Oisín McGann (born 1973) is an Irish writer and illustrator, who writes in a range of genres for children and
teenagers
Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the te ...
, mainly science fiction and
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
, and has illustrated many of his own short story books for younger readers. As of 5/10/22, his most recent book is about
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
Biography
Oisín McGann was born in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, Ireland in 1973 and spent most of his childhood living there and in
Drogheda
Drogheda ( , ; , meaning "bridge at the ford") is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin. It is located on the Dublin–Belfast corridor on the east coast of Ireland, mostly in County Louth ...
,
County Louth
County Louth ( ; ga, An Lú) is a coastal county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of Meath to the south, Monaghan to the west, Armagh to the north and Down to the ...
.
He had an interest in writing and illustrating from an early age, doing a foundation art course in Ballyfermot Senior College in 1990–1991, Dublin before joining a diploma course in animation at
Dún Laoghaire
Dún Laoghaire ( , ) is a suburban coastal town in Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown.
The town was built following the 1816 legislation that allowed the building of a major port to serve Dubli ...
School of Art and Design in 1991. He dropped out of college in 1992 to set up as a freelance illustrator/artist later becoming Background Layout Designer for Fred Wolf films in 1997. In February 1998, he left Dublin for London where he spent most of his time as an art director and copywriter in an advertising company. After four and a half years he returned to Ireland, initially working as a freelance illustrator, but now as a full-time author and illustrator. He is married with three children.
Publishing career
In 2003, his first two books in the ''Mad Grandad'' series for younger readers were released by the
O'Brien Press
The O'Brien Press is an Irish publisher of mainly children's fiction and adult non-fiction.
History
The O'Brien Press was founded in 1973, evolving out of a family-run printing and type-house. Its first publication came in November 1974 and nume ...
of Dublin, followed by his first
young adult novel
Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.
The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...
, ''The Gods and their Machines'' in 2004. More ''Mad Grandad'' titles soon followed as well as two more young adult novels, ''The Harvest Tide Project'' and ''Under Fragile Stone'' (collectively known as the ''Archisan Tales''). ''The Harvest Tide Project'' was actually the first novel McGann had written, but it was contracted as part of a three-novel deal, and his publishers chose to release ''The Gods and their Machines'' first.
In 2006, a new illustrated
series
Series may refer to:
People with the name
* Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series
* George Series (1920–1995), English physicist
Arts, entertainment, and media
Music
* Series, the ordered sets used in ...
, the ''Forbidden Files'' was
published
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
, for confident
readers. In the same year,
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
's imprint Doubleday bought the rights to
publish
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
his next novel, the
futuristic
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
thriller ''Small-Minded Giants''. In May 2007, ''Small-Minded Giants'' was recommended by the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson and the School Library Association in the UK on a one-off list of Top 160 Books For Boys. In November 2010, an extract from ''Small-Minded Giants'' was used as part of paper one of the English GCSE, By the Northern Ireland Council For the Curriculum, Exams and Awards (CCEA).
Since 2006, McGann has continued to publish with Random House/Penguin Random House. ''Ancient Appetites'', a steampunk story set in nineteenth century Ireland, was released in July 2007, the first in McGann's ''Wildenstern Saga'' series. ''Strangled Silence'', a conspiracy thriller set in London, was published in September 2008. The second ''Wildenstern Saga'' book, entitled ''The Wisdom of Dead Men'', was published in 2009. The third Wildenstern book, ''Merciless Reason'' was released in March 2012. In 2012, he was commissioned to write a young children's book, published as "The Wolfling's Bite", as part of "The Nightmare Club" series, by Little Island, under the pseudonym, "Annie Graves". His novel, ''Rat-Runners'', a crime thriller set in a near-future surveillance state was released in March 2013. In 2014, Penguin published two novels, "War's Harvest" and "Cruel Salvation", which he was commissioned to write, to tie in with the medieval fantasy online game, "Kings of the Realm".
Bibliography
"Mad Grandad's Flying Saucer" (2003),
O'Brien Press
The O'Brien Press is an Irish publisher of mainly children's fiction and adult non-fiction.
History
The O'Brien Press was founded in 1973, evolving out of a family-run printing and type-house. Its first publication came in November 1974 and nume ...
(for 6+)
9780862788223
"Mad Grandad's Robot Garden" (2003), O'Brien (for 6+)
9780862788216
"The Gods And Their Machines" (2004), O'Brien (novel)
9780862788339
"The Harvest Tide Project" (2004), O'Brien (novel)
9780862788346
"Under Fragile Stone" (2005), O'Brien (novel)
9780862788353
"Mad Grandad and the Mutant River" (2005), O'Brien (for 6+)
9780862789398
"Mad Grandad and the Kleptoes" (2005), O'Brien (for 6+)
9780862789381
"Small-Minded Giants" (2006), Random House (novel)
9780552554732
"The Evil Hairdo" (2006), O'Brien (for 8+)
9780862789404
"The Poison Factory" (2006), O'Brien (for 8+)
9780862789411
"Ancient Appetites" (2007), Random House (first novel in The Wildenstern Saga)
9780552554992
"Mad Grandad's Wicked Pictures" (2007), O'Brien Press (for 6+)
9781847170637
"The Goblin of Tara" (2007), Barrington Stoke (illustrated novella for reluctant readers)
9781842995143
"Strangled Silence" (2008), Random House (novel)
9780552558624
"Wired Teeth" (2008), O'Brien (for 8+)
9781847170033
"The Wisdom of Dead Men" (2009), Random House (second novel in The Wildenstern Saga)
9780552558655
"The Evil Eye" (2009), Barrington Stoke (illustrated novella for reluctant readers)
9781842996317
"The Baby Giant" (2009), O'Brien (for 5+)
9781847170880
"Armouron: The Armoured Ghost" (2010), Random House (novella for 9+)
9780553821161
"Armouron: Lying Eyes" (2010), Random House (novella for 9+)
9780553821178
"Mad Grandad’s Doppelganger" (2010), O’Brien (for 6+)
9781847171979
"Merciless Reason" (2012), Random House (third novel in The Wildenstern Saga)
9780552564854
"The Wolfling's Bite" (2012) (writing as Annie Graves), Little Island (for 6+)
9781908195302
"Rat Runners" (2013), Random House (novel)
9780552566209
"Get Yourself Gone" (2013) Franklin Watts (novella for reluctant readers)
9781445123158
"The Orphan Factory" (release date TBC – already released in Germany), Random House (novella for 9+)
"Dead End Junction" (release date TBC), Random House (novella for 9+)
"Kings of the Realm: War’s Harvest", (2014), Penguin (novel)
9780141348698
"Kings of the Realm: Cruel Salvation" (2014), Penguin (novel)
9780141348704
"Across the Cold Ground" (short story in the anthology "Beyond the Stars", 2014), HarperCollins
9780008103415
"The Drift Family at Dundrum" (2014), MK Illumination (picture book)
"The Last Dying Seconds" (2015), (part of the "Project X" series) Oxford University Press (8+)
9780198310693
"The Starving Darkness" (2015), (part of the "Project X" series) Oxford University Press (8+)
9780198330912
"Stream Time" (short story in the Laureate na nOg, Eoin Colfer's anthology "Once Upon a Place", 2015), Little Island
9781910411377
Awards and recognition
2005: ''The Gods and Their Machines'' won a Bisto Children's Book of the Year Merit Award.
2005: ''The Gods and Their Machines'' and ''The Harvest Tide Project'' were both shortlisted for the Reading Association of Ireland Award – the first time an author had two books on the same shortlist.
2006: ''The Gods And Their Machines'', published by Tor in the United States, shortlisted for ''Locus'' Magazine's Best First Novel Award.
2006: ''Under Fragile Stone'' shortlisted for the Bisto Children's Book of the Year Award.
2008: ''Ancient Appetites'' shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book of the Year Award.
2008: ''Small-Minded Giants'' shortlisted for the Coventry Inspiration Book Award.
2009: ''Strangled Silence'' shortlisted for Falkirk Council's 2010 RED Book Award.
2011: The French edition of ''Ancient Appetites'', ''Voraces'', shortlisted for le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in the Young Adult (Foreign) Novel category.
2011: ''Voraces'' shortlisted for the Prix Imaginales 2011 in the Jeunesse category.
2012: ''Voraces'' shortlisted for les Mordus du Polar, a French award that focuses on mystery stories.
2012: "The Wildenstern Saga" as a series, long-listed (one of ten titles) for the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in the Young Adult (Foreign) Novel category.
2012: "The Wolfling’s Bite", as part of the Nightmare Club series, chosen for the UNESCO Dublin City of Literature Special Reading Programme.
2014: "Rat Runners" shortlisted for Falkirk Council's 2015 RED Book Award.
2014: McGann was awarded the European Science Fiction Society Award, for Best Creator of Children's Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. It's given to a writer in recognition of recent works, but not for a particular book.
2014: The anthology, "Stories of WW1", featuring McGann's story, "The Murder Machine", was one of seventeen titles chosen by Booktrust in the UK for its nationwide Bookbuzz programme, to encourage reading for pleasure in schools.
2015: The anthology, "Beyond the Stars", featuring McGann's story, "Across the Cold Ground" (which he also illustrated), was shortlisted for the CBI Book of the Year Award.
2015: The anthology, "Once Upon a Place", featuring McGann's story, "Stream Time", was shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards in the Senior Children's Book of the Year category.
2015: The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), chose "Once Upon a Place" as one of their best books of the year.
References
External links
*
Oisín McGannat the
O'Brien Press
The O'Brien Press is an Irish publisher of mainly children's fiction and adult non-fiction.
History
The O'Brien Press was founded in 1973, evolving out of a family-run printing and type-house. Its first publication came in November 1974 and nume ...
Oisín McGannat House of Legends
Oisín McGannat publisher Random House Australia
Audio interviewat Scottish Book Trust (scottishbooktrust.com)
*
*
Annie Graves(pseudonym) at LC Authorities, with 8 records, an
Annie Gravesat WorldCat
{{DEFAULTSORT:McGann, Oisin
1973 births
Living people
Irish children's writers
People from Drogheda
Writers from Dublin (city)
Irish male novelists
Irish science fiction writers