Cacophony Of Bone

Paperback launch

This wee book of mine, the second I’ve written, and the work I’m most proud of having created, publishes in paperback today with a beautiful new colour way thanks to the incredible designer Rafaela Romaya.

I’d love to share an image of me unboxing my copies (my glittery emerald green nails would look exquisite beside this purple!) but again, like with THIN PLACES, my author copies haven’t arrived…thanks, Brexit :(

I am also keen, as well as the unboxing video, to photograph it with the lush bright purple candle my son gave me (wrapped in floral purple hues addressed to MAMMY SQUIRREL) lit beside it, the beautiful lavender organiser my partner gave me too, (purple is the colour of 2024 , he had declared, when this year’s WINTER PAPERS arrived!)—all laid on top of my mint green desk— but that is actually me totally missing the point of it all.

It feels so important, central even, to call myself out on this; the way I am drawn to the pretty pretty pretty of it all when that part actually had very little to do with me.

I am very lucky that my publishers really listen and take on board my wishes when it comes to how the book looks ( with a designer like Rafaela though I needn’t worry!)

It’s what is on the inside that I am proud of, actually. The words, the use of the white space (I had so much support with the layout of this book, something which mattered to me an awful lot), the honesty and the observation and the bearing of witness this book afforded me.

I am so grateful to everyone who played their part in bringing this book into the world. The team at Canongate who have looked after both my books and have helped me grow myriad ways.

I am grateful right down to my bones to every single wild creature involved in the making of it — winged ones; rooted ones; dancing ones; seeded ones; unborn ones; timeless ones; slithering ones; furry ones; ethereal ones; wild ones; precious ones—without whom it would not exist.

I spent a long time trying to find the words for what this life might mean to me, this life of creativity and light and truth, and this book is the first line of that surreal, wondrous, terrifying, beautiful song.

Being alive—sharing this incomparable, glistening world with our ki & kith & kin; trying to hold it all close enough that we might be changed by it every moment— made new again each dawn & dusk by the heat & beat of blood & bone — how lucky we are; how grateful I am; how full my heart.

Being an Irish woman carrying trauma, trying to step outside of many things that would maybe break me, trying to share that truth through art is not easy. It is not cathartic (something memoirists—particularly female writers—are asked over and over.) It changes you in ways neither good nor bad, just their own selves , those changes.

Cacophony of Bone is a very different creature from Thin Places, but if you read TP and either loved or hated it, I like to think you would find something of value in this quiet, (I hope) tender wee book.

If you do decide to read it now it’s in paperback, please send me a picture. I would love to see this book living her best life.

Oh my oh my I hope if you read it that you love it, as much as I do (and as a person prone to excruciating self deprecation and loathing of my work it is a very big deal to say that.)

It was an honour to write this book. It saved me. It changed me. It undid and reminded and taught me. It cracked me open me and sweet fuck am I grateful.

Support your local indie no matter what book you buy. The good things happening there, in our communities, hold the power to drastically change the way we are in this world — with each other, with ourselves, with the great and echoing unseen.

This is something I am trying to explore in my work; how the small everyday choices we make create ripples. I’ll be exploring this a bit more in the coming months in my paid posts (sign up here if this is something you feel drawn to ). Ideas around what it looks like to be a creative person, a (m)other, in ongoing collective crises. What it means to try to stay true to your own creative self and her needs in late-stage capitalism. I really feel community is, not the answer, but the question we need to be asking...

To return to the book, there is no launch for the paperback planned and no events either, so I will be sharing some excerpts and a wee look at my process with this book over the next few posts as a way to celebrate and honour the book.

You see the thing I am most grateful for is actually this book herself, no matter how wild that might sound.

Here she is hanging out in the window, with roses, at the launch of the hardback at the exquisite Gutter Bookshop in spring.

It was one of the most special nights of my life, and I am so grateful for it all, for every bit of this funny, lonely, often unsettling, sometimes confusing , mostly utterly wild but always magical writing life.

What an honour.

I will never ever get over it x