'Nude' and 'Miracle' Hit the Front Page of Salt

Nude and Miracle Hit the Front Page of Salt

I am really proud and totally delighted to be published alongside Irish writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir – Nuala is a short fiction writer and a poet and Salt have just published her short story collection Nude and from yesterday we are both gracing the front page of Salt ….woo-hoo! Look where we’ve landed, sugar-baby!! : )

Just take a look at Nude’s cover, isn’t it amazing? And please read the pdf sample here of one of the short stories to get a flavour of the wonderful work that is inside.

With a quote like the one below, how could anyone resist buying Nude.

“Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s stories in her extraordinary collection, Nude, are at once ravishingly sexual and achingly, vulnerably human.” —Robert Olen Butler

And must admit that Wrong Miracle’s quote is kind of cool too!

“Liz Gallagher’s poems delight in the possibilities of language. They seize us from the first line and tug us along, startled and exhilarated by the tumbling originality of her use of words.” —Laurie Smith

The wonderful thing is that Salt have a sizzling summer sale and both our books, among many others, have a whooping 33% discount all during the month of August.

Read what Salt has to say:

In order to keep Salt on track through the wet British summer, we're offering you another special deal throughout August.

All Salt books are available from us at 33% discount yet again.

That's a third off all Salt titles, and free shipping on orders with a cover price of over £30 or $30. Offer ends 31 August 2009.

Simply enter the coupon code HU693FB2 when in the store to benefit.

As before, all we ask is two things—

1. Buy one book. Or perhaps another one ... go on.

2. Pass it on. Share this offer with everyone who loves gorgeous books and likes a bargain (whilst saving independent literature).

What better way to sizzle yourself a long, hot summer than a copy of Nude and a Miracle or two can’t do no harm either! ; )

Happy Reading!

(apologies if I sound like a TV ad jingle – getting carried away is a terrible thing! ; ))

The Wrong Miracle is Available to Buy

The Wrong Miracle is now available to buy ....I have just ordered lots of copies to be sent to Ireland for my readings there! Major excitement afoot.... ; )

Just a reminder that the royalties of the book are going to Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity. Thanks!

Original Wrong Miracle Cover

This was the original Wrong Miracle cover that Salt suggested...must admit to not having been really able to visualise it as a likely cover... it made me think of the book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus...I like the Kitschness of it though...and it is a bit tongue-in-cheek, with the man/woman theme weighing quite heavily with it...Wrong Miracle is a bit more wide-ranging...even though it does 'poem' relationship stuff, but that is only one aspect of it. It is strange, and indeed amusing, in many ways how the book can lend itself to two completely different covers...I went with my gut instinct on backing away from this first possible cover...and am totally happy about the cover that Miracle now has...

Amazon are still using the first cover though and have been asked to change it but apparently it will take a few weeks to do so....it feels strange having one book but two different covers out there...!

Miracle and In Memory

My poetry book, The Wrong Miracle, has arrived at Salt’s distributor which means that it should be ambling its way to me, either here in the Canaries or to Donegal, over the next few days. If it goes North as opposed to sub-tropical way, I won’t actually get to see it till the 8th of August…..and by then it will be a near-3-week-old thing and probably wondering where she-who-has-spawned it is….deserter I hear it call…: )

But seriously, I am super-excited, even if as a means to deep-breathing, I have resorted to swallowing-hard like a very lost goldfish in its own little bowl…

I haven’t talked about this before but part of the book dedication is in memory of Ailish, my sister Rosie’s daughter, who was stillborn 5 years ago. The royalties from the sale of the book are going to Sands – the stillbirth and neonatal death charity.

Revival Journal

(cover lifted from TFE's blog : ))

I have a poem in the latest issue of Revival Journal and am keeping good company with two fellow poets TFE and Nuala. It is in the post and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival, that is if postie-lady hasn't decided to stock up our post till the end of summer while she boots off on her holliers...in these credit crunch times, there is no such thing as a replacement!

As stated in a previous post, the poem in Revival is titled 'Mostly, My Dogs Excel the Gods' - here are a few lines from it.

'so too do toes crush when they signal
things approaching, as if elastic'

'My dogs do not bide time, a roll
over makes time seem gelatine,
the wag of tail not unexpected '

30 Poems in 30 Days

Yesterday, I finished writing the 10th round of 30 poems in 30 days at Inside the Writers' Studio - that is 10 rounds in about two and a half years. Time to have myself a glass of chilled white wine and stretch out my quite short legs into the lovely dusk approaching over our newly tiled terrace. : )

Here are the titles of the 30 poems:

X.1 Instructions If You Think Enlightenment Has Occurred
X.2 My Tiredness, My Identical Match
X.3 Stolen Moments
X.4 On Watching the Sun Set
X.5 Countless
X.6 You Cannot Be a Summer’s Day
X.7 As Fresh As a Rose
X.8 For The Birds
X.9 I Have a Red Leather Jacket from Mrs Quinn’s Charity Shop and I Think I Am It
X.10 Body Drama
X.11 Something About a Sore Thumb
X.12 Swaddling
X.13 No Winning Looks
X.14 Running with the Line ‘Taking the Trouble to …’
X.15 All the Old Etceteras
X.16 This is the Way I…
X.17 Mornings, Light-Bulbs and Me
X.18 Don’t Count On Me
X.20 I Do, Do It
X.19 Mice
X.21 How come…?
X.22 Things Poets Say
X.23 A Faint Hint of Intention
X.24 The Bull Run
X.25 Oysters
X.26 In the Absence of Oxygen
X.27 She Does Not Have a Mouth on Her
X.28 Shoulder Blades
X.29 Memory (1)
X.30 Memory (2)

** The Wrong Miracle news is that the date for arrival at the distributor's is now the 21st of July (Tuesday)

Book About to Arrive at Salt's Distributors and Virtual Book Tours

The time is drawing really near for the appearance of my book,The Wrong Miracle – I think it should be at Salt's distributors this Friday, the 17th…woo-hoo! : )

Salt have asked me to start organizing my Virtual Book Tour which I am hoping to begin around the end of October. I am really looking forward to working on the virtual tour. The whole explanation on the running of The Virtual Book Tour is on Salt’s website here.


Basically, it’s a case of getting 10 fellow bloggers to host myself and book on their blog – each blog hosts three questions about the book, which I or they may suggest, the questions usually cover the whole writing and being a poet (or trying to be a poet) theme…, nothing about dodgy tendencies unconnected to writing! : )

If anyone would like to have me and miracle for a visit to their blog, (promise not to break your best wine glasses nor plod around with great big welly boots! ; )), drop me an e-mail at elizavalidoatyahoodotcom …

This is what Salt says regarding the benefits of being a Host Blogger:

What do Bloggers get out of this? We will list every blog destination on our Web site generating new traffic for them. We are also happy to list a 300 word description of each blog as well as an 80 word biographical note about the blogger plus links to their books on the site, these will be hosted as blog profiles on Cyclone, and will provide a catalogue of potential collaborators as the site grows.
Sounds like a cool deal, fancy it?

How to Compose Poetry (Paul Muldoon)

Paul Muldoon talks about How to Compose Poetry here

Some random favourite things he says are:

1. Don’t leave brain outside the door
2. At the risk of appearing tiresome, cherish ignorance to have half a chance of it happening
3. Patience
4. A 5 Minutes Flat syndrome...

* Amusing and insightful!

Book Gone to Print – Mind Going to Pot!

(Hugging Páidi - Back to Downslope)

Sure, sure I am as excited as can be at the book about to be published but how come my mind feels as if it’s about to go to pot and maybe even pop at the same time…?

A part of me wants to scarper with the book, tuck it under my oxter (nearly said oyster there!) and show it to no one…another part wants to go buy all of them and hand them out willy-nilly on the street. Nutcase, yes! Going to pot, looks like it …

What am I afraid of? Being judged, I suppose… I’m sure it’s power for the course, this feeling of ‘will people like it or not’, by people, I mean friends both blogging and non-blogging…I haven’t got the length of thinking if anyone official- minded will like it or not….that is a whole other day’s worry! I mean …at times I read it and think ‘whoopee, you clever thing, what a way to go’, at other times I read it and think ‘oh heck, why did I think that was a good idea’….I suppose this comes with being a first-timer, I reckon I’ll need to toughen up though… when things fall flat, I cannot afford to take it too much to heart…wish I could be a full-of-myself type of person at times…..no wonder some literary types develop egos, it's all a big fat pretense if you ask me! ; )

At least, the plus side of reading a lot into everything is that it keeps me on my toes and ….and talking of toe-keeping, I am writing a poem a day at the moment with some poet friends and the nearer the book gets to coming into existence, the faster I’m writing….maybe it’s a sort of starting afresh thing or a sort of nulling out of all those poems in the book already. Freud and field day spring to mind. I’ll fasten my seat belt just in case....

Would love to hear any anecdotes/stories/experiences on how it was for you, on the threshold of a book coming out...I can't be the only one who is between two extremes of emotion...¿?:)

Revival - Dogs and Poems

This present issue of Revival has got a poem of mine in it titled, then, 'My Dogs Like to Chorus (Not to Boogie)' and now titled 'Mostly, My Dogs Excel the Gods'

And above are the inspirational dogs themselves...characters, without a doubt. ; )