I'm doing a Christmas Market!

I'm going to have a stall at The Peas and Pods Christmas Market on the 22nd of December. I'll be selling signed books and Takeaway Doodles both framed and unframed. I will doodle while you wait! Monsters, cats, chickens, cows, you name it, I'll doodle it. I hope to have other Christmassy stuff like cards and creatures on my stall too :)

The market looks brilliant with wonderful crafty people. There's loads of cool crafty stuff for sale, check it out here. It will be on at The Dublin Food Co-Op,12 Newmarket, Dublin 8 from 1-8pm on Wednesday 22nd December.

Peas and Pods are promising 'mulled wine (and an alcohol free version for the drivers among you!) live music, and the usual great food, this will be one Christmas where last minute shopping will be a delight, not a chore! See you there, we’re very excited! Can you tell?!!'

If you would like to commission a Christmas doodle you can contact me at niamhsharkey@gmail.com. I will have it ready for take away that day.

Trócaire Christmas Cards

I am feeling so Christmassy today. It's been a weekend of snowy fun.

Starting on Friday night, I really loved the Toyshow. Thought it was the best one yet. Ryan Tubridy was a natural with the kids and full of quirky comments to keep the adults smiling too.

In fact it was so wonderful it made snow :)

My Trócaire Christmas cards are now available in all Trócaire stores: Maynooth, Cork and Belfast. Paddy in Skerries Bookstore will also be stocking them too!

If you would like to order the cards for your company please contact Trócaire directly on 1850 408 408

Can you spot a hidden character in this card?

Happy Niamh!

Hurray!

Hurray again for the Northsiders! Derek Landy lives in Lusk, and I'm a Skerries woman!

The Irish Book Awards!

On The Road with Mavis and Marge won The DAA Children’s Book of the Year!!!! I am thrilled!!!! Thank you so, so much to all my friends and family from all over the world who voted for Mavis and Marge. Thank you especially to Walker Books!!!!!

We had the best night...

at the best table,

with the best Sarah!

The best Mo!

We even had two Bonds...Conor and Chris!

The brilliant Jo!

The lovely Robert Dunbar and my totally rocking deadly designer Deirdre!

We had the wonderful Jane Harris!

The fabulous Susan!

And of course the best rep in the universe! (Conor Hackett!)

And a very, very late night :)

HURRAY!

Owl, Chicken & Cow Book Tour!

The uber talented Walker Books rep Conor Hackett brought myself and Chris Haughton on a whirlwind book signing session to eleven stores yesterday. I am still dizzy!

We had a great day, it was so wonderful to meet all the brilliant booksellers in Dublin who do trojan work all year around. I really appreciate all the support they have given to me over the years. We got a really lovely welcome in all stores.

Here's are some of the highlights...

The Chris, the owl, the giraffe, the Niamh, the chicken, the cow.

Blocking escalators...

ouch Chris may never draw again...

Ahh! Crimbo owl tree...

Story Spark Ignites!

Last night was the launch of StorySpark at The Ark. It was such a warm family celebration and really fitting way to blast off the celebrations. Hurray!

Myself and Owen brought our three, and they were well impressed. The first floor has been kitted-out as a fully functioning Story Lab; an interactive workspace complete with mp3 listening stations and a digital recording booth.

You can listen to stories already created by children and then add your own story to the collection. Mags from Children's Books Ireland said that 'all the stories created in the lab during the next month will find a permanent home in Dublin City’s archive.'

Pretty amazing! Imagine your great grandchildren listening to these stories in the future. I overheard a young girl of ten setting her tale in Wagner Manor!

Aoibhe and Oscar loved listening to the recordings. And they were all totally impressed with the mountain of cocktail sausages and innocent smoothies. 'Just for us!'

It's going to be a really wonderful month filled full of stories. Bob from The Gutter Bookstore will be on hand if you want to get lots of signed books for Christmas pressies! Joseph O'Connor gave a lovely opening talk, I promise to upload soon. He really included all the children, especially the Bray Junior Book Club.

The stage is set. All we need now is you. Oh, yeah and a few story makers!

Bridge Street Books

I had a wonderful day yesterday at the fabulous Bridge Street Books.

Thanks to the hard work of Hilary and Joanna who made it such a memorable day. Hilary and Joanna were wearing Hugglewug and Mavis and Marge T-shirts that they made. And Maisy Mouse was there all day too. I loved getting a cuddly Maisy hug. I never knew that she has a spiky tickly nose!

The bookstore was packed full of so many little people we had to do two sessions. They were super and did amazing drawings of little aliens, cows and chickens! Mavis and Marge loved coming to Wicklow. Thank you for such a lovely warm welcome Bridge Street Books!

Maisy, Mavis and Marge!

Tomorrow I will be at Bridge Street Books, Wicklow with Maisy Mouse!!!!

Maisy promises to bring lots of goodies to hand out. Oooooh free stuff!

I'll be reading, doodling and signing 'On The Road with Mavis and Marge' from 2.30pm.

Should be a fantastic afternoon, so I hope to see lots of you there. I can't wait!

Cinemagic

Off to Belfast now to give some Hugglewugs Workshops as part of the unmissable Cinemagic Film Festival. There is something for everyone, especially if you are interested in animation, film or storytelling.

See you there!

Nowhere is safe...

Great night last night at the Harry Potter Premiere. Walked down the black carpet sprinkled with purple glitter with my lovely Megan. She was in her element with her Uncle Fergus and Aunty Emer. We sat three rows from the front so every Harry Potter pore was visible!

The movie is dark and bleak in story and visuals. I loved Megan's running commentary, the way she gripped my arm tightly, her tears, but mostly her strong belief, without prompting that, 'Mum you know, the books are still way better!'

Potter Potter!

Tonight I'll be at the Harry Potter Premiere!

My brother Daniel won tickets from an RTE competition and my daughter Megan is thrilled! She has read the entire series 5 times, when I told her we were going to the premiere tonight her eyes welled up and huge tears popped out. She has not slept for the last few nights she is so excited!!!!! She is going dressed as “Loony” Luna Lovegood.

Other Potter news- I spent the weekend pottering in the Mournes with my wonderful friends. Mountain climbing, lost in the fog, story-cube storytelling, yummy homemade food, and so much laughter my cheeks are still hurting.

Joanna Kiernan rounded up the nominees for the Irish Book Award’s Children’s Book of the Year yesterday in The Sunday Independent. You have the chance to win to win all 8 books here.

Many thanks to my wonderful agent Clare for spreading the word for me about my nomination for the Book Awards at Conville and Walsh.

Yum!

Walker Books window at Hodges Figgis, Dublin!

Take your own picture, post on Facebook or Twitter and Conor Hackett promises to send you a free print from Tiny Little Fly signed by Kavin Waldron!

Sharkey Tweets!

If you fancy short teeny updates from me you can now follow the birdy to SharkeyTweets on Twitter!

Five Hearts Review!

Something really cheered me up this morning!

I am so very, very fragile today. Yesterday I had a horrible tummy bug. All I wanted was my Mammy. For her to rub my back and say ' Aw poor Niamh, don't worry, you're going to be ok.' But she's in Spain, so it's a bit unreasonable to fly home! Today I feel like my head is floating, not quiet connected if you know what I mean?

But thanks to Steve Simpson I feel much better. Thanks Steve! He'd thought I'd might like to take a peep at his daughter's reading record. Sadhbh is seven and she's in second class at Loreto Dalkey.

Steve said that Sadhbh's starting to take a real interest in reading, 'Although there are a lot of new words for her in The Ravenous Beast she loved getting her tongue around them - fun words:)'

Thanks for the fantastic review Sadhbh! The Ravenous Beast loved it and so do I.

It's not easy being small...

I am fascinated by the tiny things in life. IGI member Una Gildea told me about Aardman's new short, Dot.

It all started with Professor Daniel Fletcher from University of California, Berkley. He had an idea that now helps save lives. They took a microscope, a Nokia phone, and put them together. It's called it the CellScope. It's a super-portable microscope imaging device, perfect for diagnosing diseases in remote areas in the developing world. Images of cell samples can be captured, and sent by MMS anywhere in the world for instant analysis.

This device was the inspiration for a teeny-tiny film created by Ed Patterson and Will Studd of Sumo Science at Aardman. It stars a 9mm girl called Dot as she struggles through a microscopic world. Dot is the smallest-ever stop-motion animated character in a film, certified by The Guinness Book of World Records. Shooting only four seconds of footage per day, Aardman worked painstakingly on Dot.

The team made 50 versions of her, each Dot model was then turned into a 3D render before being printed using an innovative Rapid Prototyping 3D printing technology that uses a computer-generated model of an object or character and then prints it in full 3D using a plastic resin material. The Models were so tiny that the animator in charge of painting her couldn’t speak or even breathe as he applied the brushstrokes to her 9mm frame!

It really proves that it's not technology, it's what you do with it.

Hope you enjoy!

StorySpark at The Ark!

I was filming excerpts for RTE today. It's part of highlighting StorySpark, a celebration of children’s literature that promises to light up even the darkest of winter days.

Children's Books Ireland are taking over The Ark for the month of December. So if you love reading stories and Illustration book here so your not left in the dark!

The Reading Room line up is mind-blowing; Roddy Doyle, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Philip Ardagh, Oisín McGann, Marcus Sedgwick, John Boyne, Derek Landy, Sarah Webb.

And two Trapped By Monsters cave dwellers Ali Sparkes and me!

Do you like Marge the chicken made by my lovely friend Sarah O'Kelly?

Watch out for me around Skerries with Marge in my bike basket. My daughter Megan who's only 9 took the photo of Marge and Me in my studio.

Irish Times Today.

Lovely write up of 'On The Road With Mavis and Marge' in The Irish Times today.

'Once we had Thelma and Louise. Now, with Niamh Sharkey’s On the Road with Mavis and Marge (Walker, £11.99), comes another couple of lively ladies in search of life and adventure. But this Mavis is a cow, this Marge is a chicken and their chosen mode of transport is a red bicycle – all very fine until their first puncture and their first encounter with a sequence of other creatures who assist them on their way. A map incorporated at one point into the text seems to suggest that their travels begin in north Antrim – this might well explain their permanently excitable state – before taking in the Antarctic and outer space. But home (and a surprise) await. This is the Sharkey of The Ravenous Beast and I’m a Happy Hugglewug, pictorial inventiveness bursting out of every page. Watch out especially for Albert, the perkiest of all bespectacled penguins.'

Fantastic mention too of my fellow Walker Books friend, Chris Haughton and his wonderful new book, A Bit Lost.

Trapped by Monsters

Come over and have a look around the Trapped by Monsters site.

Tommy Donbavand has posted up photos of an awesome children's Book Store in Beijing here.

The Dublin Airport Authority Children's Competition

Ever dreamed of dark forests, talking squirrels or midnight escapades under the light of a full moon?

If so, then put pen to paper, the DAA has launched a writing competition where you have to imagine what happens in Chris Haughton’s picture above.

Get scribbling!

Irish Book Awards shortlist announcement

Here's some photos from the shortlist announcements for the Bord Gáis Irish Book Awards from last Thursday.

My fellow Walker Books author and friend Sarah Webb is nominated in the Senior category. Here's Sarah and myself with Conor Hackett, 'the best rep in the world!'

It was so great to meet Derek Landy at the shortlist announcement. He just lives down the road from me in Rush, but we hadn't meet before. Megan, my daughter loves the Skulduggery Pleasant series. She is reading book 2 at the moment and loving it. Derek signed a photo for her and she was totally thrilled!

And so lovely to meet Cecelia Ahern too, she lives near my folks in Malahide.

Go, go the northsiders!

However, Paul Howard aka Ross O'Carroll Kelly wasn't so sure about all this northside competition!

Click here to vote.