My haul from Kenny’s Bookshop is rather long and all second-hand/pre-loved. I never understand how anyone can bare to give away books but in this case, I win! I got all of these short story collections for 29 euro! L-R John McGahern, Gerard Donovan, William Trevor, Bernard Mac Claverty, Edna O Brown, Doris Lessing, Maeve […]
A fab time was had in Galway city for Culture night 2016. I was reading a story of mine which had been longlisted for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition and Simon was judging the Poetry Open Mic. Elizabeth Reap was there reading from her debut novel, Red Dirt and Karl […]
Last weekend I was one of the participants at Anthony Glavin’s workshop on the short story. Anthony is very well-known in the area of short story so I was eager to hear what he had to say. He kept us extremely busy throughout the day, writing, writing and writing. The workshop was full, 13 participants! […]
Heading to one of the best cities in Ireland on Friday-Galway, of course. This Friday is Culture Night all over Ireland and Galway are celebrating it with one event-The Over the Edge open mic for fiction and poetry readings in Kenny’s Bookshop from 4 p.m. Simon is reading from his poetry collection there as well […]
I had to chuckle when I was reading an excerpt from an Eimear McBride interview. She was speaking about her new novel, the Lesser Bohemians and how she dealt with writing sex scenes. “Writing about sex is very difficult,” says the prize-winning author. “I did not set out to write lots of sex scenes – they […]
I am re-reading this amazing book. I started ages ago and forgot and then saw this brand-new 30th anniversary edition in the library so it was sure sign! Natalie is well-known for her books on writing, she writes so gently, spiritually about writing and the process.She really does free up your negative thoughts about the […]
I love “The gun” by Mark Haddon, have a watch and see if you might like it too! You can listen to the podcast here where Mark chats to Granta about his story and the writing process at http://granta.com/Granta-Audio-Mark-Haddon/ You can also download a pdf of it to save to your tablet/kindle or print it out […]
Writing Groups:West Cork Literary Fest 2016:Danielle Mc Laughlin, Marie Gethins&Bairbre Leahy Danielle McLaughin seems to speak a lot about her writing group and how it helped her immensely and still does. She is obviously very talented and very published but her two writing group colleagues are on the up and up having being published and […]
Bantry is the only place to be for the writer who wants to…write! This is our third year attending the literary festival and it is, without doubt, our favourite of all the lit fests we have attended in Ireland. Ths year was different too, we were bringing our lovely toddler boy, M-boy with us and […]
WE are heading off to Bantry tomorrow for some of the West Cork Literary Festival 2016. WE are renting a little apartment in Bantry and going to catch the beach, some readings and eat some fish dinners! I am hoping to catch Danielle McLaughlin and her talk with her writing group members on writing groups. […]