Declan J Cassidy is a writer and film maker. His Irish Film Board funded short “Whatever Turns You On” qualified for the Oscars in 2010 having scooped awards in festivals around the world. He has made many short films as well as feature length documentaries and an eight part tv series. Until recently his writing was in the area of film but when his script “Pins and Needles” failed to come together as the principle characters were setting out alone and, therefore, without the means for uncontrived dialogue, Cassidy was advised by a friend to write the novel instead. His father’s death in November 2014 put a halt on the book for quite some time but it was finally finished and released in late summer 2017, made first available through Amazon.
Cassidy studies Spanish and Italian culture and language at Trinity College Dublin where he lived for a term in Graduate Memorial Building during the writing of ‘Pins and Needles’. Much of the book was written in a number of Starbucks Coffee Shops.
“I wouldn’t hang out in small private places as I thought spending hours writing having bought one coffee was a bit cheap but Starbucks seemed fine with it,” explained Cassidy. “I did so much work on the book there that it came to the point that when someone asked what I did I said ‘I work in Starbucks’.”
Declan J Cassidy 