Felicity Hayes‑McCoy
Felicity Hayes-McCoy is the author of the USA Today bestselling Finfarran series of novels, which feature a local librarian and are set in a fictional county in Ireland. They have been translated into seven languages and are available in hardback, paperback, ebook and audiobook. The Keepsake Quilters, a stand-alone novel set in London and Wicklow, was published in October 2022. The paperback will be published October 19 2023. It will be followed in 2024 by the next Finfarran novel.
Born and educated in Dublin, she built a successful London-based career, as an actor and voice-artist, and as a scriptwriter in theatre, music theatre, radio, TV, and digital media. Her critically-acclaimed first memoir The House on an Irish Hillside, published in 2012, continues to be read worldwide and will shortly appear in a new edition from Open World Media. A sequel Enough Is Plenty: The Year on the Dingle Peninsula, illustrated with her own photos, was followed by a second memoir, A Woven Silence: Memory, History and Remembrance.
With her husband Wilf Judd, she divides her life and work between Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula and inner-city London. Dingle and its Hinterland: People, Places and Heritage, which they co-wrote, is a guide to the setting of her first memoir. https://felicityhayesmccoy.com/ https://rb.gy/g9pf2
Felicity can be found at:
Website: felicityhayesmccoy.com
Instagram: @felicityhayesmccoy
Facebook: facebook.com/fhayesmccoy
Tell me what inspired you to write your book?
It brings together themes that interest me – art, fashion, fabrics, cross-generational relationships, mothers and daughters, sustainability and the environment. It’s set in two places I know and love: the area of London’s South Bank near Borough Market, and Wicklow, in Ireland. It’s a standalone family saga, which I wanted to have a go at before beginning my next Finfarran novel. It’s unashamed uplit. I was longing to write a tragi-comic villain who’s a TV celebrity chef.
The Keepsake Quilters
What came first the character or the world?
The world.
How hard was it to get your first book published?
I was fortunate, because my editor at Hachette Ireland snapped it up and was happy to put publication of my next Finfarran novel (which I’m currently writing) back to 2024.
How long did it take to write?
To write, about a year. To make, most of my adult life.
How many publishers turned you down?
Luckily for me, I don’t know. Wisely, my agent never tells me.
What kind of reactions have you had to your book?
Wonderful responses from readers, in person and on social media. Invitations to talk to quilting groups and in craft shops – something I’d never expected. I also had the joy of meeting booksellers in over 80 shops in 18 of Ireland’s counties, when I took three week-long road trips last November to promote it: meeting so many dynamic, enthusiastic, entrepreneurial people who loved my book and were working their socks off to get it to readers was amazing, and seeing first hand how indie bookshops can become the hub of their communities was a real buzz . (Plus, that experience inspired the central plotline of my next Finfarran novel.)
What’s the favourite reaction you’ve had to your book?
I’m always staggered that people all over the world take time to get in touch and tell me what they think of it.
What can you tell us about your next book?
It’ll be the eighth Finfarran novel. It comes out Oct 17 2024. Its timeline follows the week that leads up to Christmas, and its central strand is set in a small-town bookshop. I think Finfarran fans will be glad to know that it forefronts Fury and The Divil, and involves Mary Casey and a cookery course.
Do you take notice of online reviews?
I avoid reading them.
Would you ever consider writing outside your current genre?
See my biog above!!!
What did you do before (or still do) you became a writer?
I began my professional life as an actor but, even then, I wrote. I’ve been a fulltime professional writer for well over forty years, though I still do a certain amount of work as a voice artist.
Which author(s) inspire you?
Shakespeare
Which genres do you read yourself?
When I’m writing a novel, only non-fiction – mostly biographies. Otherwise, anything that catches my eye. I love history, architecture, design, art, as they’re explored in any genre. I’m a sucker for vintage crime novels.
What is your biggest motivator?
Writing is my livelihood. And, like every author, I suppose, I want the world to focus on things I think are important.
What will always distract you?
Chocolate. A garden that needs weeding
How much (if any) say do you have in your book covers?
Very little. I think experts in their fields should be left to get on with their work.
Were you a big reader as a child?
Yes
What were your favourite childhood books?
So many. I began reading Alan Garner as a child and haven’t stopped since.
What books can you not resist buying?
Anything about Alexander the Great.
Do you have any rituals when writing?
I live and work in two very different environments (a flat in a former jam factory in Bermondsey and a stone house on the side of a West Kerry mountain) but in both places my desk faces a blank wall.
How many books are in your own physical TBR pile?
I’m a compulsive re-reader. Every book I own is on my TBR pile.
What is your current or latest read?
Tristram Hunt’s Building Jerusalem. I’ve just finished Máiría Cahill’s remarkable memoir Rough Beast (Pub date : Sept 28 2023), which I’ll be discussing with her at the Dingle Literary Festival in November. https://rb.gy/eo3w8
Any books that you’re looking forward to in the next 12 months?
So many.
Any plans or projects in the near future you can tell us about?
Not that I can talk about yet.
Any events in the near future?
https://rb.gy/eo3w8
and finally, what inspired you to write the genre you do?
Commercial fiction arose from my work in TV drama. All the rest arose from my work in theatre, study of folklore, and love of reading.
