Reflections on art, process,
memory, and the long road
between drafts.
Writing Process
Murder in the Shadows: Why
Poe and Berlioz Make Perfect
Partners
Both men were outsiders, romantics, obsessives. Both transformed personal anguish into revolutionary art. Putting them together in 1830 Paris—solving murders while the seeds of detective fiction take root—felt inevitable.
Historical Research
From Symphony to Stage:
The Berlioz-Smithson Love
Story
The true story behind The Dream Was Too Beautiful—how an Irish actress’s Ophelia drove a French composer to madness, genius, and one of music’s most radical symphonies.
Craft & Mythology
The Morrigan's Game:
Finding Celtic Gods in
Modern Cork
The Celtic gods never left Ireland. They’re only waiting in the shadows. Notes on weaving ancient mythology into contemporary fantasy.
Music & Story
I’ve listened to the March to the Scaffold hundreds of times. In that four and a half minutes, I watch a man die—the prison, the crowd, the blade, and two quiet plucked (pizzicato) notes that change the room every time I play them for students.
Craft & Mythology
There’s an old Haida story about how the raven stole the sun and threw it into the sky so we wouldn’t have to live in darkness. That’s the teacher’s mission. Three novels later, the trickster keeps showing up — and in Three Moons, he wears gray feathers.
Character Inspiration
Not just a pub—a threshold, a living room, a stage. How real Irish pubs built the fictional heart of the Trilogy, and why the cosmic apocalypse keeps circling back to a pub in Cork.
Character Inspiration
Eleanor chose her career. Henriette chose her art. Camille chose security. Three women in 1830 Paris, each navigating a world that offered them almost nothing.
Craft & Mythology
Irish mythology has four great cycles, each with its own heroes, tragedies, and impossible loves. A map for readers encountering them for the first time.
Character Inspiration
I cut an article out of a newspaper years ago and have carried it ever since. It was about a woman named Pauline who refused to leave the land her family had stood on for generations. “Three Moons” is not her story. But it could not have been written without her.