Patricia’s Blog
The Irish story is bad and getting worse if we are to believe Morgan Kelly in today’s Irish Times. Maybe it’s time to get some perspective – and some solace – from our history. We can do it online through The Irish Story, a digital first publisher of concise ebooks and short, snappy features on Irish…
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This is the first sentence of a new short story: ‘Her eyes were not exactly blue or grey.’ Alisa Cox – she who wrote the writer guide Writing Short Stories – has recently posted this (and three more sentences) of a new story on her blog. It whets the appetite and leaves me frustrated since I’ll have to buy the…
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To pick our Best Book Club Reads out of fifty books and five years of reading from an opinionated group can be daunting. We stuck to the task, made lists, noted votes, talked, changed our minds, remembered a great read that we’d omitted, voted again and came to our decision, exhausted and only slightly happy because of the…
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In the week that Seamus Heaney’s Human Chain was published, four of us – me, Joan, Deirdre and Mary – wound our way along the blue waymarked path around Mullaghmore in the Burren. The heat of the day was blunted by a lively breeze and Mary asked us, Did you hear Seamus Heaney on the radio this morning…
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I have a full shelf of Books on Writing and still buying. I had a few goes at making this selection, ended up with ten books, then had another go to get it down to the half-dozen I’m allowing myself. Along the way the criterion I used was this: which books have I reached across…
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There are a host of literary things to do in Erris – the area in the north-west corner of County Mayo, Ireland, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. A thrilling place for the literary inclined. Here are a half-dozen suggestions of things to do and texts to read: Read Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Belderg’ at the Ceide Fields – the most extensive…
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Ireland is agog with her – with Molly Allgood. What would she have thought if she had even the faintest imagining that her name would be flying around the nation on the airwaves, on the web, in rooms and libraries where book club members gather in 2010? It seems that Joseph O’Connor’s Ghost Light has made…
Read MoreI’ve been re-reading Dorothea Brande’s book , On Becoming a Writer. Hard to believe the Chicago woman was born in 1893 and published her classic on writing and creativity in 1934. It’s an easy read and you could almost get through it at one sitting. What makes the book refreshing is that it’s not about the nuts…
Read MoreI’ve been reading Aideen Henry’s first poetry collection, Hands Moving at the Speed of Falling Snow (Salmon Poetry). We both attended the poetry workshops given by Mary O’Malley and Mick Gorman as part of NUI Galway’s MA writer programme. I have good memories of listening to Aideen read some of these pieces in a room that looked…
Read MoreIt’s seldom I don’t get to flick through the newspaper on the day I buy it. I’m afraid I’m not one for the online version. I have to feel the rub of the print ink on my fingers and the anticipation of what’s over the next crackling page. But last evening my fingers were black…
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