Ute Carbone: Welcome Mark Lloyd

I'm pleased to have publisher Mark Lloyd on the blog today.
So cue up the kazoo fanfare, release the multi-colored pigeons, grab your hot toddy and read on.

How an author meets a publisher.

By Mark Lloyd, Chief Yo-Yo Polisher at Pillar International Publishing.

I first met the writer Thaddeus Lovecraft when his bodyguards kidnapped me at gunpoint in the summer of 2007. We still laugh today about the ensuing nightmares and erectile dysfunction.

He, like many other authors of the day, was gumming to get his book published and wasn’t having much success with agents or the slush pile. So, using his resourcefulness, his money and a pair of armed six-foot Filipino hit men, he went about circumventing the system.

When I came to, I found my host leaning over me, prodding me with the most gentle of Tasers.

“Llyod,” he said, before correcting himself, “Lloyd, I want you to publish my book.” He had a way of underlining words as he spoke.

“B-but…” I stuttered, blinking myself into consciousness.

The room was vast, with wall to wall marble and floor to ceiling walls. In the room’s centre, a gigantic crystal chandelier hung like Damocles’ light-fitting over a Steinway grand piano. At one end of the room a repaired Venus de Milo waved nonchalantly; at the other, Michael Flatley tap-danced inside a soundproof glass box.

“W-why…” I said.

“It’s quite simple,” he replied, “I will send you the occasional manuscript and you will publish it.”

His argument was compelling, as was the large amount of money he then handed me.

After that we never looked back. Except occasionally to check for Mossad.

Mark Lloyd was born in 1972 in the small town of Naas, Co.Kildare in Ireland. He studied at Trinity College Dublin where he was allowed to escape with a BA (Mod) in Computer Science, Linguistics and French.

His poetry has been published in Revival Literary Journal, Microphone On! And Boyne Berries.

He is a founding member of The Limerick Writers’ Centre, Limerick, Ireland and a member of the Literature Pillar of Limerick City of Culture 2014.

He is proud to have once been a member of Litopia.

He founded Pillar International Publishing in 2012, named after his grandfather’s erstwhile company Pillar Publishing Dublin.

Pillar International Publishing, though focusing on edgy and absurd humour, has also published several poetry collections, including Heartscald by Alphie McCourt and I Live in Michael Hartnett (featuring a piece by the late Seamus Heaney).

In humorous fiction and non-fiction, Pillar have published works by Rhys Hughes, Robin Walker and Thaddeus Lovecraft.

Pillar, in 2014, will publish works by Tony Philpott and Helena Close, amongst others and will introduce Pillar Vintage, an imprint that will re-issue 1940’s fiction and non-fiction.