Human Rights in Pictures

More on the anniversary of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights. The UK children’s publishers Frances Lincoln are producing an illustrated guide to the declaration for children to be published in October. Including artwork by some great illustrators, such as Axel Scheffler, Alan Lee and Chris Riddell, the book features two forewords written by David Tennant (“Doctor Who”) and myself. It’s not available yet but you can pre-order it from the publisher’s website here.

UN Declaration of Human Rights stories

If you live in Ireland, not only are you very fortunate but you also have daily access to THE IRISH TIMES newspaper.

As this year marks the 60th anniversary of the thirty articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a series has begun in The Irish Times every Saturday, edited by Roddy Doyle, where a different Irish writer responds to one of the articles in prose, fiction or poetry. The series began 2 weeks ago with Seamus Heaney and my own story, The Round Hall, was published last Saturday (in response to Article 10). 28 pieces are to follow from other Irish writers and they will ultimately be collected together in what will no doubt be a handsome anthology.

It’s worth mentioning, however, that the draft of The Round Hall which was published last week was slightly in error. It was the story that I sent in, however I had made a few subtle changes to the centre of the piece and it was that draft which was supposed to be published. Unfortunately, through no one’s fault, an error was made.

No matter. When the stories are collected together later in the year a slightly reworked version of this story will appear. In the meantime, those of you in Ireland should really get a hold of the paper every Saturday.

The Journal

Hello all… I’m adding a journal to my website and hope to update it as often as possible with anything that seems even remotely interesting to me. It’s a work-in-progress and I’m only getting started on it so bear with me…