.24. But if you buy an ebook, I will get £3.56. See my blog of 29/7: A book in the hand)

Back to Sunday, 15th September, a few days before I head to Belfast. I get a voice message from my good friend and short story writer, P Kearney Byrne. She is due to travel from Co.Clare to Belfast to interview me as the main part of the launch. She thinks she’s coming down with something and wants to alert me in case I want to line up somebody else as Plan B. I don’t even have to think about it. I simply can’t imagine setting up a similar arrangement with anyone else and certainly not at a few days’ notice. Plan B is a solo gig. I text back ‘I’ll pray for a miraculous recovery but will start preparing for Plan B.’ In the event, she goes from bad to worse.

On Wednesday night I am in bed in Belfast, trying to decide on the final reading. I’d easily chosen the first two. As a big theme in the book is the Home Rule Crisis of 1912, I had wanted to find a suitable excerpt on this as the third. Phil had disagreed. She had signposted me instead to other passages. So, in the early hours of the morning, having tried out and rejected my possibilities for a final reading, I realise that Phil is right. There is too much detail to expect any audience to absorb in a six minute reading. I choose one of the scenarios she’d mentioned, switch off the light and hope for some sleep.

Conway Mill

On Thursday, I go to meet Pauline Kersten at Conway Mill. She runs the Community Education Centre on the second floor. I know that the building is cavernous simply from my acquaintance with the ground floor where the cafe is located. Directions are not my strong point. However, on second attempt, I find the bright and busy Community Education Centre where I locate Pauline and between us we quickly decide how to organise the available space for the morning’s launch. All I need is to ask for a sign or two to be put either side of the lift door in the morning.

On Friday morning, Mal is dropping me (and the 24 books I’ve sent over in advance) back to the Mill bright and early. As we head to the front door, I recognise the woman looking somewhat lost outside as a friend who also has arrived in plenty of time. We haven’t seen each other in years. A mutual hug helps us both feel we are in the right place. She is waiting for another friend. I realise I may not have as much time as I think before my audience is here.
On my way to the room two members of CEC staff ask if they could buy a copy of Belfast Song. One woman tells me that she wants the book for her mother who worked in this very mill.

Up in the room, I meet the sound technician who tells me he will stay throughout the launch. I breathe a sigh of relief. I do not have to worry about anything going wrong with the sound! He and I have barely finished sound checks when another two women appear. They turn out to be friends of my sister Nano. I direct them to the ground floor cafe. I begin to feel nervous. I decide to set up a table in the lounge area where tea, coffee and biscuits will be served after the formalities of the launch. This is where I will sign books. In the meantime, I have the books, my belongings, notes and a copy of Belfast Song behind me on the long cupboard in the room.

The space quickly begins to fill… I am swept along in greeting family, friends and strangers. I discover how those I don’t know have heard about the launch – through a mailing sent out by Anne Reid, from St. Dominic’s PPU, from a message in the diocesan mailing organised by my sister-in-law Siobhan, and from a mailing from CEC earlier in the week. I greet friends I haven’t seen in years, and family members I haven’t seen since at least a year back.

And then it’s time to start…

What can I say? I am in the flow and enjoying myself. The warmth and enthusiasm of the audience exceeds expectations. Questions and comments flow.

A queue forms immediately the applause ends. I never manage to get to the table in the cafe area. I only now appreciate how long it takes to sign and chat to people. Someone brings me a cup of tea. The 24 books are gone. People pay cash as they order books that I will send to them. I don’t even have a box for money. I’m stuffing notes in a compartment of my bag… And then Pauline appears at the door. It’s gone three o’clock already. Where did the time go? She smiles and disappears again. Eventually the remnants of the audience and I wend our way out of the building. I am stunned and totally exhausted. But what a launch!

Down in the Dumps and Over the Moon…

Posted on 25/06/2024 by Mary Marken

…over and over again. I progress towards publication at the end of August and an autumn launch oscillating between these two moods. Thanks again to all of you who have supported me in small and big ways. I could not do this without your support.

So, since my last blog, I’ve signed off the manuscript and the cover with Troubador and these are in production as I write. There was a final twist with the cover.

At the very last moment, I had the notion to run it past my brother Mal at Imagine Media Productions. He has the equipment and the experienced eye to better assess what was being approved. He immediately got the ingenuity in Bill Allerton‘s design and could also see how it could be enhanced using the Photo Shop files Bill had sent to me. He started with an enlargement and a cut and crop of the base photograph. This photo of millworkers is on my website. And here is an image of the final cover.

BELFAST SONG COVER

I was also delighted to finally message Margaret Ward on Facebook. (You have to remember I’m very new to the possibilities on FB). In 1981, she gave a talk, The Irish Women’s Workers Union, to the Irish Labour History Society Annual Conference. Thirty or so years later, I took myself to Belfast for a week as part of the early stages of research into what was to become Belfast Song. Sitting in the central library in Royal Avenue, I read a paper by Margaret in which she mentioned that when James Connolly worked in Belfast as a trade union organiser, he was involved in helping women millworkers in a dispute with their employer. That reference inspired my imagination to create the opening chapters of my novel.

If you would like to read more about the women who helped shape Ireland, you might want to check out Margaret Ward’s book Unmanageable Revolutionaries: women and Irish Nationalism 1880-1890, an expanded and updated version of which has been published by Arlen House.

My final piece of big news is that I heard yesterday from Pauline Kersten, the Education Centre Manager at Conway Education Centre, that I could launch Belfast Song at the education centre from 1-3pm on 20/9/24.

I am dazed with delight to have as a venue such a supportive education centre located in the historic building of Conway Mill, which was a flax spinning mill like the one in which the women at the centre of Belfast Song worked.

And that would not have happened except that my sister-in-law, Siobhan Marken, volunteered to visit possible venues in and around the Falls Rd on my behalf, discovered that Conway Mill had appointed an Education Centre Manager, that they held book launches at the centre and provided all contact details. As I said at the beginning, I couldn’t do this without all the support I’ve been given.

Watch this space for the continuing story of publishing Belfast Song.

The First Wave is Over

Posted on 08/05/2024 by Mary Marken

Phew! The first wave of intense publishing activity has ebbed – and I’m still standing. Thanks to all of you for your support this far.

The big news is that we’ve got a book cover designed and agreed. I’ll post it on the website as soon as I have image to share. For now, I can tell you that it uses as its base the photograph of the millworkers that’s already on my website.

Thanks to Bill Allerton at Cybermouse for his ingenious design which he generously gifted to me and to the Troubador in-house designer who tweaked that and set it is as a book cover ready to go. The design is for front, spine and back and the cover will be in a matt laminate finish.

Can you get a sense of how delighted I am with it?

The other news is that I sent the the first proofread manuscript back to Troubador on Monday by special delivery to arrive midday Tuesday – and I’ve just been emailed the corrected version this morning. I know I mentioned it in last blog, but I want to say a big thanks to Jan Vallance and Denis Green for proofreading the manuscript in a tight space of time. I couldn’t have done it without you!

And I could not have done it if Denis hadn’t been willing to take the manuscript with us on a week’s holiday to Pembrokeshire to continue the proofread. The photographs above are of Bosherston Lakes and the water lilies growing underwater all set to bloom across the lakes in June. So we did have time for good outings as well as work.

There was a final little drama on Monday afternoon. Denis and I were double checking some of the pages on the kitchen table. I had just made and set down a mug of tea carefully at my corner. I reached over to take the page from Denis – and knocked over the mug. A flurry of activity ensued to whisk the pages off the table on to a dry worktop and mop and dry them using towels and then hairdryer. Thankfully, although stained at the edges, all proof marks were clear.

Embarrassed though I was to include a clump of such pages within the otherwise pristine manuscript, my overwhelming feeling was to get the blooming thing posted and out of my hair. Right then I just needed shot of it!

Why did I opt to self-publish?

Posted on 18/01/2024 by Mary Marken

Why did I opt to self-publish? A combination of head and heart.

I was sixty before I finally honoured my desire to write. That was in 2011 and coincided with a decision to reduce and re-orientate my work. For the first time, I felt I had space to choose what I wanted to do and prompted by seeing The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett at the National Theatre in 2009, I signed up for a 3 year part-time Certificate in Creative Writing at Sheffield University.

In my reflective commentary at the end of my first module, I wrote:

I want to develop the habit of writing…The realisation that one needs a habit seems so blindingly obvious and yet feels like a revelation. So I speculate that it reflects a deeper shift in my attitude towards myself as a writer – some level of belief that means I am now willing to make a consistent effort.

Some of us take a long time to develop that level of confidence.

I am now in my seventies. Belfast Song took five years to complete. At the most, I have one other book in me – a memoir. It isn’t rocket science to work out that my chances of being picked up by a traditional publisher are miniscule. And I know of published writers where the publisher did very little to promote the book. So the writer had to take on the promotion themselves. If I have to do that, then I’d rather do that on my own terms. So that’s my head talking.

And from the beginning, I’ve been motivated more with delighting the heart* and following where that leads. So, when I decided I wanted to share what I had been crafting over years, I thought of friends who are artists and craftspeople who exhibit their work in a range of ways. This includes formal galleries, exhibiting as part of initiatives such as Open Up Sheffield. They are also able to display their work at home where it can be appreciated by friends and family. They can make presents for friends – I’ve been given cushions in cross-stitch by one friend, for instance. Their approach is catholic rather than exclusive and there is an emphasis on bringing creator and lover of arts and crafts into a more intimate relationship. I want to be able to do the same. Poets may be able to send a poem in a card to friends – but as a novelist, in order to share your work, you have to have it published.

That’s the spirit in which I want to publish my novel.

* Delighting the Heart by Susan Sellers: an anthology of women writers talk with candour about how they write