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The Disability And…Podcast gets right to the heart of some of the most pressing issues in arts, culture and beyond with a series of bold, provocative and insightful interviews with disabled artists, key industry figures and the odd legend. The Disability and…Podcast is currently monthly.
Colin Hambrook
Hello and a big welcome to the Disability and... Podcast. I'm DAO's founding editor, Colin Hambrook, and for this month, we had the pleasure of recording a conversation between DAO journalist Will Reynolds and Caimh CK McDonnell, the Irish author of darkly comic crime thrillers and humorous paranormal fantasy. Caimh's wife Elaine Ofori, also joined us, and together they talk about their independent publishing company, its output, disability, political correctness and the reasons why Caimh has given up stand up comedy for dog walking.
Will Reynolds
Hi, I'm with Elaine and Caimh who are the brains behind the Mcfori Ink publishing company and the bunny books. Thank you guys for joining me. That's very kind of you to find the time.
Caimh
No worries.
Elaine
Thankyou for inviting us.
Will Reynolds
I suppose we better start with what led you to books, and kind of going from stand up, because I know Caimh did stand up before going into writing, and then and Elaine, you've sort of become everything in a publishing company. Are you everything? Do you do, sort of all of the things?
Elaine
Not quite, I wish I were truly that talented, but no we do have other people that we work with,
Caimh
although having said that, she is now also going to be an author. So basically, we, have written a book together, but very unusually, it is set in Germany, in Cologne, because we had the idea while we're over there doing promo stuff, because The Stranger Times. And actually our publisher over there, Eichborn, have now brought the bunny books out in German as well, or they're bringing them out. I think they're up to the second one now. So yeah, they're working the way through those as well. And we literally came up with this idea and ended up writing it, and it's going to come out in German next year. And then we haven't figured out the English side of things yet. That's still very up the air. Definitely will.
Will Reynolds
Oh, so it's,
Caimh
yes, it's coming out in German. Its going to get published in in Germany first.
Will Reynolds
I was going to say, wow, yeah, talent, okay,
Elaine
I have basic Duolingo German. So unless the book is aimed at, you know, yeah, two year olds
Caimh
You wrote it in English, Dogs are playing piano seemed to be something that she could say, which is not come up yet, unfortunately. But yeah, basically we, we wrote it there, and because it's set in Germany and stuff, it's it's genuinely when we're over there, like they were talking to the publishers, and they honestly think it's never really I think the impression we got was that it never really happened before would that be right? that basically, someone from this part of the world has written a book set in Germany that's going to come out in German first is a very unusual, almost unprecedented apparently. yeah.
Will Reynolds
Then had someone translate it into German, and then you're going to translate it back into English?
Elaine
We'll have, we'll have the German version translated into German. The English version will remain in English and will eventually be published in English as it stands, once it's gone through the various stages of copy editing, etc, and proofreading, and then, yeah, will be published in English.
Caimh
No It's effectively going through the same thing, The Stranger Times goes through and that we're actually going, it's going to be edited in English, like Elaine's now getting notes, like our editors are the Germans, but they're giving us notes in English. Then our normal line editor, which is the sort of technical, real, sort of nitty gritty editing, is going to be the same brilliant lady Rebecca, who always does it, and then it'll get translated, actually, by the same translator in Germany who does all the other books as well, who's a good friend of ours, Andre.
Will Reynolds
I suppose that means you've got to find people for the German audio book.
Elaine
They'll, they'll take care of that. We won't. We won't have to worry.
Will Reynolds
I won't get into the sort of nitty gritty of, of sort of, I don't know, roaming the streets of Cologne, going, you, do you have a nice voice?
Caimh
Yeah, no, look, we don't. I mean, the other thing is, the other problem we have is that we have to still figure this out. Is it's basically, it's a, it's a team of 17/18, year old girls in Cologne. It's sort we basically took a kind of Cologne. I guess you call a myth effectively. I mean, it's not, technically it involves a Saint Ursula, which is technically a religious thing, but not really. And we just basically changed the entire myth because we didn't like the original work, and we made it into a more modern day thing. And it's so again, this really makes no sense till you actually read the book. But because of that, there's lots of girls that are based in Germany, and we're, like, we have no idea. Like, its that's one of the things we discussed about for the English audiobook. It doesn't really make sense to just give everyone a German accent, so we're gonna have to figure out some way of doing them. Like, do we actually just give them accents? Like, is one of them a scouser or something? I don't, honestly don't know how we're gonna manage it
Will Reynolds
That sounds so fun. I know I had a go at trying to guess the myth that you were going with. And I kind of wanted it to be the Lorelei thing, because then, but that was also because I just read The Rivers of London. And then I thought, ooh, that would be fun, because then you could have international rivers talking to each other and blah, blah, blah, blah.
I think Ben Aaronovitch got that covered because he's got a short story that's set in Tria.
Caimh
Oh yeah, and we went to Cologne for a week, doing research and our publishers basically bringing us around round. We got to see a nuclear bunker, which, I'll be honest, sounds like it was going to be fun, ended up being really quite terrifying when you actually imagine this place being full of people, it's genuinely the most terrifying, like your God Almighty especially bear in mind what's happening in the news recently, it didn't feel like it was history, so much as you wanted it to be. But outside of that, though we love Germany, and we had a great time, so
Will Reynolds
but I will say you were over there for a research trip in the middle of the Euros, which must have been,
Elaine
yeah, the timing wasn't as good as it could have been. Yeah, we had tried to coincide with the with Relight My fire coming out in Germany, so that we could do a launch event that was the plan, and Relight My Fire came out on the 28th of June. So initially we were going to go four days prior to the launch, which would have had us in Cologne when England played Slovenia, Slovakia.
Caimh
It was actually the night England played Slovakia was when we would have had the launch event. Was, I can't remember which one of them
Elaine
It might have been the week before, but yeah, the day we were due to fly out was also the day that Manchester Airport had a bit of a meltdown and no planes left. It was a bit of timing, really, that we realised the Euros was on and we had to change.
Caimh
Also in that regard, is a random piece of travel advice that's very specific, do not travel in Germany when Germany's in a knockout match that goes to penalties. Because it turns out, particularly at the airports, a lot of the staff aren't doing the jobs they should be. And it turns out we very nearly missed our flight because there was no Lufthansa staff where we expected them to be. It was very stressful on the way home.
Will Reynolds
That sounds about right? Yeah, I've got some mates from Hamburg, and they've just said the whole country just basically shut down if you didn't like football.
Elaine
Just to go back to an earlier, question about how did we end up setting up our own publishing company. Yes, I always think I'm convinced Caimh was playing a long game. It was very strategic. Clearly very, very strategic, because when we first met, I was an editor, and I was working for different publishing houses, and then I decided I was going to change careers and I was going to go into PR. So we moved to Manchester so I could do my masters in PR, and I got a part time job working for what is essentially the agency that promotes Manchester as a tourist and business destination. So I ended up working, and that was my part time job whilst I was doing my Masters, but realized I loved marketing so much that that's what I wanted to do. And I think that he was just like, oh, hang on a minute. So she could do PR, she could do marketing, and she's an editor, if I write a book, essentially, she has the entire skill set that I need, yeah, to get this over the line. So that's kind of how it came about. But prior to that, we had, we had looked at the traditional route into publishing, and you'd had agents read what, what became A Man with One of Those Faces, and one piece of feedback we received was that it was too Irish and it was too funny.
Caimh
I paid someone for that piece of that golden nugget, which, to be fair, we've now mentioned in so many interviews. It has, it has now paid for itself tenfold. mean, that's amazing, yeah, but as a thing, you know, put that on the back of every book you ever write.
Will Reynolds
I One thing that I was going to say is, do you think that you're able to write such a like a an Irish book, because you're away from home?
Caimh
Yeah. I mean, obviously it's like, you know, it's a huge part of my life. I was back in Dublin last week, and I'm out there all the time, sort of thing. Um, still, while my family is so, yeah, it is, but it's I've been living over here at the same time for a long time, and it is kind of weirdly like my way of going home. And also, I think it sort of gives me the distance. Because, I mean, I love Ireland in many, many ways, but I also know it well enough to see the flaws in it. And you know, I have that sort of distance. I can point them out, you know, while at the same time, obviously having great affection for my home country. So I think that sort of blends, well, where it gives you that kind of distance, and it's sort of, I enjoy writing the Irish stuff, but at the same time, like the Bunny book I'm just finishing now, Fortunate Son is actually mainly set in London, actually, Bunny goes over to London because he needs to try and sort something out for somebody. Certainly the distance, I think, is good for the books, I'd hope. Yeah.
Will Reynolds
So how do you sort of, like, go about actually building a book? Because, I mean, is it different for Stranger Times and and the Bunny books.
Caimh
So,
yeah, it's kind of the same thing. The Stranger Times is generally more involved, because there's a lot more characters in it. And, like, I basically put everything up in a board beside me where I'm sitting right now, and there's, you know, all the different cards. And I have to do that for the Stranger Times, because it's literally swap problem from this person to this person. That is, you know, there's a lot going on, which you also kind of get in the McGarry stateside books, there's a lot going on in some of them as well.
Will Reynolds
I love how you write the Bunny books. It's they're so cinematic. I'm just sitting there sort of listening to Morgan and just kind of going and I can see it more than pretty much any other series of books. It's amazing. I don't know, like, how you managed to do that.
Caimh
well, I mean, I guess, I mean, first off, Morgan does an incredible job, which obviously helps, as does Brandon on the other side with The Stranger Times. But I think it's the reason I is I come from, effectively, a TV writing background, in the sense that I was, for years trying to get away with TV. So I was, I literally, for like, a decade, almost everything I read was scripts, like, literally, I have every script book under the sun upstairs in a in boxes that since we've moved because I just read scripts and read scripts and read scripts. And then when I ended up swapping to doing writing a book, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did know my way around a script, so things like dialog and stuff, dialog generally drives my books, and always has done in all of them, because it's the way I sort of naturally work. And I sort of, I think the thing I learned when trying to write a book is I typically don't like long pages of people talking about descriptions of things and stuff anyway. I mean, some authors do it brilliantly. Ben Aarononvitch, for example, it works because he's got a real affection for London. And he talks about sort of, he's fascinated by London, and there's a real excitement and energy to what he's doing when he does it. So I think it works when he does it, but a lot of other times, I feel like you're just getting somebody just trying to put in as much detail as possible. And honestly, I think people fill the pictures themselves, especially if the characters are alive and they're, you know, doing things and being active and have agency. So I guess how my style developed was for the fact that I knew how to write dialog, and the rest I kind of figured out as I went. So I think that's probably how it went that way. And then we got very lucky, where we found good narrators who were able to work with that kind of thing and really just go full on and give it the full performance that we think works best for it I think.
Will Reynolds
I've really tried to not make this into a Stu Goldsmith interview. And kind of go, are you happy? Are you happy? Have you completed comedy? Are you alright?
Caimh
I wouldn't say I've completed comedy.
Will Reynolds
Yeah, but do you actually that is a thing? Do you not, Do you not get the itch?
Caimh
for comedy? Just be clear. No.
We can't go into that now. But yeah, no. I mean, stand up. It's weird that, because people always ask me about that. And honestly, I miss stand up comedians, you know, because they were sort of like, where the social life comes with the jobwWhen I was doing that for so long, and then, literally, I had to find a social life when I started realise, realised after a while, when I was writing, that I was just staying my house. But no, I was a stand up for a long time. I loved it. I got incredible life experiences there, but met some amazing people. But honestly, I started writing. Writing became a bigger thing, and I didn't have the mental space for stand up, and I just didn't want to be somebody that was still hanging around doing stand up when I might someone might see me three years later and I'm doing the same stuff, because my head wasn't really there anymore. My head was in the bunny books and the Stranger Times at that point as well, was also coming along the line. And frankly, I'm a better writer than I was a stand up comedian. And to be fair, like, if someone said, do you miss playing the Komedia? Oh, god, yeah. But do I miss doing Jongleurs anywhere? No. Do I miss doing driving 300 miles for a shitty gig? No, I don't. I love my time at stand up. And like, even though the last few years, and I was doing stand up. I was mainly doing supports for Sarah Millican and Gary Delaney. And you kind of get spoiled doing them, because they're great gigs. I'm hanging out with mates of mine. And then you go back to ordinary circuit gigs, and they're not the Apollo, which is kind of I literally did the Apollo with Sarah. It was absolutely true. And then I was driving home the next day, I did a gig at Leamington Spa where I used to live for mate of mine, oxy. And it was like to 20 people, most of whom didn't realise comedy was going to be on, and they were just ignorant. And normally, I'm great and those normally I'm great in the shit environment, because I can talk to people and get them in and sort of I can work the room like it's always why me and Gary Delaney got put on the same gigs because Gary was one liners and I was more of a diverse skill set, where I could, like, chat to people and stuff. But that gig went shit, and a part of it was brain was going. He did the Apollo last night. I just can't be arsed trying to get this gig to work. And I genuinely enjoyed myself. And I was driving home, so I should have tried something more there, maybe. But, yeah, it was literally that situation. And look, by not being a stand up anymore, I get to have dogs now and genuinely nothing you know, why is my wife laughing now? I'll make that swap every day the week. I love those dogs. So, yeah,
Will Reynolds
but it's that weird thing, like, because I think you can really see your stand upness, you write in gags. And that's amazing, because you don't it, but it's weird because you don't write in gags.
Caimh
Yeah, I
think it's sort of, yeah, there's nothing like, I always think if you pull out, you can't, like, pull out certain lines and sort of say, Oh, this is funny, because almost everything is is, frankly funny in context, because it's funny of who's because of who's saying it in the situation they're in, which is, you know, I think, because, I think if you're trying to put a gag in, that's where you go wrong. Whereas I think I, I mean genuinely, I think that's why writing suits me better, frankly, than stand up did, because it takes the me out of it, if you like, where I can, I can create these characters, and then they can be put into these situations and stuff, whereas with stand up, kind of by necessity, everything's coming from your perspective and stuff, and you have to, sort of, it's you can do it, and like amazing people do do it, but like, you have to build a backstory, and that's hard to do in front of a live audience. I mean, that's not to say, look, I think stand ups incredible. And watching someone who's genuinely great at stand up is an amazing, un, you know, unreplaceable, sort of incredible experience. But, you know, I was good. I mean, I was a solid stand up. I was decent. I made a good career out of and stuff. But I don't think I was ever at the top level. I don't think I was ever kind of that thing. But just look, there's no shame in that. There's this. It's like, you know, there's how many footballers, know, how many footballers play in England, and only 11 of them get the turnout for England, sort of thing. But, yeah, I was, you know, but I was still, I was still good at it, and I enjoyed it, but I just, I enjoy writing more, because it feels like the there are no restraints. I can do whatever I want. Literally, I can write whatever the hell I like. I mean, even when you see how I've written the books where I've not delivered any kind of, like, normal order and stuff, because I've just done whatever the hell I wanted to. Elaine's not so keen on it.
Elaine
not not that, I'd say that is the way to do things. But, you know, that's, that's how it materialised.
Will Reynolds
Was it accidental that you've actually become, probably, in to my knowledge, anyways, the person that is currently writing disability the best
Caimh
Well, I mean, thank you very much. People have said stuff like that a few times and stuff, and it's very nice. I'll be honest, I feel like a bit of a fraud, because every time people sort of say that kind of stuff, I just think, well, I guess there are, if I go through there are people with various disabilities. But, I mean, it sounds really almost cliched and simple, but you just, you don't write somebody with disability. You just that is one facet of somebody's life, but it is not the defining thing, as you don't need explained to you. You obviously know this far better than I do, but it's just always how I've written people and and it's not even like I'm trying to put these things in as some sort of, you know, being terribly woke, as some right wing person will put it. It's not that I'm even trying to do that. It's just when you're writing something, you want the most diverse bunch of people you can. Because if you want a character come alive, you don't want people to be confusing them with somebody else. You don't want the clashes. You want them to be distinctive you. And how you do that is you make them as genuinely distinctive as possible. And it's just a natural way that you sort of, and I don't even really think about it now. I mean, like even the Ursula book. There's a there's someone who's a sign language user as their their only form of communication and stuff. But that was, again, we were just trying to find different ways of making these people interesting. And we came up with the idea. It was like, Oh, well, this is a different thing. It's quite an interesting way of doing it. We genuinely did have the thing. We actually came up with something which is a nice solution to it, but we did have the moment where we went, Oh, hang on, we can't ever describe them signing anything, because sign language in German is different to sign language in English. We actually found a clever way around it, which was that part of her because they're magic, they all have magical powers, and part of her power is it links to what she actually has as a power, which I won't explain now, but she can make herself understood by somebody in any, so she basically whatever she signed. She can make somebody understand it just by by touching them, and then they understand what she's saying.
Elaine
I just just on the diversity, inclusivity point. You write, you write what you know. You write the world around you. And you know, there are just so many different types of people in the world. And I think to to write something that precludes a whole group of people is just absurd, because that's we don't live in bubbles. That's how I see it
Will Reynolds
So from my point of view, like, I mean, I'm I'm 30, and I'm still often, like, somebody's first disabled person or whatever. Is that something that you've just not really had to have? Have you just kind of grown up around people with disability? Or is it just that you just don't like, you're a nice guy. People are just people. Is it that, or is it just the I mean, you've like, lived, I don't know like, because it just sort of baffles me that you're able to like, I don't know, write autism so well as well like, Rosie's perfect
Caimh
Well,
I mean, again, I sort of, I think I deliberately avoided using that word at any point in that book, but, but, yeah, it is. I mean, that was just you those kind of things. Maybe you can, you know, hopefully we're all getting a bit better at understanding these things. But, I mean, I mean, the great I speak, to be fair, part of it is the stand up circuit is a wonderfully diverse place. So you meet loads of different people. Like, I think I've ever told Elaine this story, but this is years ago, before it was the hot button topic it is now, which is becoming tremendously tedious. There was, I did a gig once where there was, like, this was like, a open spot. So there was, we had basically had two trans women in a row, because, you know that thing, when you're a stand up, there's always that thing about you don't want to clash with somebody else on the bill, because you're always like, so Well, when you're starting off as an Irish comic, you're worried if there's someone else Irish on and then actually, when you figure out your voice and stuff, you really don't care anymore, because you shouldn't be overlapping with them, or else you're not very good at what you do, because then you're just doing a bit too basic. But this was a thing where there was, like, 10 minute open spots, and because people didn't realize this, back to back, there was two trans women on and, like, the second one was like, you can genuinely see her struggling, going, be honest, I mainly spend most of the time talking about what she just did. And it was, you know, and it was an extraordinarily weird experience. And especially because the first one sort of weirdly in a kind of really nice way, it kind of became a question answer session with the audience, which was, you know, people just asking questions, and she was happy to answer them. And again, this is kind of, it's weird how it just sort of became a hot button issue in the last, I don't know, five, six years, whatever it is. But this was genuinely some, actually a nice audience. People actually were genuinely curious to ask questions, which they probably wouldn't now for fear of, you know, getting everything wrong and, you know, social media and all that sort of stuff. But, yeah, it is that. But my point is, that's an example of how diverse the stand up circuit at its best could be. So I guess that's part of it. You get used to meeting a lot of different people and stuff. I came over to this country. I was completely out of my element. So I, you know, you get used to having to kind of meet more people. I mean, you know, I've got some contact with disability in my everyday life, in my family and stuff, but not that much. I think it's just, you know, again, it's a very basic thing. Just treat people as people. Doesn't feel like it's a very special thing to do. But I think some authors avoid, generally representing different groups, because they're genuinely scared of there being a backlash or something. I can remember when I was first in London, and there was a Sikh girl who worked with me in London, and we were all out. And always, people always ask, it's weird, by the way, this is a segue, but people always ask, you working in Ireland and England, because I worked in IT in both places. And weirdly, by the way, genuinely, the drink culture, nothing the way everyone would think in the lazy cliche in Ireland. In Britain, people went out for a point at lunchtime all the time. When I worked in Ireland, that was, nobody did that. That was unheard of. You don't drink when you're still at work. That just didn't happen. But bizarrely, people in England did. But then on the other end of it, if you went out on the Friday night in Ireland, it was considered very, very bad fom to talk about work beyond like six o'clock, you know, like we're out of work now, we finished work, stop talking about work, whereas in London, people would just talk to you about their fucking project all night. We were out one night with this thing, and there was a sikh girl, I kind of knew she was like, she didn't work on my team. She was a project manager or something. But I asked her about the Sikh, I don't know an Sikhs could you explain it to me and all these other, you know, English people, just like, seized up and like, to the point where you could feel it round the table. And to her credit, she just went, he's just asked me. He's interested in my culture, that's a perfectly nice question, because they're all like, oh my god, you can't ask someone about their religion. It's like, yes, you can. It's like, you could mention someone's color, race, religion, all these things you just as long as you're doing it the right way and your intention, even if you get it wrong, if your intention is good, you should hopefully be okay. And, and, and, and, I guess that. And it's the same with disability, you know, obviously it's, there's a barrier there for people, because they're scared of talking to somebody and stuff. But if you find a way through that, then it's great for everybody, because you can relax and,
Caimh
you know, and then,
Will Reynolds
but that's, but that's the stand up in you I think
Caimh
maybe so, yeah,
Will Reynolds
because it's that thing with stand up if you say, if you you can joke about anything if you do it right? And I don't mean like the Ricky Gervais style being a shit, but the, essentially, you can talk about anything on stage.
Caimh
Every
time I hear someone say, oh, you can't say this that anymore. You always go, okay, just, just list the things you can't say. And then you go and like, if they they generally won't. And if they do, you go, okay, yeah, you could never say those things. Um, not since, you know, not unless you were wearing a frilly shirt and then, you know, and it was the comedians and whatever, the 1970s on television. And even then they didn't do most of their racist stuff wasn't done. But the reality is, you couldn't ever really do those things, and it's just a popular thing now to say like, oh, you can't say anything anymore, because, of course, you can. You just have to be prepared to defend what you say, which is kind of what you have to do anyway. But it's also, as a stand up comedian, it's really easy. If you have to look around the room and see who's in the room before you tell a joke, then you shouldn't tell that joke, because I do remember a friend of mine, Al Pitcher, who is a wonderful comic. Great, great. Sorry, not Al Pitcher, Sorry, Jared, Christmas, wrong kiwi. Jared and myself were doing the Birmingham glee together, and he had a story that involved a dwarf in it. There was someone with dwarfism in it. And it wasn't like a cheap joke about it. It was genuinely talking about somebody having shit got at a train station and that, like, basically them getting the upper hand on some stupid guard at the train station. Remember rightly. But he sort of said, there was, he did the gig. I did the gig. It was interesting because there was a, you know, someone with dwarfism, a dwarf in the room. And he was like, Oh, should I do that? And I said, Well, yeah, you know, if you're happy to, you know that, you know, because it's not like the piece of material wasn't bad. And he said, Well, I'm gonna, you know, have to do it because, you know, of course you have to do it because, you know. And he did it, and its thing is, it didn't go well, because the rest of the room, like the person who was a dwarf, laughed with the rest of the room. We're too socially awkward about, oh my god, are we allowed to laugh at that, which you can genuinely have. I remember I had a couple of stories about racial sort of stuff based on, loosely on sort of things that happened with myself and Elaine. And I can remember doing the stand in Newcastle, and there was a black dude in the front row. Do you remember this Elaine? There was a black dude in the front row. I was telling the zoo story about bringing our two nieces to the zoo, and thank God he laughed really loud at the first thing in it, because the setup there, the whole room was really tense. And then, because the thing is, that's exactly the point you can talk about race and racism. That is not the same as being racist. In fact, it's almost the exact opposite. And I remember talking to that guy afterwards, and buying him a pint, because I remember saying to him, if he'd sat there stony face, he would have killed my probably my career, never mind just this gig. And he was like laughing. He said, I was a great guy, but he was very funny, but, yeah, but it is one of those things that you just have to understand what you're doing and know the why of it. I guess
Will Reynolds
There's a lot of Pratchett. And I mean that in the most that is such a big compliment, because it's just that thing of you hold up a mirror to the world.
Caimh
Yeah. I mean, that's what Pratchett did, brilliantly. That's and I've read, you know, I've read pretty much every Terry Pratchett book, many of them, God, probably over 10 times, some of them. And look, he's an enormous influence on me, not even just as a writer, but but Pratchett's view of the world, I think, as as frankly, bled into me because he's such just a morally decent guy who just treated people everyone the same sort of thing.
Will Reynolds
It's, it's, it's, it's a really sort of fun thing, because, like, there's so many amazing parallels, because Ferguson is so Vetenari, it's amazing.
Caimh
Yeah, I guess he is a bit, I mean, but he's, he's more explosive as a person. Because weirdly, I'm just writing out. I'm literally writing the chapter with him right now. I'm halfway through one, which I'll be starting again in about five minutes,
Will Reynolds
and I find myself kind of going back to Ferguson chapters, because he's just fun and he doesn't give a shit, and he's so kind of explosive, but all knowing and all powerful in that very Vetenari way, and also like, Bunny is very Vimes.
yes, Bunny is definitely very Vimes, I would say that, yeah.
Will Reynolds
And also, Phil's very Carrot, because he's a genius,
Caimh
yeah? But yeah, I think in a very different way, Phil's kind of like the sort of idiot savant, where he kind of is incredibly stupid on some levels, but also is, weirdly, there's, like, there's a type of stupidity that basically could end up being intelligence just by seeing the world from a very simple angle.
Will Reynolds
There you go. That's but that's neurodiversity. The fact that it's there is just because it usually isn't, and the fact that actually Phil gets the time and the space to be a genius, and also, I think, probably king of the folk, because that is, there will be a crossover, and I will be right. I mean, I've decided, okay, he's magic. He's definitely magic.
Caimh
If there's anyone in the Bunny books who's magic it will definitely turn out to be Phil, I will give you that.
Will Reynolds
Yeah, and, and there's so much kind of awesome crossover in The Stranger Times with Irish mythology. I don't know whether I've read too much into it.
Caimh
You can find parallels with lots of stuff. Like, it's hilarious. I've got remember getting notes. Elaine's had these sort of things before where people have sent her emails, or she's sent me emails, but she's the one who reads them. And it's like, remember, there's ones like, oh, the thing about that is a very clever reference. And I was like, is it? Was it okay? Like, people do read far more into what you say sometimes than is actually there.
Will Reynolds
See, that's one thing that I'm just sort of going, nah, come on Will you've, you're just obsessed with mythology and, and I've read pretty much everything you can and, and then whack on one of your books, and then just go, that's that Caimh's a genius. He sees it all it's it's all there.
Caimh
That's a great
title for this interview. It turns out, Caimh's is an evil genius. There we go.
Will Reynolds
What's your sort of next thing off the taxi rank kind of thing?
Fortunate son is the next bunny book that's coming out in October, November ish time, which is up for pre order now and then next year, there'll be another Stranger Times book. There will be the Ursula books coming out in German. We don't know when it's coming out in English. I'd imagine we're gonna get some annoyed emails from people when they realize they can't get in English. But yeah, yeah, it will eventually happen. Yes, and they'll, I'm sure there'll be another
Will Reynolds
bunny next year as well. So anyway, I guess you've got to get back to it.
Caimh
Yes, I do have to finish writing that book.
Will Reynolds
Thank you so much. And honestly, oh,
Caimh
it's been a delight. Thanks for having us.
Elaine
Well, thanks for having us.
Colin Hambrook
A big thanks to Will, Caimh and Elaine and to you our listeners for tuning in. CK McDonnell's latest novel, Fortunate Son is out on the 20th of November. Go to whitehairedirishman.com for details.