Hazel notches up another commission

Kilcullen author Hazel Gaynor is adding yet another commission to her list of books contracts, a novella centring on the events of Armstice Day, 1918, writes Brian Byrne.

It will be part of an anthology of similarly based novellas by nine authors, most of them from the US, and will be published by the William Morrow imprint in 2016.

"It's the idea of a writer I know in America — we share the same agent," says Hazel, whose second novel is soon to be launched in the US by the imprint's parent, HarperCollins. "With 2014 having started the centenary events for the Great War, I was very keen to get involved."

Hazel had already touched on the subject when writing her third novel for HarperCollins, due for publication next year, and she was keen to explore it further. "It is a part of history I always wanted to know more about. My piece is set between a small village in Yorkshire — a nod to my roots — and the battlefields of France."

The contributing authors to the anthology — 'A Fall of Poppies' — are Heather Webb (Becoming Josephine & Rodin’s Lover), Jennifer Robson (Somewhere in France & After the War is Over), Jessica Brockmole (Letters from Skye), Kate Kerrigan (The Ellis Island trilogy & The Lost Garden), Lauren Willig (The Ashford Affair & The Other Daughter), Beatriz Williams (A Hundred Summers), Marci Jefferson (Girl on the Golden Coin), Evangeline Holland (An Ideal Duchess & A Duchess’s Heart) and Hazel herself.