Thanks to whoever it was in Northern Ireland that sent me three music CDs as a belated birthday present!
But I don’t recognise your handwriting, and so I have absolutely no idea who you are!
(Am trying to think of friends who live in NI and would know enough Dutch to write “Do Not Bend / Niet Vouwen AUB” on the envelope, but am really drawing a blank…)
For the record, I want to state that Martin McGrath has every right to every word he said about the problems with my novels. He’s a native. I’m not. There’s no way in hell I’d ever be able to do enough research to balance out that deficiency. I am an outsider. I always will be. More, I’m an outsider who hasn’t visited the country in question. Three years isn’t enough. Ten years isn’t enough–even if I’d lived there for a year on top of it. So, no excuses. He’s right. And yes, I screwed up the small amounts of Irish language used in the books. I’ve only studied Irish for three years, and I’m *far* from fluent. Irish is not an easy language to learn. There are multiple dialects and I most certainly didn’t have access to the one dialect I did need. In any case, I’m very sorry I upset him. That wasn’t my intent. Yes, I did present a more simplistic version of the political situation. (I was encouraged to do so a bit more than I did originally because I was writing for Americans.) I did try to supply as much detail as I could get away with–that is, more than most American novelists have used in the past to my experience. Mostly, I wanted to demonstrate that it’s a complicated and difficult situation and to point out to Americans that perhaps revenge isn’t the best attitude with which to approach the terrorist issue. When I sit down to write book three I hope I can chat with Martin first because I’d love to get those sorts of details right. I honestly would. It’d be amazing. I don’t want to cause more hurt. Again, so very much not my intent.
As for the other Campbell nominees, I’ve been working to get a cooperative thing going between us so that everyone gets a fair amount of press. Karen, Mur, Lily and Brad are all very fine, very talented writers, and they’re good people too. I’m honored and thrilled to be on the same ballot with them.