Robert Craven - Author
Behind the Author
Irish author Robert Craven has always been passionate about writing and storytelling. He is an independent author of seven novels. One was a number one download on KOBO. He's self-motivated and driven to produce quality fiction. His personal blog and stories can be found on ABCTales.com. An active member of the writing community,
he writes regular features for Writing.ie.
https://courses.edx.org/certificates/8b90323b8c424702813a7f4ac1eec0c1
Novels: The Eva series:
(Amazon.com / Smashwords / Kobo.com)
·(2020) Eagles Hunt Wolves - Winner of the Firebird 2021 book award
https://www.speakuptalkradio.com/author-robert-craven/
·(2016) Hollow Point
·(2014) A Finger of Night
·(2012) Zinnman
·(2011) Get Lenin
Other novels:
(2018) The Road of a Thousand Tigers – best seller on Kobo.
(2017) The Mandarin Cipher
(2021) A Kind of Drowning
The Voice of Get Lenin
https://www.mandy.com/actor/profile/madeleine-brolly
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Madeleine+Brolly&i=audible&ref=dp_byline_sr_audible_2
The allure of the Island
How Dublin’s coastline inspired my writing during the Covid pandemic
Growing up in Drimnagh in the 1980s the sea seemed very distant. To go for a walk along a beach meant taking buses and trains, and you would be away for the entire day. My mother would reminisce about her childhood holidays in Rush and in 2001, unable to afford anything closer to the city, my wife and I bought a house there. All we knew about Rush beforehand was that it was the market garden of Ireland. Now, on our doorstep, we had two beautiful beaches, a picturesque harbour, the ever-changing Irish Sea, and Lambay island dominating the horizon. Despite the long commutes to work, we could not believe our luck.
Nearby Skerries has five islands off its coast. We were intrigued by Shenick, an island complete with a Martello Tower, near one of Skerries sandy beaches. At low tide, a natural causeway would partially appear, our very own Mont St Michel. One August morning, we joined a Birdwatch Ireland walk to the island across the causeway and looked back at the mainland, seeing it from a wholly unique perspective in the dawn light.
For my wife’s birthday in July 2015 we took a boat to Lambay island. The sun blazed as we tramped across the island, hearing stories of shipwrecks, sunken treasure, pirates, and the local wallaby population. It is an unspoiled island, in private ownership, maintaining natural habitat. Its wide stretches of gorse and grasses stayed in my mind and became the focal point for my novel.
It was during the 2020 lockdown, when I had lost my job, that I really began to appreciate what lay within my 2km radius. Exploring the local sandy tracks and trails while escaping from the Covid misery, I decided to write a detective novel rooted in this landscape. A Kind of Drowning draws from stories of the local characters I grew up with and weaves into the narrative the sometimes under-appreciated coastline of Ireland’s Ancient East. From the folded strata of Loughshinny’s cliffs, home to Drumanagh fort and its Roman artifacts, to the rugged islands which continue to draw our eyes and inspire our imaginations, A Kind of Drowning, like its backdrop, is both a mystery and an adventure.
It’s very perverse of me to be a novelist because I really don’t like making things up … I think, Why invent, really?
Hilary Mantel - 1952 - 2022
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The Real Story
The great Jazz bass player, Steve Swallow once observed his career was 50% listening, 50% playing, like this discipline, writers too should immerse themselves; inhabit the world of reading and writing. Steven Spielberg always watches John Ford’s seminal work, ‘The Searchers’ before loading a strip of film, every writer too should have a ‘go-to piece’ for preparation; as in the words of the great American poet Kenneth Koch, “You can’t lose anything of yourself by being influenced by a poet, no matter how strong. All you can do is learn from him [or her] how to do it. Just like by imitating the hand movements of great pianists.” Like Mr. Swallow, I listen and write and listen and write and listen and write, only after careful preparation. Like all good bakers, we work to avoid flat cakes…
My best seller, THE ROAD OF A THOUSAND TIGERS was a no 1 download on Kobo.
You can find this and my KOBO books here @KOBO
http://www.kobo.com/ebook/the-road-of-a-thousand-tigers
His latest novel EAGLES HUNT WOLVES is OUT NOW!
photo - courtesy of Ger Holland http://www.gerhollandphotography.com/