Ross's Auctions, Lynn McGregor and Still On The Sound

An eventful week. Lynn had her first solo show in Ireland, at Ross's Fine Art Auctioneers in Belfast. Barclays Wealth sponsored the invitations and hospitality and Daniel Clarke of Ross's very generously provided the venue, and much else besides in terms of logistical support. In fact, everyone at both Barclays and Ross's was great to work with, and good fun.

Barclays hosted a private reception on Monday, and on Tuesday there was an exhibition preview evening, attended we think by around two hundred. Sales were good, the atmosphere was excellent and there was plenty of media attention, courtesy of Peter Morrow Communications - we did a joint interview for BBC Radio Ulster's Arts Extra programme, presented by the delightful Marie-Louise Muir, which went out during the preview night, and Irish News and Down Recorder both carried stories and pictures. UTV's Seven Thirty Show are coming to film on the island this week, and there is more media coverage coming up.

The show was hung in the three big front rooms at Ross's which are normally used for their sales of Irish art - lots of light and space and a rare opportunity to give the work room to breathe. In the picture, Daniel Clarke of Ross's is on the left and Jonathan Dobbin of Barclays Wealth on the right.

The publicity was mainly for the exhibition but also tied around my new book, Still On The Sound, which was originally to have been launched during the week of the show. Sadly the book didn't make it from the printers in time (still hasn't!), so no-one was able to go out and buy it, but it can be pre-ordered from Amazon.co.uk (the link is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Still-Sound-Seasonal-Look-Island/dp/0856408492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257026410&sr=1-1).

I've also put the link to the book's Amazon page on the Home page of the website (http://www.thebluecabin.com/).

Launch of Still On The Sound

Just made a flying visit to Edinburgh to collect paintings for Lynn's exhibition in Ross's in Belfast at the end of October - am intending to put images of all pieces in the show on her website www.lynnmcgregor.co.uk nearer the time.

Still On The Sound should have gone to the printers on Tuesday, but sadly amidst the final flurry of edits and emails and various layout tweaks, the designer broke his hand and had to have it pinned - bad luck, especially for a designer, but it also puts the launch date of the book in doubt. The idea is still to launch during the week of Lynn's exhibition (27th - 30th October), but that is beginning to look unlikely, we're all just keeping fingers crossed.

Meantime I can get on with redesigning the books' website to accomodate the new title and work on the PR side of the launch. I hope to do signing sessions in Avoca, Arthur Street and in Waterstones, Fountain St. Belfast, in the second half of November/first half December, and I have taken on a number of talks and readings between now and April next year - the first is on Saturday 17th October, for the annual WI gathering in Armagh. Again, at one time I had hoped I might have the new book for that, but I'll read from it anyway and maybe have some postcards with me.

Literary Strangford

The Literary Strangford Map and Guide was launched yesterday at Salt Water Brig restaurant on the Ards Peninsula, between Portaferry and Kircubbin.

I wouldn't have expected a launch event at lunchtime on a Tuesday to be very well attended, but both carparks were full and there was standing room only inside - a reflection of the work put in by the Strangford Lough Office in Portaferry, but also presumably of the level of interest in the literary heritage of the lough. Which, it turns out, is even richer than anyone had imagined. There are many well-known names associated with Strangford, among them Joseph Tomelty, Sam Hanna Bell and Michael McLaverty, but with the help of the community a growing bibliography, currently with over a hundred names of writers past and present, has been put together - the bibliography, and individual writers' biographies, will be on the Literary Strangford pages of the website (www.strangfordlough.org) from the end of this week.

The Map itself has a selection of thirty-eight numbered literary references which are picked up in the geographically arranged text to the side, and the guide is illustrated with watercolours by local artist Sandra Maze. The Blue Cabin is there, though curiously enough in the 'Kircubbin and Greyabbey' section - that's because it is so hard to get to the water's edge on the mainland in our corner of the lough, so the guide has Islandmore as being visible from across the lough, beside St.Patrick's Church, a key location for the 1990 film December Bride.

It's an exciting project and from the point of view of living writers, what's great about the map is that it will be out there for some time and with luck will be revised and updated - like online bookselling, it's a welcome contribution to the 'long tail' of marketing by which everyone hopes to maintain the currency of their book.

Still On The Sound

Can you see the far shore from your window;
Are the moorings in shadow or light?
Is the gleam in your eye from the western sky -

Is it still on the sound tonight?

Coincidence?

Leaving Lynn back to the island yesterday, it was raining hard and the wind was getting up as we crossed the sound. We noticed one or two yachts at their moorings with tenders astern, meaning someone was aboard - nothing unusual about that, and anyone wishing to go ashore from south of the pontoons could go quite safely with the wind. However, by the time we had pottered about at the cabin for twenty minutes, it was blowing better than half a gale from the southwest, and on the return trip, I spotted one boat, the very lovely old Rudha Nan Gall, on her mooring to the north of the pontoons with only a tiny skiff tied to her stern, and it seemed to me that only a very strong rower would attempt to go ashore, and certainly not with passengers.

I thought about letting it go, as I always have this feeling that it's not nice to be disturbed when you're minding your own business on your own boat; but as I got closer I could see that the punt was pitching and jumping in a most uninviting way, so I decided to approach from downwind and see if I could help.

I saw a face in the stern cockpit, waved, and shouted a greeting - and it turned out that there were actually five aboard and that for three of them (and two dogs), a lift to the pontoons would be very welcome. Rudha Nan Gall has a white painted wooden hull, so I was very conscious of the need to come alongside carefully, especially as my own boat was behaving just like the skiff but perhaps in a more ponderous, grown-up way. Two pairs of hands reached down to hold me off while the three evacuees (whom it turned were acquaintances from way back), climbed over the rail and down into the With - one of them, Rosemary, who is well over eighty, making as good a fist of this quite scary maneouver as her younger companions. The two dogs followed, or rather were propelled, after them, and I let go and drifted astern, turning into the wind to head in a zigzag to the nearest pontoon and doing my very best to get my passengers there without getting them soaked.

Anyway it went well and we parted company at the pontoons - it was my good deed for the day. Then, before writing this blog I looked out the cruising club Year Book for the correct spelling of Rudha Na Gall, and just out of interest, to see who owned her: everything had happened very quickly and we all had to shout to make ourselves heard, so it hadn't been an occasion for pleasantries.

Rewind to last Wednesday, and to a comment posted on one of my YouTube videos from someone signing him (or her) self 'S.C.' The comment was about having ordered my book, and there was also a thank-you for a rescue years ago, I think probably in the 1980s, from a Lightning boat in the lough. I had no recollection of the rescue, and responded simply to say thanks for the comment and to see if the author would give me any more clues as to his (or her) identity. I only got around to this at the weekend, and haven't heard back yet.

Fast forward to the Year Book. The owner of Rudha Nan Gall is one 'S.Clarke', whom I would only have known in the passing. I believe in coincidence as being, often as not, meant, so it got me thinking.

I'll find out soon enough..

Canada Geese

At first light this morning, Eddie started barking, ran along the corridor, skidded through our bedroom and jumped out the window onto the veranda. My first thought was the fox, which sometimes checks out the veranda for scraps, especially at that time of the morning; but it turned out to be the sound of half a dozen Canada Geese flying low across the sound towards the mainland.

Strangford's Canada Geese are feral, having been brought over in the 1700's as ornamentals, so they don't migrate, but it's as if they feel they should: in early September they begin to get restless, and their very vocal fly-bys are a sure sign of the change of season. In a few weeks they will be joined by 15-20,000 Brent Geese, around three-quarters of the European population.

Still On The Sound - launch minus seven weeks

I was late for a meeting with the publishers this morning as there was so much rain last night the rowing boat had sunk (this can happen when the level of rainwater reaches a little hole halfway up one of the buoyancy tanks) and the dinghy was half-full of water - so there was half an hour of manhandling and baling to do before I could leave the island. Apologies to Helen and Sarah of Blackstaff.

The meeting was productive though; the new book is launched in seven or eight weeks and we were going over the schedule and planning the marketing effort. Blackstaff recently took on a new rep/PR company for mainland UK so that may make it more straightforward to get the book stocked in the chains there - that's certainly a goal of mine, as I've always encouraged bookshop managers to see The Blue Cabin as a book about island life rather than about Irish island life, having potentially wider appeal. Likewise with Still On The Sound - the obvious market is Northern Ireland as so many people here are interested in Strangford Lough, but that should only be the starting point.

We're at the stage of looking at press releases and putting together a list of print and broadcast media to whom the book can be sent; also planning a launch event, provisionally at Ross's Auctions in Belfast during Lynn's exhibition in October.

The sub-title has been a long time in gestation - we agreed Still On The Sound as the title months ago - but we're now looking at something like 'A Seasonal Look at Island Life' as the sub-title. A little prosaic, but it does it's job which is to explain the title and describe the narrative of the book. Sub-titles have to work quite hard! My agent Isobel Dixon came up with the strap line Living by the Tides on Islandmore for The Blue Cabin, which had more poetry perhaps (then again Isobel is an accomplished poet) but hopefully the actual title of the new book, Still On The Sound, has a poetic ring.