A lot, I appreciate it so much when someone reads and comments on the work

A comic novel of my own, and the next anthology

Concept of favourites is alien to me. Interests shift and expand constantly. Currently into Octavia Butler, I think she's a skilled narrator. American writer, John Kennedy O'Toole with his Gothic comedy novel, Confederacy of Dunces is a perennial. I love the rhythm of his New Orleans speech which in a way reminds me of Dublin speech. 'The Dead', by James Joyce, is one of the most lyrical and most moving short stories of all time. I like to dip into the 19th Century now and again, I recently enjoyed reading Don Boucicault, the 19th Century Irish dramatist, I like the lyricism in The Shaughraun. Also enjoy The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, so OTT. Currently reading The Deadly Times by Lew Irwin, a thrilling account of the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building in 1910, an atrocity carried out by the powerful Iron Workers Union, (lest we forget that terrorism begins at home).

Books, news, emails, communication of any sort

Thinking, reading, eating, worrying, drinking

By chance, I get absorbed in a topic and the book appears, currently e-reading Ayan Hirshi Ali's book, 'Infidel' - also Melanie Phillips book 'Londonistan', an excellent critique of Islamified British society. I e-read three or four books at a time. A topic interests me and I search for a book on it, that's how I discover.

I think it had a dark night and a moon, it may have begun 'once upon a time'.

Get an idea, form a picture in my head, do it, then re do it, then re do it, then re do it.

I think it was a fairy tale, a morality tale really, by an obscure Russian folklorist, it was about a girl who steals a penny, then dies. Her ghost returns the stolen penny to her mother.

Make it striking

Hate this question. How can you pin down a few amidst the galaxies of thoughts and ideas.

A few I remember more clearly are Dubliners, by Joyce, mainly for those pellucid passages in The Dead.

Confederacy of Dunces, by J K O' Toole. Not only a comedic delight, seat of the pants enjoyment, but poignant considering poor J K's fate at the hands of an insane editor.

Country Girls, by Edna O'Brien, bitter-sweet Ireland.

Mrs Dalloway, by Virgina Woolf. I see Woolf as a mentally fractured elitist who wrote in a way that challenged her own (privileged) society's view of itself, (she was hampered by Victorian restrictive mores). She upended the prevailing 'master narrative'. She remains important but has been superseded by people like Toni Morrison.

Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi. Taut, sad, brilliant. A triumph of spirit over disaster, and a testament of man's inhumanity to man.
The Right To Be Lazy written by French Marxist Paul LeFargue, a mordant satire on the sadistic 'work ethic' of Victorian 'philanthropists.' This is required reading for anyone with a mind.

All the deadly gossip about terrible events

Kindle every time

Getting the news out with personal emails to groups of people, LinkedIn group mails, Twitter and Facebook

A 1930's oval-shaped dining table, made of pale oak. I purchased it at an antiques shop in the town where I live. I paid a small amount of cash for my table and I love it.

Dublin, Ireland, the home of storytelling, listening to my mother and aunts; they were walking narrators

Aged three or four

I am disturbed by the rise of Islamism, want to counter it with a narrative that celebrates freedom

It's quicker

Smashwords is fabulous for networking and getting your stuff out there. This has just begun for me, but I think it will blossom

Creation, the joy of making things up, the sort of control over events that you don't really have.