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.
Writing Process
One book was supposed to be enough. Then the characters got angry, a legend from the western islands wouldn’t let go, and a week in Cork changed everything.
Character Inspiration
My music history teacher would ‘drop the needle’ on a random record and we had to name the composer. The day he dropped it on Berlioz, I recognized something I’d been waiting to hear my entire life.
Character Inspiration
In The Raven, Poe never says Lenore was her real name — the angels name her, transforming a woman into a poetic ideal. In my novel, I gave him a reason to do exactly that. Her real name is Eleanor, and she chose medicine over beautiful doom.
Writing Process
A symphony born in a rattling carriage. A screwdriver falling into the Big Bang. Two passages from two novels that sound nothing alike—and the same composer’s ear behind both.
Writing Process
One novel began with Berlioz. The other began in a Cork taxi with a driver named Pat Winning. Both came from the same place—a composer’s ear that can’t stop listening for what isn’t being said.
Character Inspiration
A taxi driver’s rant. A bartender’s silence. A wellness instructor’s terrifying calm. How real people become fictional characters—and where the theft begins.