How wonderful to hear from so many of you!
In these bizarre and worrying times lets spare a thought for those who endured other world crises without the internet!
I, like all of us, regularly do battle with my devices but at the moment I’m so grateful for all the advances in communication we use daily. I get so many emails every day, from all over the world, and it cheers my heart, it really does. Writing is a kind of solitary activity so this isolation is fine for us authors, it’s a bit how we roll anyway, so getting mail and connecting with readers is often my only outside conversation in a day! (when himself and the little ones are at school – nowadays we see LOADS of each other… 😉
Imagine during the Spanish Flu of 1918 – no way to keep in touch with family or friends. Horrible. At least we can all FaceTime or message each other and some of the stuff on line is truly wonderful. Classes for kids, musicians playing in their living rooms, jokes, puzzles, it all shows us how the surface differences of colour, creed, nationality, political persuasion, whatever, are nothing but a thin veneer over a deep core of shared humanity.
This morning I got an incredible thing in the post. Truly a remarkable representation of something I write about, from a reader called Mark.
(You’ll note the writing look, no make up, hair a law unto itself etc but this is me – and I wanted to share this picture anyway!)
Its particularly timely as I’m almost finished the next book in The Star and the Shamrock story.
It’s a tie Mark’s Dad used to wear on St Patrick’s Day and it symbolises a cordial friendship between the Irish and the Jews. I love it and I’ll treasure it. Thank you Mark.
The Irish -Jewish relationship was in the past, and still is complicated, and those of you who’ve read my Star and the Shamrock books, or Finding Billie Romano will know why, but I love that an American Jewish man wore this tie on St Patrick’s day, and now I have it. Fabulous.
In other news, The Sisters of The Southern Cross has been delayed a little as my editor was unwell, she’s recovering now, but hopefully it will be ready for my advance team soon. And the third story of the Bannon children and all their extended family is almost written.
I know many of you miss Conor, I do too, so perhaps I can revive him soon as well. This writing malarkey is a bit nebulous for me, I can only write the story in my head at any one time and its something over which I have no control unfortunately.
So stay well folks, mind ye’re selves and each other and hopefully life will be back to normal soon, Le grá agus buiochas, Jean xx