THE LONG GAZE BACK EVENT

Next Wednesday, 11th April at 7pm, Lia Mills and I will be at Tallaght Library to read and talk about #TheLongGazeBack as part of the #OneCityOneBookcelebrations. Book here.

ART OF THE SHORT STORY - BELFAST BOOK FESTIVAL

The Art of the Short Story, Thurs 8 June, 6.30pm – £7 | £5 Crescent Arts Centre at Belfast Book Festival with me, Jan Carson, June Caldwell & Oisín Ó Fágáin.

COVER REVEAL - Joyride to Jupiter

Today I can reveal the cover for Joyride to Jupiter, my new short story collection, out in June, from New Island. It will be released June 12th and there will be two launches:

The Gutter Bookshop, Dublin, 14th June, 6.30pm. Lia Mills will launch.

Rosie McGurran Gallery and Studio, Roundstone, Galway, 16th June - Bloomsday! - time & launcher tbc.

Ta-dah! Floaty woman in sparkly shoes and lots of clouds. I love it! Thanks to Mariel Deegan for a fun, collaborative design process.

UPCOMINGS EVENTS - IRELAND & ITALY

A month to the day since I last blogged. Good Lord, where does the time go? Spring has sprung, at least!

I had one deadline of 31st January (for novel #4, Becoming Belle) and now I'm on a deadline for my s/story collection, Joyride to Jupiter. So, between those two things, and much else, life has been hectic. But it's all good - New Island and I are discussing covers (such a joyful thing) for Joyride to Jupiter so the excitement for its June publication is building.

I'm also busily prepping for my masterclasses at the Irish Writers Centre (the course is sold out but there's a waiting list you can join.)

Meanwhile, I have a few events coming up:

 - I'll be reading at the launch of the Arlen House poetry anthology Washing Windows, 2pm Saturday the 4th March in Pearse Street Library, Dublin.

 - I'm giving a short story seminar in Florence, Italy on the 9th March at St Mark's Church at 2pm. And a reading that evening at the same venue at 6.30pm. More here.

 - I will be interviewing my friend, and fellow The Peers member, Alan McMonagle about his début novel Ithaca on Monday 13th March in Backstage Theatre, Longford at 8pm, as part of the book's launch night shenanigans.

 - I'm also giving a short story seminar at the Mountains to Sea festival in Dun Laoghaire on 25th March at 11am. More here.

 - Also at Mountains to Sea I am taking part in the Heroes reading event and I'll be talking about (surprise, surprise) Emily Dickinson. Event info here.

FLASH, INTERVIEWS, NEW SHORT FICTION COLLECTION

I love the renewal of January. It's my birth month so, unlike other people, I like the month; it makes me cheerful. And I've plenty to be cheerful about in my life, including the bookish side of it. So three bits of literary news:

My fifth short story collection, Joyride to Jupiter, will be published by New Island Books in June. Woot! Their sweet Tweet from yesterday:

Also, I have two brand new flash and an interview at US lit mag Connotation Press, thanks to new fiction editor Jonathan Cardew. Go here.

And, finally, I was interviewed by Laura Turner at Pageturnersnook here.

Enjoy your January, my dears x

Eulogy - short story podcast

My story 'Eulogy' from the Looking at the Stars anthology in aid of Simon was broadcast on Arena here.

MISCARRIAGE STORY IN IRISH TIMES

Illustration by Jane Webster

I have a new story in todays' Irish Times, 'Storks', about the aftermath and pain of miscarriage. It's set in Spain, mostly in Cáceres, where I was invited to an Irish Studies Conference a few years ago by the lovely Carolina Amador. Cáceres is a beautiful, mystical place. You can read the story online here.

OXFAM REFUGEE STORY

I have a story called 'Blue Rose', about the beautiful woman above, in Oxfam's Culture Night exhibition in Dublin. It was published in the Irish Times yesterday along with responses to other photos of refugees by Eoin MacNamee and Rita Ann Higgins. Here.

SLIGO & MAYO TRIP

The cottage by the sea below Knocknarea

I spent an enjoyable day last Saturday in the company of the Sandy Field Writers in Sligo, talking to them about short fiction. They are a dynamic group of nine and I got a warm welcome from them - and homemade coffee cake to boot. We yapped, discussed and laughed all day.

View from the dune at the cottage

One of the group has a tiny cottage below Knocknarea, right in the dunes, and she let us stay there for the night. It was magical - my mister and the baby were with me and we lit a fire, listened to music and generally enjoyed a night away from it all.

In the morning, after a soaked-through beachcomb, we had a Father's Day brunch in Shells Café in Strandhill (one of my favourite cafés in Ireland) and went to a market in the hangar at the airport.

Morning view from the kitchen

Beachcombing with Junior

Shells, Strandhill - a fab shop and café

Dippy eggs for brunch at Shells

'Quiet people have the loudest minds' plaque bought from Sarah J Jewellery at the airport market

The short story I am currently writing features Knock in Co. Mayo, so we veered there on the way home to soak up the rosary-and-BVM delights.

A festive mini Jesus - I bought him for my dashboard.

Mass underway in the apparition chapel

Knock excels at classy souvenirs

Juno - aged 6 - did not know what rock was. Score! (Or is she deprived...?)

MIKE MC CORMACK JUDGES THE MOTH INTL SHORT STORY PRIZE

Galway-based writer Mike McCormack is the judge for this year's Moth Short Story Prize. The Prize is open to everyone, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished.  There is a 6,000 word limit. The entry fee is €9 per story and you can enter as many stories as you like. 

You can enter online or simply send your story or stories along with a cheque or postal order made payable to The Moth Magazine Ltd. and an entry form (downloadable here) or a cover letter with your name and contact details and the title of story attached to: The Moth, 81 Church Street, Cavan, Co. Cavan, Ireland. 

This year’s competition will be judged by Mike McCormack, a recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature whose debut short story collection was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His novel Notes from a Coma was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award and was described in the Irish Times as ‘the greatest Irish novel of the decade just ended’. 

CLOSING DATE 30 JUNE 2014

  

The three winning stories will feature in the autumn 2014 issue of The Moth and the winners will be invited to read at a special event at the Winding Stair Bookshop in Dublin in September 2014. 

READ THE RULES HERE

ENTER ONLINE

PRINT AN ENTRY FORM

You can read the winning story from the 2013 competition, judged by Martina Evans, here.
Read more about the winners of the 2013 prize here. 

DAN POWELL INTERVIEW & BOOK GIVEAWAY

Readers of this blog are familiar with the lovely Dan Powell, writer and stay-at-home Dad. I interviewed him here back in 2012. I am beyond delighted to welcome Dan back today on his blog tour to celebrate the publication of his début short fiction collection, Looking Out Of Broken Windows, which was shortlisted for the Scott Prize in 2013 and is published by Salt. Dan is a prize winning author whose short fiction has appeared in Carve, Paraxis, Fleeting and The Best British Short Stories 2012. He blogs at danpowellfiction.com and he's on Twitter as @danpowfiction. 

Check out Dan's impressive book trailer, above, where artist friends of his provided a glimpse of what the stories in the book might look like as comics.

Writer Dan Powell

Nuala: Welcome, Dan. Tell us about Looking Out of Broken Windows – its concerns, its themes. To my mind the book is partially concerned with how regular suburban life can be extraordinary. What are your thoughts on that?

Dan: These stories are definitely dealing with how the mundane, everyday experience is in fact spectacular. This idea is threaded through the stories but it wasn't something I consciously set out to do. The stories were written over a five year period and each one (with the exception of the three Ultrasound fictions) were written in isolation. When I began to assemble the collection it soon became clear that this idea, of the intensity that sits inside seemingly mundane suburban family life, was something that had been finding its way into many of the stories I was selecting. Looking at them now, in the context of the collection, it seems that I was dealing with the things that go unsaid in those family relationships: the secrets, the lies, the things we let go of and later regret, the spectacular things that happen in life that we take for granted. I suppose that's why so many of the stories, while realist in tone, trip into magical realism at some point. I was trying to bring out those things, show them more starkly against the background of the everyday. I was thrilled when the cover blurb you provided for the book picked up on that aspect of the collection.

N: Your stories often have touches of the surreal. What is the appeal of that to you? Are there writers in that vein that you admire?

D: These surreal or magical realist elements are a way of writing the interior lives of the characters into the foreground of a story without explicitly showing the reader what is happening. It is as the characters interact with these elements that the real emotional arc of the story becomes apparent. So in 'Storm in a Teacup' for example, the storm becomes a crisis in the cafe that actually represents the internal crises of all the characters witnessing the event. The fantasy element becomes a mirror in which the characters can see themselves and, hopefully, one in which the reader will perhaps see something of his or herself.

As for writers I admire in this vein, obviously there is Kafka, but also Chekhov. Many of Anton Chekhov's early short stories have surrealist elements, a fact often ignored in light of his later, classic stories. His story The Exclamation Mark, in which a clerk begins arguing with punctuation, is a favourite of mine. More contemporary authors who have influenced this aspect of my writing would be Aimee Bender, Etgar Keret, and Michel Faber, who's short stories bridge gaps between so many genres.

N: Tell us about the putting together of Looking Out of Broken Windows – what was your approach to fitting the stories together as a book?

D: On the most basic level putting the collection together was simply a matter of selecting the best stories I had written in the last five years or so since I began seriously writing. From a total pool of about seventy or so short and flash fictions, I trimmed things down to just over thirty that I thought might work together. On reading them through again, some for the first time since they had been published in anthologies or journals, the theme of characters looking out at the world through the broken lense of their perspective seemed to be peeking out from almost all of them. All of the twenty-seven stories that ended up in the book have a main character who is struggling to deal with a world that seems to them broken in some way. As the stories progress some characters manage to discover that the fracture is actually in them, some remain trapped in their skewed viewpoint. A few of the stories that failed to make the cut for this collection have been earmarked for the next, the rest will slowly settle to the bottom of my laptop's filing system.

Once I had the stories, I ordered them using a system I nicked from the brilliant Carys Bray. I wrote each title down on a post-it with notes on the characters, themes, point-of-view and tone of each story. Then I stuck the post-its on a cupboard door and, while editing the stories again, I shuffled the stories round on the door until, after a couple of weeks of thinking about them in this way, I had the running order you see in the book. That said, they can and should be read in any order. All the stories were written independently and are more than able to stand on their own two feet.

N: One story in the book is called ‘What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Cancer’, which is a riff on Ray Carver. Do titles come easily to you? Is it a fun part of the process for you?

D: I struggle with titles. As the first thing readers will see of the story. They are key and often, unless it is one of the few stories I have written which spawned from a title phrase, 'Storm in a Teacup' for example, I have no clue what to call something. Part of the fun of writing these 'as yet untitled stories' is working out what they will be called. Late in the writing process, on the penultimate or final draft a title will present itself and I know it is right when it feels like the story has always been called that. ‘What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Cancer’ is unusual in that it is one of those few stories for which I had the title early on but it is one now that I am still not a hundred percent comfortable with. Perhaps that is simply due to the fact that I cribbed it from Raymond Carver and I feel like doing so is a tremendously presumptuous thing to do. The title simply stuck for want of one that better resonates to the reader what the story is about. Sometimes that has to be enough.

N: Here’s the cruel question that most writers hate – how often do stories (or story ideas) come to you, and what sparks them?

D: Ideas hit me all the time. Not all of them make it into a story but I note everything down in one of my many notebooks; I have a notebook on my bedside, one on my desk, one in the glove compartment of my car, one in my man-bag, one in the pocket of my raincoat even. If an idea keeps knocking on the door of my brain, long after it's been jotted in a notebook, that's when I know I have a story. As for where the ideas come from, I've been gifted ideas from lines in poems, song lyrics, unusual artwork or photographs, news stories, things my kids have said or done, stuff I've seen or done at work. The key thing is to be open to stuff and let it in. I think that's the key to finding ideas, being open to little things going on around you, making connections between them and running with that tiny germ of an idea until it is many, many words in something like the best order. I feel very lucky that I have more ideas than could possibly write. I might get frustrated at times with my own slow pace but at least I am never stuck for something to put on paper.

N: What are your thoughts on the ‘write what you know’ diktat?

D: I don't often know a great deal about the world or situation of my characters when I begin writing a story. In fact, my process involves, in the first draft anyway, telling myself the story, with subsequent drafts and edits geared towards telling it better. I like the sense of discovery inherent in working this way and hopefully it gives the story life for the reader.

As for research, as writers we can easily fill in the gaps in what we know to make sure the worlds and characters we are creating are authentic. This side of writing is simpler perhaps than it has ever been. I don't think that writers should be limited by this idea of writing only what we know. I am not a woman, but I have received praise for my writing from a female perspective. Believable, engaging fiction, for me, is less about facts but rather about writing from some sort of emotional truth. You have to write what you know to be emotionally true. Often I don't consciously know why something must happen in a particular way in a story until long after it is finished, it just feels right when I am writing. So yeah, getting facts straight and knowing your subject inside out is important, but as far as that rule goes, for me it should read, write what feels true, regardless of whether it is or not.

N: I heard the supreme Canadian novelist and short story writer Alistair MacLeod say this: ‘In order to write you have to have language and you have to have leisure. You have to have a place to sit.’ Naturally, you have language. But do you have the other two things?

D: I am very lucky in that I have, for the first time, a study all of my own in which to work. It is a tiny room, just big enough to house a desk and a bookcase. I have to move the chair across in order to open the door, but it has everything I need to write crammed inside and a door that shuts out the world. It also has a cracking view of the Lincolnshire countryside.

As for leisure. I am able to write most evenings and on the two days a week that my daughter is in nursery, if I am not called in to cover classes in local schools, I am able to write all day. This does not happen often but I am always grateful when it does. Taking care of three young children and working part time, I am always struggling to find time to write. It is often hard to find a moment to work on my fiction, but the upside is that I have not yet suffered from writers' block. I simply don't have the time to. If a free hour presents itself then I have to make the most of it. Lack of time is a great motivator and I use my time more productively now than I did back in my younger days when free time grew on trees.

N: Has your writing changed since you moved back to the UK from Germany? Has your writing life improved in any way?

D: Since coming back to the UK, setting is becoming a much more important aspect of my work. I have already set a short story here in Lincolnshire, as well as another couple in Highcliffe on the south coast of England, where I've holidayed a few times with my family. Lincolnshire has also become a key setting in the final third of my novel in progress.

As far as improving my writing life, I can write anywhere, but moving back has already allowed me to accept numerous offers to appear at Literary Festivals and take part in writing events. In February this year I took part in the Book It! Oxted Literary Festival short story panel alongside Alison MacLeod, Vanessa Gebbie and Tom Vowler; a fantastic line-up for my first festival experience. Later this year I will be reading at Lincoln Inspired and leading a writing workshop at the Wolds Words festival, both brilliant local Lincolnshire events aimed at promoting the literary arts and supporting writers in the community. In a couple of weeks I will be attending the Willesden Herald short story prize results evening in London and in June I will be reading at the London Short Story Festival. All these things would have been impossible if I were still living in Germany.

On a personal note, after seven years of living overseas, it is great to be back home. I only realised just how much I had missed the UK once we finally came back.

Thanks so much, Dan, for stopping by on your virtual tour. Wishing you tons of well-deserved luck with this book.

Readers, Dan is giving away a signed copy of Looking Out of Broken Windows to one reader of the blog tour; he will post to anywhere in the world. To enter the draw just leave a comment on this post or any of the other LOoBW blog tour posts appearing across the internet during March 2014 or Like the Looking Out of Broken Windows Facebook page for a chance to win. The names of all commenters will be put in the hat for the draw which will take place on April 6th.

♥ NUDE FOR VALENTINE'S DAY - KINDLE OFFER ♥

To celebrate all the lurve and sensuality that Valentine's Day brings, my short story collection Nude is US$2.51 at Amazon.com or GBP£1.53 at Amazon.co.uk for Kindle, today and for the rest of February.

The blurb on Nude: 'The women and men in Nude play out their desires and frustrations from Dublin to Paris, Delhi to Barcelona, and beyond. In these stories there are mercurial lovers, illicit affairs and mistakes that cannot be undone. And at the centre of it all is the unclothed body: in bedrooms, in art, and in and out of love.'

♥ Happy Valentine's Day! ♥

FLANNERY'S 'GOOD COUNTRY PEOPLE'

Flannery O'Connor - image from mbird

Short Story Ireland invited me to talk about an influential (for me) short story. I chose Flannery O'Connor's 'Good Country People'. Flannery is, like, my cousin or something, after all. Keep it in the family ;)

SHORT STORY PRIZE 2014

2014 INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY PRIZE

First Prize: £500 + publication    Second prize: £100

Open for entries January 1st – March 31st

Entry fee: £10 – submit up to 2 stories and receive a copy of our next issue (worth £10). £5 – submit 1 story. Stories must be no longer than 5,000 words and must be unpublished in print or online. All entries will also be considered for general publication. Stories may be in any theme or genre and you can submit as many times as you like. Online entries only. After making your payment via the Paypal buttons below, please submit your entries to shortfiction2010@googlemail.com with ‘Competition Entry’ in the subject box. The shortlist will be announced in June, the winner and runner-up in July. Please read competition rules here before entering. This year’s judge is prize-winning author Gerard Donovan, whose novels, poems and short stories have received critical acclaim.

WALES ARTS REVIEW - SPECIAL STORY ISSUE

Those of you who know me, know I am a fan of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's work. I was asked by Wales Arts Review to name and recommend a favourite short story and I close Éilís's 'The Pale Gold of Alaska'.

­The issue also features an interview with a favourite Welsh writer of mine Rachel Trezise, as well as story picks from authors Patricia Duncker, Matthew Francis, Alison Moore,Stevie Davies, Nigel Jarrett, Kate North, Valerie Sirr, Tyler Keevil, Jim Morphy, Jimena Gibert and Chris Cornwell.

You'll also find my Paris-set story 'In Seed Time, Learn' in this issue and stories from John Lavin, Valerie Sirr and Chrissie Gittens among many more.

Cork, New York and San Francisco

I'll say cheerio for a bit. I'm of to Cork, New York and San Francisco. Excitement!

CORK: For the Cork International Short Story Festival, to hear readers such as Angela Bourke and Alistair MacLeod, and to chair a panel on short story anthologies with editors and publishers of four recent anthologies, namely Kevin Barry, Sinéad Gleeson, Micheál Ó Conghaile and Elizabeth Reapy.That's on at 2.30pm in Triskel Christchurch on Saturday.

I may even participate in the Culture Night event - Flash Fiction Rapid Fire - at 9.15pm on Friday night. Also in Triskel.

NEW YORK: To meet my new literary agent and see if she enjoyed the finished novel. Eeek, nervous. And to enjoy New York, of course :)

SAN FRANCISCO: For the first time for the launch of my chapbook of short-short stories, Of Dublin and Other Fictions on Friday the 27th September at the Parc 55 Wyndham, Union Square at 7pm, as part of the American Conference for Irish Studies. I'll read from the book, which is the first publication for publisher Tower Press, run by Idaho-based academic Jodi Chilson. If you are in San Fran, or you know anyone there, all are welcome to come along to the launch.

On Sunday the 29th, I'll be giving a talk on the Irish Short Story at the Irish Literary and Historical Society at 5pm in the United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco.

I'll talk to you all when I am back. Slán go fóill!

DELAWARE - LEWES CONFERENCE - AFTERS

I am in that strange jet-lag land today - I feel like I'm wading through cottonwool all day. And my lovely Granny-in-law died yesterday, so things are all topsy turvy here.

Delaware was fantastic, as were Pennsylvania and New Jersey; 3 States in 6 days - what fun. Writer Billie Travalini, a native Delawarian, whom I met through a mutual love of short fiction, was my hostess with the mostess in Wilmington, Northern Delaware.

The Lewes Writer's Conference - organised by Billie - was wonderful; lots of enthused and friendly writers and my first taste of the poetry and insights of the rather excellent Devon Miller-Duggan, whose collection Pinning the Bird to the Wall has my brain zinging. In Lewes we stayed with Billie's friends Dr and Mrs Miller, and they couldn't have been sweeter or more welcoming to a wandering Irish writer.

Lilies at Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania

So, a few pics. With Granny's death and general exhaustion I haven't the will for more. All thanks to The Arts Council for contributing towards my trip and to Billie and the Millers for hosting me.

Billie's writing desk

Billie Travalini on the deck of her cabin by the Brandywine River in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvanian butterfly - it was HUGE

I really fancied this cabin across the river from Billie's

Speed limit sign by the cabin

Me on Billie's Wilmington balcony, Delaware

Amish pie fillings at Booths Corner Farmers' Market, Penn.

Amish produce, Booths Corner

Amish honey, Booths Corner

Bathroom mermaid, Lewes

Billie opening the Lewes Conference

Lighhouse, Lewes - from the ferry to Cape May, New Jersey

Cape May, New Jersey, in the rain

Dellas diner, Cape May, New Jersey - they do a great veggie burger

Me on the Cape May-Lewes ferry