I am honoured to be awarded a place on the Irish Writers Centre Northern Soul Workshops 2024 supported by the National Lottery through the Arts of Council of Northern Ireland. I will update after the series, which kicks off on February 10th and culminates in a showcase event in Belfast’s Linen Hall at the end of March.
Antigone Journal published a piece I wrote on finding my way to studying classics and embellished it with some lovely artwork. And much gratitude to my dear Alma Mater Maynooth University who adopted the piece for their Classics Department webpage. Check it out here:
From Svetlin Vassilev’s Antigone (2013), reproduced with the artist’s permission (© Vicens Vices, Barcelona, Spain).
My short story A Plan With Holes was published in The Waxed Lemon vol. 6, a piece I am fond of and I’m delighted to see it in print with such good company. https://shop.thebookcentre.ie/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=9772737726003WL236
2023 was another successful year for the Letterkenny Literary Festival. This time we celebrated #Behan100 the anniversary of the birth of the legendary Brendan Behan and his links to Letterkenny. I was involved this year as poetry competition co-ordinator. I pitched the idea of a competition and put it out in the world. We had an amazing response. Congratulations to the winners who came to read at a special event on the Saturday night. Watch out for the 2024 competition and news of festival events. https://lkcqlitfest.weebly.com/
Finding Words
This memoir piece was accepted for inclusion in The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices edited by Paul McVeigh (Unbound, 2021). It is my privilege to be included as one of 16 new and emerging writers alongside 16 established authors including Kevin Barry, Dermot Bolger, Roddy Doyle, Lisa McInerney and Lyra McKee.
Muscle Memory
My contribution to the Same Page Anthology curated by the UCC creative writing students. All profits went to the Sexual Violence Centre, Cork.
Becoming Free
This story was my first submission on the literary publishing circuit in 2015 and I was fortunate to aim for and win the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award for Becoming Free. The title came one hour before the story was submitted and, as the submission process does set the author free from perpetual editing, it seemed appropriate. Letting go of stories is a learned process and I am still a novice in that regard. It was also an apprenticeship in the art of editing. This story was wittled down from 5000 words to the required 2000 words, a challenge that served me well in future work. I set this story free and the accolade received allowed me sufficient ego to move forward without suffering too much imposter syndrome.
Summer of ’76
This short story was published in Fictive Dream and was one of five stories nominated by editor Laura Black for the Best Small Fictions Anthology 2018. The idea came from hearing an elderly woman on a London bus ask her travelling companion if she remembered the legendary heatwave of ‘76. They both moaned in memory. But I recalled being 13 and the joy of days spent at the banks of the river, launching milk crate ships and being oblivious to the concerns of adults. The idea of how one summer could be so different for adults and children intrigued me.
Into the Midst of Things
Published in The Incubator, this story begins In Median Res hence the title in translation. I found a pack of government issue iodine tablets while clearing out old cupboards and it got me thinking of the four-minute warning of the Cold War period. If it were to happen today what would I save? I look to my bookcase. Would we want to survive with the people in our lives?
Art Lesson
Another favourite short piece that was published by Ellipsis Zine.
Blank Slate
A story written during the Covid-19 pandemic. This short was published by The Honest Ulsterman, June 2020.
A New Silence
This piece was commissioned by Art in Many Forms to be included in #thesilence project 2020. This is an art and written word exhibition that expressed a snapshot of the first night of pandemic lockdown. Each piece of writing was partnered with music and I was delighted to be paired with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
A Seasonal Gift
A simple story of misguided love published by Cold Coffee Stand. I presented this story at a spoken word event for Culture Night 2018 and a woman told me that night that she could feel the bracelet fall onto my protagonist’s arm. I had given that sentence little attention with the pen and it made me realise how the life of a story lies with the audience or reader.
Animal Instinct
This flash piece was my contribution to Sensorially Challenged Vol. III all proceeds of which are donated to the U.K. National Literacy Trust. A longer version first saw life in the Ad Hoc Literary Journal, in July 2017. It is a snapshot of a father and son in extreme circumstances. The reader’s imagination does all the work.
POEMS:
Odysseus
My Classics background inspired this poem which was published by the award winning Stepaway Magazine literature that focuses on “the sensory experience of walking in specific neighborhoods, districts or zones within a city.”
Drowning
A sad tale of modern life. Although, perhaps with a hint of Persephone. Published by The Write Launch.
Forms:
Classics again, here I am influenced by Plato. It is a poem that came whole to me as I walked the dog in starry moonlight. I ran home to jot it down and, as is the way with some words, they were barely edited. I was honoured that it was adopted as a subject of review by a first-year secondary school class. Published first in The Write Launch.
Review of Forms:
The transient nature of life is nowhere more keenly perceived as in Ryder’s poem “Forms.” The irony is obvious: “When I die the world will stop spinning,” and then this: “I will be a form, a shape, a number, a colour, a sound.” A transitory traveller. The Write Launch, Issue 7.
