Hello everyone,
The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2016 shortlist was announced this week. And I am so excited to share with you all that The Things I Should Have Told You, was included in the diverse, wonderful array of books!
There are fourteen categories and I’m shortlisted in the Sunday Independent Newcomer of The Year.
Look!
The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards is in its 11th year. I’ve watched the show every year on TV, rooting for my favourite authors. And I’ve been lucky to attend the awards for the past two years.
And this year, incredibly, I get to put on my glass slippers and go to the ball, walking that red carpet as one of the shortlisted! I’m so overwhelmed, excited and more than a little giddy.
Since the news broke at the media launch on Tuesday, the support and love I’ve had from friends, family and wonderful readers who always cheer loudly for me, has been incredible.
Here I am with extremely talented authors and friends, who are also shortlisted – Hazel Gaynor, me, Catherine Ryan Howard and Elizabeth Murray. A very special experience was made all the more memorable because they were there too.
After the shortlist was announced, we went to the Marker Hotel for a cocktail. We sat looking at each, with the same dazed, but happy grin on each of our faces. Later that night, when I took a moment to reflect, I realised how lucky I was to have made such good friends in this industry. I don’t take that for granted for one moment. The writing community here in Ireland is a warm, supportive and talented bunch.
It was lovely to celebrate with fellow Harper Collins authors Alex Barclay and Cecelia Ahern, who are also shortlisted. I suspect that there will be a lot of giggles on our table at the award ceremony, between us all!
The public are now being asked to cast their votes on the best books of the year online on the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards website www.bgeirishbookawards.ie. Votes may be cast until midnight on the 11th November 2016 and the winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in Dublin’s Double Tree by Hilton Hotel on Wednesday, 16thNovember. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to place their vote, it means a great deal to all of us authors, to have your support.
This year, anyone who casts their vote on the www.bgeirishbookawards.ie website, will also be in with the chance of winning a €100 voucher from National Book Tokens.
The awards ceremony will be broadcast to the nation on RTÉ TV on Saturday 19th November, if you want to watch! I’d like to wish every single shortlisted author, the very best of luck on the night.
It’s going to be a busy few weeks until then. Edits need to be completed on 72 Derry Lane. Halloween costumes need to be made. It’s midterm next week! And a string of birthdays in our house begin, starting with Nate’s 5th birthday today. I started to write when he was a newborn. In between night feeds, with him refusing to go to sleep, I would pick up my laptop, one foot moving his rocker back and forth. Somehow, between the rat a tat of my typing and that rocking, he’d doze off. And I’d have another chapter written. The birthday boy will be home from school any minute, so it’s time for me to put the lap top away.
Chat soon, have a lovely weekend, whatever you have planned,
Carmel x
Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2016 Shortlist
Eason Novel of the Year
All We Shall Know – Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland)
Days Without End – Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber)
Solar Bones – Mike McCormack (Tramp Press)
The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride (Faber & Faber)
The Wonder – Emma Donoghue (Pan Macmillan/Picador)
This Must Be The Place – Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press)
The Journal.ie Best Irish published Book of the Year
All Through the Night – Edited by Marie Heaney (Poetry Ireland)
Dublin since 1922 – Tim Carey (Hachette Books Ireland)
Looking Back: The Changing Faces of Ireland – Eric Luke (The O’Brien Press)
Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks – Edited by Fintan O’Toole (Royal Irish Academy)
The Invisible Art: A Century of Music in Ireland 1916-2016 – Michael Dervan (New Island Books)
The Glass Shore – Sinéad Gleeson (New Island Books)
Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year
Himself – Jess Kidd (Canongate Books)
Red Dirt – EM Reapy (Head of Zeus)
The Last Days of Summer – Vanessa Ronan (Penguin Ireland)
The Maker of Swans – Paraic O’Donnell (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The Things I Should Have Told You – Carmel Harrington (HarperCollins)
This Living and Immortal Thing – Austin Duffy (Granta Books)
National Book Tokens Nonfiction Book of the Year
I Read The News Today, Oh Boy – Paul Howard (Picador)
Ireland The Autobiography – John Bowman (Penguin Ireland)
The Hurley Maker’s Son – Patrick Deeley (Doubleday Ireland)
The Supreme Court – Ruadhán Mac Cormaic (Penguin Ireland)
Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir – John Banville & Paul Joyce (Hachette Books Ireland)
When Ideas Matter – Michael D Higgins (Head of Zeus)
RTE Radio One Ryan Tubridy Show Listener’s Choice
Lying In Wait – Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
Conclave – Robert Harris (Hutchinson)
Dictatorship: My Teenage War With OCD – Rebecca Ryan (On Stream Publications Ltd)
All Through the Night – Edited by Marie Heaney (Poetry Ireland)
All We Shall Know – Donal Ryan (Transworld Ireland)
Victim Without A Face – Stefan Ahnhem (Head of Zeus)
Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year
In Glasnevin – Jane Clarke (From: The Irish Times)
Patagonia – Emma McKervey (From: The Compass Magazine)
Suppose I Lost – Andrew Soye (From: Abridged Magazine)
Love / Hotel / Love – Michael Naghtan Shanks (From: Poetry Ireland Review)
Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Junior)
A Child of Books – Sam Winston and Oliver Jeffers (Walker Books)
Goodnight Everyone – Chris Haughton (Walker Books)
Historopedia – Fatti and John Burke (Gill Books)
Pigín of Howth – Kathleen Watkins (Gill Books)
Rabbit and Bear: Rabbit’s Bad Habits – Julian Gough & Jim Field (Hachette Children’s Group)
Rover and the Big Fat Baby – Roddy Doyle (Pan Macmillan)
Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Senior)
Knights of the Borrowed Dark – Dave Rudden (Puffin)
The Book of Shadows – E.R. Murray (Mercier Press)
The Making of Mollie – Anna Carey (The O’Brien Press)
Needlework – Deirdre Sullivan (Little Island Books)
Nothing Tastes As Good – Claire Hennessy (Hot Key Books)
Flawed – Cecelia Ahern (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Avonmore Cookbook of the Year
Recipes For A Nervous Breakdown – Sophie White (Gill Books)
The World of The Happy Pear – Stephen and David Flynn (Penguin Ireland)
Natural Born Feeder – Roz Purcell (Gill Books)
The Little Green Spoon – Indy Power (Ebury Press)
Neven Maguire’s Complete Family Cookbook – Neven Maguire (Gill Books)
The Brother Hubbard – Garrett Fitzgerald (Gill Books)
Irish Independent Popular Fiction Book of the Year
Game of Throw-Ins – Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (Penguin Ireland)
Lyrebird – Cecelia Ahern (HarperCollins)
Rebel Sisters – Marita Conlon-McKenna (Transworld Ireland)
The Girl From The Savoy – Hazel Gaynor (HarperCollins)
The Privileged – Emily Hourican (Hachette Books Ireland)
Holding – Graham Norton (Hodder & Stoughton)
Ireland AM Popular Nonfiction Book of the Year
Adventures of a Wonky-Eyed Boy – Jason Byrne (Gill Books)
Fat Chance – Louise McSharry (Penguin Ireland)
Making It Up As I Go Along – Marian Keyes (Michael Joseph)
Pippa – Pippa O’Connor (Penguin Ireland)
Talking to Strangers – Michael Harding (Hachette Books Ireland)
Mr. Pussy: Before I Forget to Remember – Alan Amsby/David Kenny (New Island Books)
Bord Gáis Energy Sports Book of the Year
Blood, Sweat & McAteer – Jason McAteer (Hachette Books Ireland)
Coolmore Stud, Ireland’s Greatest Sporting Success Story – Alan Conway (Mercier Press)
My Life in Rugby – Donal Lenihan (Transworld Ireland)
Out of Control – Cathal Mc Carron (Simon & Schuster)
The Battle – Paul O’Connell (Penguin Ireland)
Win or Learn – John Kavanagh (Penguin Ireland)
Writing.ie Short Story of the Year
Here We Are – Lucy Caldwell (Faber&Faber)
K-K-K – Lauren Foley (Ol Society – Australia)
The Visit – Orla McAlinden (Sowilo Press)
Green Amber Red – Jane Casey (New Island)
The Birds of June – John Connell (Granta Magazine)
What a River Remembers of its Course – Gerard Beirne (Numero Cinq Magazine)
Crime Fiction Award
Distress Signals – Catherine Ryan Howard (Atlantic Books (Corvus)
Little Bones – Sam Blake (Bonnier Zaffre)
Lying In Wait – Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
The Constant Soldier – William Ryan (Mantle)
The Drowning Child – Alex Barclay (HarperCollins)
The Trespasser – Tana French (Hachette Ireland)
