McCabe in six-figure move to Bloomsbury: It's book deals everywhere this weather and Pat McCabe is among the Irish authors on the move. Published by Picador and then by Faber, he has now been signed up by Bloomsbury for what his agent, Marianne Gunn O'Connor, describes as an excellent six-figure sum.
The move was made after his editor moved on from Faber and the deal is for two books, the first being Winterwood, which will be published either at the end of next year or in early 2007. His new editor at Bloomsbury is Rosemary Davidson. We asked McCabe what Winterwood was about and the answer was this: "In Winterwood you long for a place as warm as death where the Christmas carousel no longer chimes, where your only betrothed is a spectre, the vengeful bride of love denied." Well you wouldn't expect anything too syrupy from the author of The Butcher Boy, would you?
Meanwhile, Claudia Carroll of Fair City has also signed for a six-figure sum to US publisher Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins in the US. The deal is for her next book, Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man, which will come out Stateside at the end of next year. Her two previous novels, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me and The Last of the Great Romantics, have been published on this side of the Atlantic by Transworld, which will also publish her new book in Britain next September. Will Carroll be giving up being Nicola in Fair City? "Ask her that in a year," says Gunn O'Connor, who also represents Carroll.
Hourican debut
The newest Irish publisher on the block, Blackrock Publishing, has signed up its first author, Emily Hourican, former editor of the Dubliner magazine. For a €24,000 advance against royalties she'll deliver what it calls a commercial fiction novel about a thirtysomething Dublin woman bored with her life and career who sets about changing it. It is expected out next summer. Blackrock is setting the stakes high in the genre by comparing it to Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City. The novel is written in a satirical style by a writer with a sense of ironic comedy, says the publisher. "It will be eminently readable by an audience as hip and trendy as the author herself," says Michael J McCann, who bears the stately title of president of the new publishing venture, which is funded by the Montaigne Investment Corporation. A number of its staff have come on board from other Irish publishing houses. McCann is a former chairman of the Irish Writers' Centre. www.blackrockpublishing.com
Three on sports shortlist
While the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award remains a major fixture on the London book scene - this year's winner will be announced on November 21st - now this country has its own Irish Sports Book of the Year Award. Sponsored by Irish bookmakers Boylesports, the inaugural award will be made in the Clarence Hotel, Dublin, on Monday. The three-book shortlist comprises Tangled Up in Blue (Townhouse), by former Dublin GAA footballer Dessie Farrell, with Sean Potts; Hurling - The Revolution Years (Penguin Ireland), Denis Walsh's tour of hurling high points nationwide, and Last Man Standing (O'Brien Press), Christy O'Connor's insights into hurling goalkeepers down the years. The judges are sports editors from the national newspapers and sports heads from TV3, RTÉ and Today FM. The idea is to celebrate Irish sports writing and the prize is a trophy to both winning author and publisher.
Le Carré bags a Dagger
John Le Carré, riding high due to the new film version of his novel, The Constant Gardener - which opened here yesterday - got the ultimate accolade this week when his classic, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, won the Dagger of Daggers, a special award made this year by the Crime Writers Association at its annual prize-giving ceremony in London last Tuesday. The awards, founded in 1953 to celebrate the best in crime and thriller writing, came under fire this year for a shortlist that was felt to omit too many big names. There was also criticism of the number of novels in translation that it featured. Still, given the current success of Nordic writers in the genre, it wasn't a big surprise that the Gold Dagger and £3,000 (€4,461) went to Iceland's Arnaldur Indridason for Silence of the Grave (Harvill). Barbara Nadel took the Silver Dagger and a £2,000 (€2,975) cheque for Deadly Web (Headline).