Bernie McGill

One Day Fiction Writing Workshop with Bernie McGill
2018-02-03 10:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Dublin) | Flowerfield Arts Centre, 185 Coleraine Road, PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland, BT55 7HU, United Kingdom
Topics covered include: Building Characters; Creating a sense of place; Selecting point of view. Suitable for both beginners and experienced fiction writers, short story writers and novelists. Participants will be invited to take part in writing exercises in order to develop their work and practice. You’re welcome to bring a packed lunch and we have a tea/coffee machine and some snacks available at reception.

Dublin Launch of Female Lines, Irish Writers' Centre
2017-11-07 18:30 - 20:00 | Irish Writers’ Centre, 19 Parnell Square, DUBLIN, Ireland
In 1985, The Female Line: Northern Irish Women Writers was published, edited by Ruth Carr. A pioneering anthology at the time, it gave many Northern Irish women writers their first opportunity for publication. Now, over thirty years later, Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland – a stunning mosaic of work by some of the best contemporary women writers from Northern Ireland – acts as both a new staging post and a sequel to its vibrant feminist predecessor.
Trans-genre in contents and including both experienced and newer women writers, this landmark anthology features women writers playing with different modes, forms, and innovations – from magical realism and surrealism to humour and multi-perspective narratives – and celebrates fiction, poetry, drama, essays, life writing, and photography. It considers how much has changed or stayed the same in terms of scope and opportunity for women writers and for women more generally in Northern Irish society (and its diaspora) in the post-Good Friday Agreement era.
Northern Irish women’s writing is going from strength to strength and this anthology captures its current richness and audacity.
Edited by Linda Anderson and Dawn Sherratt-Bado and featuring work by:
Linda Anderson, Jean Bleakney, Maureen Boyle, Colette Bryce, Lucy Caldwell, Emma Campbell, Julieann Campbell, Ruth Carr, Jan Carson, Paula Cunningham, Celia de Fréine, Anne Devlin, Moyra Donaldson, Wendy Erskine, Leontia Flynn, Miriam Gamble, Rosemary Jenkinson, Deirdre Madden, Bernie McGill, Medbh McGuckian, Susan McKay, Sinéad Morrissey, Joan Newmann, Kate Newmann, Roisín O’Donnell, Heather Richardson, Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons, Cherry Smyth, Gráinne Tobin, Margaret Ward, Tara West, Sheena Wilkinson, Ann Zell.

In conversation with Carlo Gébler at Dublin Book Festival
2017-11-05 13:30 - 14:30 | Smock Alley Theatre, 6/7 Exchange Street Lower, Temple Bar, Dublin 8, Ireland
Author Carlo Gébler hosts an event which will explore the crucial narrative element of developing a sense of place during the writing process. He will be joined by Billy O’Callaghan, author of short stories and his first novel The Dead House (The O’Brien Press), comic strip writer Arja Kajermo – who is debuting her novel The Iron Age (Tramp Press), Bernie McGill, author of The Watch House (Headline) and Ciaran McMenamin, a stage and screen actor who is introducing his first novel Skintown (Doubleday Ireland). Together the authors will discuss and share their keen insights on effectively establishing a strong theme of place throughout their work, and how doing so enriched their storytelling.
Free event. Booking advised. Book here.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH BELFAST BOOK FESTIVAL

Belfast Launch of Female Lines, Crescent Arts Centre
2017-11-01 18:30 - 20:00 | Crescent Arts Centre, 2-4 University Road, BELFAST, BT7 1NH, United Kingdom

'Between the Lights' Writing Workshop with Bernie McGill
2017-10-28 10:00 - 16:00 | Roe Valley Arts & Cultural Centre, 24 Main Street, Limavady, BT49 0FJ, United Kingdom
The Celtic Festival of Samhain traditionally marks the end of the lighter half and the beginning of the darker half of the year. It was believed that at this time, the division between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to pass through. As we head into the darker weeks of the year, this one-day writing workshop will use as its theme that idea of passing between the lights. Open to all from experienced writers to first-timers, poets and prosers alike, the workshop will be fully participative with attendees taking part in writing exercises throughout the day. Maximum numbers 12. (One hour break for lunch. Lunch not provided.)
To book, phone: 028 7776 0650 or email: information@rvacc.co.uk

In Conversation with Jan Carson at No Alibis Bookshop, Belfast
2017-10-17 18:00 - 19:30 | No Alibis Bookshop, 83 Botanic Avenue, BELFAST, BT7 1JL, United Kingdom
Reading from The Watch House, in conversation with Jan Carson, author of Malcolm Orange Disappears and Children’s Children. A Belfast International Festival event.
Book here for the event. Watch the book trailer, filmed on Rathlin.
‘Beautiful and lyrical, tender and fierce; one of those rare novels, with the power to break you clean in two.’ Guinevere Glasfurd, author of the Costa shortlisted The Words in My Hand.
‘McGill writes about life, love and telegraphy with a poet’s clarity’ The Sunday Times
‘McGill proves once again she is a masterful storyteller . . . historical fiction at its absolute best’ The Lady
‘A novel to haunt you’ Sunday Mirror
‘Totally absorbing and full of unexpected twists’ Sunday Business Post
‘Endlessly intriguing and exhilarating’ Dublin Review of Books
‘An evocative novel that’s brimming with suspense… [it] reels you in and keeps a grip on you until the very end’ The Incubator
‘[McGill’s] assured style and eye for detail make The Watch House a pleasure to read, a fast-paced tale that rarely flags, with a complex and beguiling heroine at the helm’ Irish Times
‘Hard to put down, this atmospheric book will stay with you long after the final heart-rending denouement, setting McGill firmly into the panoply of modern Irish writers’ Irish Independent
‘There are messages in the air, a closeness like the kind that comes before a storm, a listening, a holding of breath.’ It is summer, 1898, on the small Irish island of Rathlin and the place is alive with gossip. A pair of strangers has arrived from the mainland, laden with mysterious radio equipment, and the islanders are full of dread. For native Nuala Byrne, abandoned by her family for the New World and trapped by a prudent marriage to the island’s ageing tailor, the prospects for adventure are bleak. But when she is sent to cook for Marconi’s men and is enlisted, by the Italian engineer Gabriel, as an apprentice operator, she becomes enthralled by the world of knowledge that he brings from beyond her own narrow horizons. As Nuala’s friendship with Gabriel deepens, she realises that her deal with the tailor was a bargain she should never have struck.
The Watch House is a gripping story about the power of words to connect us, and the power of suspicion to drive us apart.

Aspects Festival, Bangor, with David Park and Malachi O'Doherty
2017-09-24 15:00 - 16:30 | North Down Museum, Town Hall, The Castle, Bangor, BT20 4BT, United Kingdom
Reading from The Watch House with David Park, author of The Truth Commissioner and The Poets’ Wives, introduced by writer and broadcaster Malachi O’Doherty. An Aspects Festival event.

Launch of The Watch House at Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart
2017-09-21 19:00 - 22:00 | Flowerfield Arts Centre, 185 Coleraine Road, PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland, BT55 7HU, United Kingdom
Launch of The Watch House by Bernie McGill, in conversation with Eimear O’Callaghan, author of Belfast Days: A 1972 Teenage Diary. In association with the John Hewitt Society. Admission free but please reserve a place by phoning Flowerfield at the number provided, or email reception@flowerfield.org.
