Inspired by Tania and her general positivity, here’s a few good things that happened these past few days:
An absolute gem of a story turned up in my penultimate batch of Seán Ó Faoláin reading. It has put a smile on my face and gone straight onto the ‘YES!’ pile. It has a flash-bang of an opening, great language, and a quirky humour that is just spot on.
I got to meet Dermot Healy last night, a literary hero. He was the judge for a lit comp I won (entered pre-comp-retirement) and he said lovely things about my story, which is about Hadley Hemingway, Ernest’s first wife.
My co-collaborator in the Postcard Poems project, Órfhlaith, sent me three fabulous cards. I wrote poems based on two of them. Not great poems in a general way, but they match the cards and that’s what the project’s about. I can’t wait now to launch the project on the world. As if it’ll care! But we will, and that’s all that matters.
I've been reading a whole load of poems in Irish as Irish language editor of The Best of Irish Poetry 2009. It’s so interesting to see what people are writing about: everything from Russian dolls as a symbol of aging woman, to marital in-fighting over what to plant in the garden, it seems. Great stuff!
5 comments:
Thanks, WRW, for saying that I am generally positive, last week I thought I was whingeing and whining! So glad that a story turned up that had such a wonderful effect on you, may there be more before your task is done.
Oooh, how wonderful about meeting a literary hero, and at your awards ceremony - or did I misunderstand. Which comp? Congratulations! Can we read your story anywhere? Is that the wife that "lost" all Hemingway's stories at a train station, poor woman.
Your postcard project sounds great, looking forward to it, and I am sad that I won't get to understand any of the Irish poems. Will there be translations or does that defeat the purpose?
Hi T, you are always SO positive, it's great!!
I'm not saying which comp (I'll tell you when I see you) in the spirit of retirement. A little un, anyway.
And yes, it was his 1st wife, the one he should have stayed with. Poor Hadley and, yet, great Hadley. She was a strong woman and she loved him always, as he loved her, despite his shoddy treatment of her.
There won't be poems in Irish in the postcard project, so fear not.
'The Best of Irish Poetry' is a separate thing: an anthology I'm co-editing.
dermot healy is a hero of mine as well. lucky you!
That anthology sounds interesting, is it the follow up to the Best of Irish Poetry 2007? I have that here and still re-read it, using some of the poems for the CW class I teach.
It's wonderful to meet a literary hero - hope you weren't nervous :)
Postcard project sounds really good. Pictures and postcards make such great prompts, you never know what way they will go.
Hi B
Yes it is a follow on. There was a BOIP 2008 too.
Re Dermot H: yes, I was nervous. Other people's greatness can strike me dumb. We exchanged a few words of praise and thanks. Nice man and he has a lovely smile!
WRW x
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