I had my first public book signing three weeks ago at the iBAM Literary Festival in Chicago. My book; “The Big Yank – Memoir of a Boy Growing Up Irish,” had just been published the week before.

Being a brand new author, I didn’t really know what to expect. Of course I was overly optimistic and brought way too many books, too many in fact to fly, so I drove from Washington D.C. to Chicago and back. My first signing taught me two important lessons – 1) it is much easier to fly 700 miles than drive and 2) my next book should be less than 467 pages!

Seriously though, it was a great experience. I figured I would get to speak to a lot of book-buyers, but I didn’t realize that I would strike up friendships with other visiting authors. I had the pleasure of meeting two Belfast Authors (the three of us come from the Ulster Province in Ireland) – Greg McVicker and Tony Macaulay.

I will be highlighting the writings of these Irish authors on my author site; www.irishauthor.us in the coming weeks. I created it in order to highlight Irish authors, artists, musicians etc., and introduce readers to their works and where they and I will be appearing in the future.

I look forward to sharing all kinds of Celtic information and craic in future posts.