Patricia’s Blog
They’re a fussy lot in our Book Club but each and everyone gave the thumbs up to Paul Soye’s The Boy In The Gap. Can it really be that this is his first novel, so fine is the writing achievement? We were into the suspense from the very first line, I remember the first night…
Read MoreThis is a true story | A guide to reading narrative nonfiction. It was good to come across this blog for readers of Creative Nonfiction. While aimed at readers, it’s packed with useful resources, tips and links for the nonfiction writer. I’m wrestling at the moment with my manuscript that is based on true events…
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Michael Longley’s new volume A Hundred Doors is slim and snug and almost weightless in the hand. He returns again, almost apologetically, to a place that changed his life: ‘I am writing too much about Carrigskeewaun.’ He is there for the millennium, at Christmas, at lambing time, and – for the first time – with his new…
Read MoreThe List | 101 Books. I like the approach to reading in this blog. Robert Bruce takes Time Magazine’s Greatest 100 Novels (since 1923) and adds in Ulysses. He is working his way through the list and compiling his own rankings as he reads. When he finsihes reading a book, he asks the simple question:…
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So said Margaret Hayes, Dublin City Librarian at the opening of the DublinSwell event in the city’s gleaming, green-lit, Convention Centre last week. This, she said, was Ireland’s largest literary event ever. It was a celebration of Dublin’s listing as a UNESCO City of Literature – one of only four cities in the world to receive this…
Read MoreI like this post – from a Techie – about the therapeutic effects of blogging and expressive writing. It seems to be about the process you go through in coming up with and arranging the words. The post has a link to some scientific evidence on the benefits of blogging /writing. And our words create a legacy – leave a…
Read MoreI was one of those who was deeply moved by the words of Bill Clinton to a New York audience over the St Patrick’s weekend. It was not just the words he spoke, but the tone of his remarks. It seems to me that he has a deep understanding of the psychic trauma we are going…
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I like this idea from City of a Thousand Welcomes. A simple notion asking volunteers to meet up wtih a visitor to Dublin and share their enthusiasm for the city.
You fill in a simple form and nominate one thing every visitor to Dublin should see. For me it is the National Library of Ireland, packed with archives and exhibitions and literary ghosts. And a great place to stand quietly on the building steps and watch the comings and goings at our Dail next door.
Only problem for me is that I probably don’t qualify as a Dubliner!
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