I’ve lost my marbles. I say that a lot as a busy mother
Novelist Cecelia Ahern tells Stephenson how she juggles being a bestselling author and a mother, about where her ideas come from and why books will always come before films
BLONDE, beautiful, happily married mother-of-two and bestselling author Cecelia Ahern has had the private and public success many of us dream about.
The Dublin-born daughter of former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern was just 21 when she penned her first novel, PS, I Love You, which became a bestseller and saw her life change in 2007 when the movie adaptation, starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler, became a box office hit.
Now Hollywood is knocking at her door again, as Warner Bros have optioned the movie rights to her forthcoming young adult series, Flawed And Perfect, due out next March.
“It’s very exciting,” she enthuses. “It feels like a new beginning and a fresh start, as it’s a whole new audience. Getting the film deal was a real boost. It’s the same team that made P.S. I Love You.”
Ahern, 34, has plenty to smile about. She is published in nearly 50 countries and has sold more than 25 million copies of her novels worldwide. Yet she has had dark times too, and recently spoke publicly about the panic attacks she suffered for years.
“I don’t know how many panic attacks I actually had, but I think the fear of having them is greater than the attack, because you’re afraid of having one, and so that fear is constant and it’s always there,” she told Gay Byrne on his show The Meaning Of Life this year.
“You get pins and needles, you get extremely dizzy, you might want to vomit, run to the toilet, just feeling cold, hot, it’s bizarre actually that it’s all created by yourself, it’s all in your mind.”
Today, she is more reluctant to talk about the issue.
“It’s a story I don’t want to keep going on about. I was trying to explain where I was at when I wrote PS, I Love You. People couldn’t understand how I could write a book like that at 21. At that time, I was at a vulnerable stage and very much
Gina Gershon and Hilary Swank in the film version of P.S. I Love You