Tea and Talk

Alice Taylor lives in the village of Innishannon in County Cork, in a house attached to the local supermarket and post office. Her first book, To School Through the Fields, was published in 1988. It was an immediate success and quickly became the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland.Alice has written nearly twenty books since then, largely exploring her beloved village and the ways of life in rural Ireland. She has also written poetry and fiction: her first novel, The Woman of the House, was an immediate bestseller. Most recently, she wrote a children's picture book with her daughter Lena Angland, called Ellie and the Fairy Door.Emma Byrne is a graphic designer and artist. She is a graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She has won numerous awards for her design including The IDI (Irish Design Institute) Graduate Designer of the Year, the IDI Promotional Literature Award for her work on Brown Morning, and a Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Merit Award for her work on Something Beginning With P: New Poems from Irish Poets. She has illustrated many books, including Best-Loved Oscar Wilde, Best-Loved Yeats, The Most Beautiful Letter in the World by Karl O’Neill, a special edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, and A Terrible Beauty by Mairéad Ashe Fitzgerald. Her other books are Irish Thatch and, with Eoin O’Brien, Best-Loved Irish Ballads.

one of this country’s best-loved authors … I got great satisfaction from reading your book because you make perfect sense and you write in such a beautiful way … a fantastic read … this book is all about village life and rural life and it also highlights the importance of neighbours and community and volunteerism and parish … it’s a great read and it’s that time of year when we’re thinking: imagine the Christmas stocking is all ready, and it’s a must as far as I’m concerned … the people of this wonderful country of ours could identify with her every word