By Diana Friedman A petulant writer confession: I almost didn’t make it to Dublin this trip. Many years ago, a good friend asked me: when is the last time you really let yourself feel desire for something you want? We weren’t talking designer shoes or beachfront holiday property but deep soul-wrenching desire, the kind
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I have been waiting almost 50 years now to be struck by lightning. It hasn’t happened yet. And I don’t expect it will anytime soon. So in the meantime I have simply been reading and writing. Waiting. For? Something. The tap on the shoulder. That moment of self-recognition. The moment when I become a true
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Writers are often said to have something ‘missing’ from the sane storehouse of life, but paradoxically have also something ‘added’ in terms of perception – the ability to scrutinise human behaviour and the connections between people and events. Where are you on the scale? What persuaded you to write? It’s true that a lot of
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The Irish Writers’ Centre is running a horror writing course for the first time this weekend. Here accomplished spook writer Derek Gunn talks about the challenges of the genre, Irish ghost stories, zombies, Dystopian tours and the approaching apocalypse! Horror fiction and Halloween just seem to go together. I suppose it has something to do with Autumn
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“Degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, or outright lunatics,” the physician and journalist Max Nordau cautioned in 1893, “they are often writers and artists”…is there any truth in this statement!? In the current situation in Ireland, where the arts seem to be a branch of tourism, of green jersey consensus, yes, it’s important
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Emma Leavy is an Intern at the Irish Writers’ Centre this summer. She is a rising senior at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC where she majors in Culture and Politics. Emma fell in love with Ireland as a study abroad student at UCD this past fall. She is delighted to be
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Paul Perry is the author and editor of a number of critically acclaimed books including The Drowning of the Saints, Goldsmith’s Ghost, 108 Moons and The Orchid Keeper. A recipient of the Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year Award for his short story The Judge, which was later collected in The New Hennessy Book
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Earlier this month author John McKenna (who’s written a whopping 14 books!) ran a discussion on the short-story – from garnering ideas to plotting the story; from the development of character to the setting of landscape. The session focused on the discipline necessary to create and complete a piece of short fiction – how to
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