HER book editor mum may have just published her first book in 22 years, but tenacious Phoebe Lyle is also rewriting the script when it comes to severely disabled young people reaching for their dreams.

CECELIA AHERN "All the promotion for my new book ends in December, and that's when I binge-read.

1. When did you think about a career in writing and what were your first steps into it? I’ve been writing since I was about 11.

OVER a quarter of a century Belfast firefighters witnessed some of the worst atrocities human beings could inflict on each other – bombs, blast incendiaries, petrol bombs, rioting – while at the same time often being stoned, shot at and threatened themselves.

WHILE a substantial majority of the Republic’s electorate has consistently favoured a united Ireland, it has been for most people, most of the time, considered a long-term objective – a low-intensity aspiration that had little relevance for day-to-day life.

THE centenary of the most important general election in 20th century Ireland is being marked on Saturday by a conference at Ulster University, Belfast.

WRITING is a step into the unknown, a restless adventure for award-winning Belfast novelist and academic Sophia Hillan, who is never quite certain where her characters will end up.

SHE is the sister-in-law of Tony Blair, the former prime minister who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism.

BOOK OF THE WEEK Becoming by Michelle Obama is published in hardback by Viking, priced £25 (ebook £11.

BOBBIE Hanvey has been documenting life in Northern Ireland for almost 50 years now.

TRUCKING isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life for many people in Northern Ireland, where their lorries are a pride and joy.

HI IAN, you’re just back from a book tour in Canada – how did it go? Canada was exhausting but fun.

LEGENDARY chat show host Michael Parkinson will be giving his personal Best at the Titanic Hotel next weekend when he will give a fresh insight into the life and times of his friend and recurrent interviewee, George Best.

DANNY Morrison has admitted that, whatever else he does in life, his phrase 'armalite and ballot box' strategy would be on his headstone.

GERRY Adams likes to hug them.

"DOESN'T everyone have a slightly ambivalent relationship with the festive season?," muses Ian Sansom when we inquire whether the seasonally subversive sub-jolly tone of December Stories I accurately reflects his own feelings on 'the most wonderful time of the year'.

NATHAN Carter, the cheeky-chappy accordian playing singer, entertainer, fast car driver and all-round nice guy, is politely sipping his too-hot soup in a Belfast hotel lobby while trying not to laugh at the same time.

BORN to a Catholic mother and Protestant father in Dublin in 1874, Charles William St John Burgess's decision to join the Gaelic League in 1899 had a transformative effect on his life.

A NEW collection of work by the late Co Armagh playwright Joseph Crilly aims to remind the public of the award-winning Ballymacash man's talent.

FOR any woman out there who has ever felt, in a moment of madness, like talking to a duck, coming down from her shelf or growing actual wings to fly, then award-winning Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern knows where you're coming from.