Inspiring Older Readers
posted on 04 Jan 2018
An Interview With Oisin McGann
The Letterpress Project has asked authors and illustrators to think about what has inspired them as artists, what their favourite books are and how they relate to their audience - we've also asked them if they themselves are book collectors.
We are delighted to present an interview with author and illustrator, Oisin McGann. Oisín was born in Dublin and spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. He studied at Ballyfermot Senior College and Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design, and went on to work in illustration, design and film animation, later moving to London to work as an art director and copy writer in advertising.
He now lives back in Ireland and works full time as a writer and illustrator. He has produced numerous books for all ages of reader, including the Mad Grandad series, the MAC series and The Forbidden Files series. He has written eleven young adult novels: The Gods And Their Machines, The Harvest Tide Project, Under Fragile Stone, Small-Minded Giants, the three books in the steampunk series, The Wildenstern Saga: Ancient Appetites, The Wisdom of Dead Men and Merciless Reason; the conspiracy thriller, Strangled Silence, as well as the surveillance state thriller, Rat Runners. Most recently, he has written two tie-in novels for the online strategy game, Kings of the Realm; War’s Harvest and Cruel Salvation, both released in 2014 and two books for Oxford University Press’s Project X series for young readers, released in 2015. He has contributed short stories to a number of anthologies, including the collections Beyond the Stars and Once Upon a Place.
He is a winner of the European Science Fiction Society Award, the Bisto Book of the Year Merit Award and the Bisto Shadowing Award (now known as the Children’s Choice Award). His books have been shortlisted for numerous other awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in the UK, le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in France and Locus Magazine's Best First Novel Award in the US. He served on the board of Children’s Books Ireland, the national advocate body for children’s books, for seven years.
He has his own website if you want to read more about him which can be accessed on this link: http://www.oisinmcgann.com/
You can read what he had to tell us below: