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I had breakfast with an international friend over the weekend and we chatted about the current state of authorship and global publishing. We agreed there’s no doubt that artificial intelligence has completely transformed the way books are now researched, planned and written and that AI can speed up workflows, overcome writer's block and improve productivity. And, that it should enhance human creativity, not replace it. A thorny issue arose. Who actually owns the copyright in an AI-generated book?&nbsp;*Time for a disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer and only expressing an opinion.&nbsp;In the United States, the Copyright Office has made its position clear. Works created entirely by AI, without sufficient human creative input, are generally not protected by copyright. Ireland has not taken this position as there is currently no Irish legislation that specifically states whether wholly AI-generated text qualifies for full copyright protection. Instead, copyright continues to be governed by the Copyright and Related Rights Act (2000), which is built on the long-established principle that copyright protects original human intellectual creation. Across the European Union, including Ireland, the law still assumes that copyright arises from human creativity rather than machine-generated output and that leaves authors operating in something of a legal grey area.Now, imagine you've written a business book using AI. Your name is on the cover. You use it to build credibility, attract clients and establish yourself as an expert as many people do. But if much of the content was generated by AI with only minimal editing, questions could legitimately arise over whether the finished work attracts the same level of copyright protection as a traditionally written book (and, for now, I'm completely ignoring the moral arguments). Irish courts have not yet provided definitive guidance on this issue, meaning no one can say with complete certainty where exactly the legal boundary lies.Perhaps the real copyright value comes from the creative decisions you make afterwards when you rewrite the text in your own words; develop your own arguments; include your personal experiences and expertise; change the structure and refine the tone and style. In this, you are creating something that more reflects your own intellectual (human) effort. That human contribution is far more likely to attract copyright protection under Irish and European law.The legal landscape surrounding AI and copyright continues to evolve across Europe. Alongside existing copyright law, the EU AI Act is introducing new obligations around transparency and the responsible use of AI, although it does not itself determine who owns copyright in AI-generated works.&nbsp;For Irish authors, the practical advice is simple: If your name is going on the cover, make sure your creative contribution is unmistakable and that readers are buying your ideas, your experience and your voice.&nbsp;©Niall MacGiolla Bhuí, PhD (July, 2026).&nbsp;

AI and Copyright

Customer's hands browsing books on wooden shelf with natural light highlighting diverse literary selections

Book Review of 'Undelivered: Fertility, Miscarriage, and My Journey to Self-Compassion by Laura Doyle. 'Undelivered' is a raw, unflinching memoir that fills a crucial gap in conversations around fertility struggles and pregnancy loss and is a beacon for anyone navigating the silent grief that so many experience but few discuss openly. I commenced reading this book with some trepidation as I was aware it deals with complex subject matter. But, this is handled so well and, my goodness, but Laura uses humour with great instinct! At its heart, this book is a call to compassion, both for others and, importantly, for ourselves. Doyle tackles a subject that Irish society still pushes into the shadows, speaking candidly about the emotional, mental, and physical toll of trying to conceive, experiencing miscarriage, and ultimately, finding peace. She doesn't shy away from the messy realities: the obsessive charting, the invasive medical procedures, the quiet desperation, and the bone-deep isolation that accompanies these struggles. Her narrative serves as both validation and lifeline for readers enduring similar journeys. I found Doyle's honesty to be disarming. She writes with vulnerability about her anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideation. Struggles that emerged not from inherent mental illness but from a profound lack of support when she needed it most. Rather than presenting a sanitised version of events, she reveals how betrayed she felt by healthcare systems, unsupportive friends, and even well-meaning family members who simply didn't know how to respond to her. This authenticity is powerful because it validates what countless others have felt but perhaps never voiced. The book also offers practical insights alongside emotional depth. Doyle documents her steep learning curve around ovulation tracking, fertility testing, supplement regimens, and the overwhelming amount of conflicting information available online. Readers gain not just her emotional journey but a window into the actual day-to-day obsessions that consume those trying to conceive. The apps, the pregnancy tests hidden in bedside lockers, the careful examination of cervical mucus. This specificity makes the book resonate as genuinely lived experience rather than abstract reflection. The pacing works well, moving from confusion and desperate searching toward clarity and self-compassion. Doyle's reflection on her relationship with her husband, Mel, is particularly moving. His quiet support despite his own uncertainty models the kind of partnership many people desperately need during crisis. The book's message that this isn't a "pity story" but rather a conversation starter is important; she acknowledges that her experience, while painful, is milder than what many others endure, and she approaches that truth with genuine humility. The dedication and acknowledgments are deeply moving, mentioning both Dylan, the miscarried baby, and Mila, the daughter who eventually came, while also recognising the role of her bereavement counsellor and support network. This book is essential for anyone who has experienced miscarriage, infertility, or pregnancy loss. It's equally valuable for partners, family members, friends, and healthcare providers who want to understand what such experiences actually feel like. Beyond that, it's a compelling read for anyone interested in examining how our society handles grief, particularly the "acceptable" and "unacceptable" forms of it. While the emotional rawness is largely a strength, some readers may find the repeated detailing of disappointments emotionally draining. However, this intensity is arguably necessary to convey the cumulative psychological impact of the journey. The book's frank discussion of bodily functions and sex may not suit all readers, but Doyle addresses this clearly in her prologue, respecting those who choose not to engage. Undelivered is an important book that deserves a wide audience. Doyle has given voice to an experience that desperately needs visibility and compassion. She writes not as an expert but as a survivor, and that distinction gives her words their power. This is a book that will sit with readers long after they finish offering comfort, understanding, and the profound reassurance that they are not alone. In breaking her silence, Doyle has created space for others to do the same. Highly recommended for anyone touched by fertility struggles, miscarriage, or the complex grief that surrounds unmet hopes for parenthood. - Karen Gallen, Book Reviewer (July, 2026)

Book Review of 'Undelivered: Fertility, Miscarriage, and My Journey to Self-Compassion'.

Artist's hands painting on canvas with rich colors in community workshop with art supplies and materials nearby

It has often occurred to me there is something profoundly un-Irish about the modern imagination of death. We have inherited a figure in a black cloak carrying a sharpened scythe, arriving only to sever life from the living. Death is abrupt. Violent. A thief in the night. But that was never entirely our story. And it still is not so.Before Christianity wrapped Ireland in heaven and hell, our ancestors lived beside death rather than against it and this is a profound difference. Indeed, I've just co-edited a book of Irish phrases titled 'Mar a Deirtear' that speak to such linguistic delights.For centuries, the veil between worlds was thin. The dead were not gone; they lingered in place names, in fairy forts, in hawthorn trees that no sensible farmer would dare cut (we have one in our back garden I am fearful to cut even now!). At Samhain, the boundaries dissolved entirely. Fires were lit not simply to keep evil away, but to welcome those who had gone before. Death was not an ending so much as a crossing.<figure id="figure-iovqhs3qdgmrdwgm21"><img id="iovqhs3qdgmrdwgm21" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/2fWXvSNiwRHFBshGdefZSamc1eItu8jmDjPergLQbV37w6mfKJeNtrVfENeZx4qt.jpg" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/2fWXvSNiwRHFBshGdefZSamc1eItu8jmDjPergLQbV37w6mfKJeNtrVfENeZx4qt.jpg" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure>So, it is perhaps for that reason that Hugo Simberg's (1873-1917) painting feels strangely familiar to me, despite emerging from Finland rather than Ireland. It is, quite simply, breathtaking in its original take on life and death.His reapers do not harvest souls. They cultivate life. Bent over flowerbeds with watering cans and patient hands, they tend fragile things with the quiet concentration of old gardeners. There is no menace in them. No urgency. No cruelty. They neither pursue nor threaten. They simply care. It overturns centuries of iconography in a single image. Wow! Perhaps death is not the executioner we all imagined, but the keeper of an entirely different garden for us all. That's comforting.Irish folklore offers echoes of this gentler understanding. The Bean Sí, so often mistranslated as a murderous omen, does not kill. Instead, she mourns and her cry announces that the natural order is unfolding. She is less executioner than witness. Likewise, Donn, the ancient god associated with the dead, gathers souls not for punishment, but to the House of Donn, where journeys continue beyond mortal sight. Even the sídhe, the hollow hills beneath which the Otherworld rests, are described not as places of terror, but of abundance, youth and perpetual spring. The dead, in Irish thought, were rarely imagined as extinguished. They had simply changed address.Simberg seems to understand something similar. Every gardener knows that pruning is not destruction and that seeds disappear beneath dark soil before they eventually become forests. Autumn strips branches bare only so spring can begin its patient work again. Decay is not the opposite of life; it is one of life's oldest collaborators.Perhaps that is why the reapers wear black. Not because they belong to death, but because they understand its solemnity. Anyone entrusted with tending the threshold between worlds would surely carry themselves with quiet dignity. There is no triumph in their work. No delight in endings. Only care.It is a startling inversion. What if death kneels beside us more often than it stands over us? What if the hand we fear is, in truth, the hand that gently transplants? Anyone who lives with a gardener (As I do) knows the affection with which they tend their grass, plants, shrubs and trees.Our ancestors might not have found that idea particularly strange. They buried their loved ones facing landscapes they knew, believing that the relationship between the living and the dead endured. Holy wells became places where both worlds almost touched. Ancient yew trees grew in churchyards because they outlived generations, their roots drinking from the same earth that received the departed. Time itself seemed circular rather than linear. Nothing truly vanished. Everything returned.I feel there is a humility in Simberg's painting that modern culture often lacks. We speak of losing the battle against death, as though mortality were a military defeat rather than the oldest rhythm in nature. We sanitise it, postpone conversations about it, hide it behind hospital curtains and polished coffins.Yet every Irish field tells another story. Grass grows from the soil enriched by what came before. Stone walls stand because countless unnamed hands laid them. The landscape itself is an inheritance from the dead.Perhaps they have been gardening all along. And, the older I get, the more I find that thought oddly comforting. Not because it softens grief. I'm well aware nothing truly can, but because it restores purpose to what often feels senseless. If there truly is another garden beyond our seeing, perhaps it requires patient keepers and gardners. Perhaps every ending is also an act of beloved cultivation. Perhaps the hands we dread are not waiting to reap us in violence, but to tend us with the same quiet care that these skeletal gardeners offer to their flowers.In a globalised, postmodern world, It is a thoroughly pagan thought. And a rebellious one. And, I suspect, an ancient Irish one too that our ancestors would appreciate.© Niall MacGiolla Bhuí, PhD (July 2026).&nbsp;

Hugo Simberg, the Grim Reaper and the Irish

Content creator's hands typing on laptop keyboard at minimalist wooden desk with notebook and coffee in natural light

'Become the Parent You Needed' is a transformative guide that positions parental self-healing as the foundation for raising emotionally healthy children. Jones, a therapist with extensive experience in family work and child protection, crafts an accessible yet profound resource that moves beyond conventional parenting advice to address the deeper psychological work necessary for genuine change.<figure id="figure-3odlmbd7bcmrdhdeaz"><img id="3odlmbd7bcmrdhdeaz" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/19K7d9xlNzfcMFi86itYQI8Onec4kpI0QA2vfeW9Nv2Asl3TQlAcJdR22xUV1LuD.jpg" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/19K7d9xlNzfcMFi86itYQI8Onec4kpI0QA2vfeW9Nv2Asl3TQlAcJdR22xUV1LuD.jpg" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure> The book's central argument is both simple and powerful: parents cannot effectively nurture their children's emotional wellbeing without first attending to their own unresolved wounds. Rather than offering a prescriptive formula for "good parenting," Jones recognises that parenting styles are inherited patterns, not chosen strategies, and that awareness and healing must precede behavioral change. This therapeutic foundation sets the book apart from more surface-level parenting manuals. The author draws on developmental neuroscience to establish why early experiences matter. She explains that the first seven years of life are formative, when children's brains are especially "absorbent," wiring themselves in response to relationships and experiences. This scientific grounding gives parents a framework for understanding why their own childhood matters now. Jones's blend of personal narrative, clinical insight, and culturally informed perspectives is one of the book's greatest strengths. She opens with her own story, writing as a single mother of two daughters over twenty years, which humanises the work and signals that the book is written by someone who has walked this difficult path. Her training in therapy is evident throughout, particularly in how she guides readers toward self-awareness and reflection rather than judgment. The structure is logical and progressive. Readers first examine their own childhood stories and whether their core needs, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual, were met. Subsequent chapters build on this foundation, moving through breaking generational cycles, re-parenting the inner child, and understanding what children actually need. Topics like emotional intelligence, resilience, presence, and creating harmonious homes are woven together coherently, each chapter reinforcing earlier insights. Practical elements enhance the book's utility. Throughout, Jones includes reflective questions, breathing exercises, and techniques like the "Anger Volcano" metaphor which helps children understand that anger is often the visible surface of deeper, unmet emotions like sadness or loneliness. These tools make the book feel less like theory and more like a workbook readers can actively engage with. Jones demonstrates genuine cultural awareness, acknowledging traditions where honouring parents is deeply valued, such as Indian concepts of "Maatru Devo Bhava" and Chinese filial piety principles. She also recognises that not all parent-child relationships are safe or intact, inviting readers to engage with their own history "in whatever way feels right for you." This inclusive stance is important, as it prevents the book from appearing tone-deaf to the complex realities many families face. While the book is comprehensive, its breadth is also a potential limitation. Ten chapters covering everything from understanding growth to parenting in a changing world means some topics receive relatively brief treatment and readers seeking deeper exploration of specific challenges, such as parenting children with particular behavioural or developmental needs, may want supplementary resources. This might be an idea for book 2! The book's therapeutic focus, while a strength, also means it asks readers to do significant inner work. For readers who are exhausted, in crisis, or resistant to self-reflection, the emphasis on personal healing before behavioural change might feel overwhelming. Jones does provide disclaimers that the book is educational rather than therapeutic and encourages readers to seek professional support, which is appropriate given the sensitive material. Again, book 2 required LJ...Become the Parent You Needed is ideal for parents at any stage who recognise that their own childhood is influencing their parenting today and are motivated to change that pattern. It serves single parents, co-parents, grandparents, and caregivers of all cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances. The book works best for readers willing to pause, reflect, and sometimes sit with uncomfortable truths about their own upbringing. This is not a quick-fix parenting manual. Instead, it's an invitation to deep, compassionate work with yourself first, and through that transformation, with your children. Jones's core message, that your childhood does not define your worth or determine your parenting, and that healing is possible, is hopeful without being naive. She acknowledges the real pressures of modern parenting (financial strain, cultural expectations, technological change) while maintaining that intentional self-awareness and emotional healing remain the most powerful tools any parent possesses. For anyone ready to break inherited patterns and raise the next generation with greater emotional freedom and resilience, this book offers both the compass and the map. A really interesting read. - Karen Gallen, Book Reviewer (July 2026).&nbsp;

New Review: 'Become the Parent You Needed' By LJ Jones. (ShadowScript Publications).

Open gratitude journal with handwritten reflections, pen, and steaming tea cup in soft morning light

The Law of Gratitude: Why Appreciation Could Be the Most Powerful Habit You Ever DevelopIn a world that constantly encourages us to chase more, it's easy to overlook the value of what we already have. Yet some of the happiest, most resilient and most successful people share one surprisingly simple habit. They consciously practise gratitude and that's the central idea behind an exciting new book project we're working on with Relu Giani Gauca. Relu's forthcoming book explores how gratitude can transform the way we think, work, build relationships and navigate life's inevitable challenges. But this isn't another book asking readers to simply "think positively." Instead, it takes a thoughtful and practical look at why gratitude has become such an important topic across psychology, neuroscience, wellbeing and personal development. Drawing on research, real-world examples and practical strategies, his book will examine how appreciation can reshape our mindset and influence the choices we make every day.<figure id="figure-tk5dnn506mr9lxxz4"><img id="tk5dnn506mr9lxxz4" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/10pUtt8Kk1ngU7odOOt8IoveQtJoxmVpHGG5shJfKk7SD9Ioz0RX2J8hiP7HBj0j.jpg" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/10pUtt8Kk1ngU7odOOt8IoveQtJoxmVpHGG5shJfKk7SD9Ioz0RX2J8hiP7HBj0j.jpg" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure>Readers can expect an accessible and engaging guide that blends practical advice with inspiring insights, offering techniques that can be incorporated into everyday life without requiring dramatic lifestyle changes. At a time when stress, burnout and uncertainty seem to dominate headlines, Relu's book offers something refreshingly different: a reminder that one of the greatest tools for personal growth may already be within our reach. Whether you're looking to improve your outlook, strengthen your relationships, enhance your wellbeing or simply discover a fresh perspective on everyday life, this forthcoming title promises to be an inspiring companion.Over the coming weeks, we'll be sharing exclusive previews, behind-the-scenes updates, author insights and practical gratitude exercises as the journey towards publication continues.Stay tuned. This is only the beginning. #TheLawOfGratitude #Gratitude

The Law of Gratitude: Why Appreciation Could Be the Most Powerful Habit You Ever Develop

Close-up of poet's hands holding open leather journal with handwritten calligraphy, surrounded by poetry books and fountain pen on warm wooden desk

Review of "A Life Between the Brackets" by Chad Norman Chad Norman's latest collection, 'A Life Between the Brackets', is a meditation on observation, loss, and humanity's fractured relationship with the natural world. Organised into eight thematic sections; Wisdom, Humans Otherwise, Ukraine, Observe the Observer, For Others, Industrial Ave., Religiously Brief, and Truro Town, the book moves between intimate domestic moments and urgent social commentary, all filtered through the lens of a speaker deeply attuned to the voices of birds, trees, and the overlooked. What makes this collection remarkable is its consistent refusal to separate the personal from the political, or the human from the natural. Norman's poems often begin in observation, a starling at the feeder, a hawk hunting in snow, crows gathering for scraps, but they consistently expand outward to encompass larger questions about care, responsibility, and complicity. In "The Clapping Man's Claim," the speaker catalogs the trust he has gained from various birds and animals, only to conclude with a subtle irony: he has gained the trust of his wife too, yet the accumulation of these moments underscores not connection but isolation. The natural world becomes not an escape from human problems but a mirror of them. The Ukraine section stands as the collection's political heart. Poems like "The Rape of Ukraine," "How to Know I Am a Human," and "Sailing to the Kremlin" (a meditation on Alexei Navalny) confront the helplessness of witnessing distant atrocities. Norman does not offer solutions or grand pronouncements; instead, he registers the inadequacy of gesture. A speaker feeds doves while war happens elsewhere. A blue jay eating snow becomes a metaphor for continuing life in the face of horror. This restraint is the poetry's strength. It trusts the reader to feel the weight of what is not said. The "Industrial Ave." and "Truro Town" sections turn toward environmental destruction and personal loss, introducing a more bitter register. "A Prestigious Headache, and the Six-Question Cure" is an extended indictment of habitat destruction carried out by an ecologist and her contractors, framed through mounting rhetorical questions that never arrive at resolution. The speaker's anger here is palpable, yet even in fury, Norman maintains his characteristic attentiveness to small details...pine cones, bird calls, the memory of what was alive before the machines came. Throughout, Norman's formal approach is deceptively simple. His lines often break conversationally, and he favours clarity over obscurity. Yet this plainspoken quality masks considerable craft. Repetition becomes incantatory. Catalogues of natural observation accumulate into emotional weight. Dedication and memorial poems honour specific individuals, both the murdered taxi driver Prabhjot Singh Katri and the deceased cat Simona, with a tenderness that resists sentimentality through precise, ungoverned detail. If there is a limitation, it may be that the breadth of the collection sometimes pulls against depth. Shifting between intimate observation, political outrage, personal elegy, and ecological complaint, individual poems can feel slight when read in sequence. Yet this very restlessness, this refusal to settle into a single voice or concern, might well be precisely the point. The speaker of 'A Life Between the Brackets' is someone trying to hold multiple griefs, observations, and moral positions simultaneously, and the book's formal and tonal variety mirrors that struggle. What endures in these poems is their fundamental generosity. Norman writes as someone who has learned to pay attention to birds, to strangers, to loss, to beauty persisting amid ruin. In an era of distraction and indifference, that attention itself feels like an act of resistance. 'A Life Between the Brackets' is a book for readers who believe that how we observe the world matters, and that poetry remains one of our best tools for bearing witness. -Harry Hickey, June 2026. Published by ShadowScript Publications and available on Amazon and from selected bookstores in Ireland and Canada.

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AI and Copyright

Book Review of 'Undelivered: Fertility, Miscarriage, and ...

Hugo Simberg, the Grim Reaper and the Irish

New Review: 'Become the Parent You Needed' By LJ Jones. (...

The Law of Gratitude: Why Appreciation Could Be the Most ...

Review of "A Life Between the Brackets" by Chad Norman