Happy New Year! Gosh, I don’t even care about the whole New Year’s Even thing but I do like the tidiness that comes with a brand new day on the 1st of January and when the supermarkets take all of the nonsense away off their shelves and start preparing for Easter or Halloween or something. […]
I have read some brilliant books this year and it is impossible to choose but I must so here we go. If you would like to buy a book for someone you love or even for yourself, then consider these…Because, apparently book sales are up this year which is exciting and amazing for booksellers, publishers, […]
I edit the fiction side of Sixteen Magazine along with my husband, Simon who looks over the poetry side of it. Each issue is based on a colour theme and this month’s was brown. That is a hard prompt but I got the chance to read some very cool and different pieces of short fiction. […]
Last night, a story I had entered into the Over the Edge New Irish Writer of the Year award received a highly commendation. Of course, I am happy and I thought it would be interesting to see how long it took me to write it and what was involved as this story was quite the […]
Last night the Over the Edge New Irish Writer 2016 fiction award winner was announced and sadly it was not me but I really didn’t expect it when I saw that Chris Connolly had been shortlisted as he seems to have won every award going in the last year! He won the RTE Francis McManus […]
Gosh, I kind of find these posts odd and ego-ridden and cringey to read so here goes…. One of my stories has been shortlisted for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year award 2016, got the news this morning via an excited husband holding a mobile screen in my face! It was a […]
My haul from Kenny’s Bookshop is rather long and all second-hand/pre-loved. I never understand how anyone can bear 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! […]