HAPPY FLASH FICTION DAY!!

Happy (International) Flash Fiction Day!

I am delighted that my flash chapbook Of Dublin and Other Fictions has received a good review from Kelly Creighton, in New Zealand based journal Flash Frontier. A sample: 'Each fiction is a fresh one: a balance of truth and the surreal. The author makes us laugh (out loud) when we are not expecting to. Anyone who writes flash fiction should read this book; it should be taught! Ní Chonchúir makes brief look effortless, but this is her expertise.' The full review is here.

From 3pm to 6pm today I will be in Arthur's Pub on Thomas Street in Dublin for the Big Smoke Writing Factory's annual flash event. This year: Flash Fury! I'll be reading along with many others and also announcing the winner of the 99 word flash prize. I would love to catch up with some of you there.

I also have a flash called 'Cider and Simnel' in the NFFD anthology, Eating My Words. Which can be bought in paperback at £6.99 or for Kindle at £1.99. Lots of good stuff in there from writers like Tania Hershman, Eabha Rose, Nik Perring, Nigel McLoughlin, Cathy Bryant, Tim Stevenson and Jonathan Pinnock.

STUFF OF DREAMS - PENGUIN DEAL

Celebratory presents!

I am living my fantasy just now - Penguin USA and Penguin Canada are going to publish my third novel, Miss Emily, which is about Emily Dickinson and her Irish maid. All thanks to my supersonic agent. There was even an auction! Most definitely the stuff of dreams.

The lovely Glynne Arms, Hawarden

I received the news in Wales on Tuesday the 4th where I was in residence at the Gladstone's Library in Hawarden. My fellow resident and friend, writer Tania Hershman, bought me champagne and Creme Eggs to celebrate. Isn't that the sweetest? We then went to the pub in the village, The Glynne Arms, with fellow writers Neil Griffiths, Rebecca Abrahams, and Philip Clement, who interns at the library.

My week in Gladstone's was wonderful (beautiful food, great company, long walks in the castle park) though taking updates via phone from the USA, and chatting with various editors, had my head turned backwards. TG I managed to get done what I needed to do each day before New York woke up. It was (is) a whirlwind. And I feel utterly blessed.

There was more champagne (a magnum!) - and tulips - waiting for me at home when I got back from Wales. Myself, my husband, the kids, and my ex- raised a glass (or three) and I felt super lucky all over again. Penguin announced the deal in the USA today so I am finally allowed talk about it. Relief!

This is what Publishers Weekly wrote today in its Book Deals section:

O’Connor Channels Dickinson for Penguin

Penguin’s Tara Singh Carlson took U.S. rights, at auction, to Nuala O’Connor’s debut novel, Miss Emily. Grainne Fox at Fletcher & Company brokered the deal, and said the novel is reminiscent of The Girl with the Pearl Earring. The work is told through the dueling perspectives of Emily Dickinson and her Irish maid, Ada Concannon, as their lives intertwine. Adrienne Kerr at Penguin Canada preempted Canadian rights to the book.

Yes, I am reverting to my birth name for this book. Much easier for my North American friends to pronounce and spell, after all.

GLADSTONE'S LIBRARY - PICS & STUFF

View of St Deiniol's church and graveyard from my bedroom window

I'm enjoying my retreat in Wales though I'm not exactly writing. Well, I am am writing but it is all non-fictiony PR stuff for my forthcoming novel: articles about my time in Scotland 22 years ago (the novel was inspired by something that happened to me).

Sophia in the garden

When I am not writing, I am reading - then ripping up - my diaries from Scotland (therapeutic!), walking in the pretty village of Hawarden, or eating. The food here at Gladstone's Library is beautiful and abundant.

Entrance to Gladstone's Library

Hearth panel: Louisa Yates (library director) Tania Hershman, Adnan Mahmutovic,
Neil Griffiths, Melissa Harrison, Peter Francis

There was also the small matter of the Hearth Literary Festival here at the weekend, which I went to, so that sucked up some writing time. Very enjoyably. I took my friend Tania Hershman's flash fiction workshop and it was fast-paced and we had to work really hard. Great fun. So I wrote there!

The Glynne Arms, a lovely pub in the village

Hawarden village, house

Bilingual road sign, Hawarden

It's hard to believe I am half-way through my stay already. My room is so warm and comfortable that I am going around in a heat-and-food induced fug most of the time. I need to buck up and write more. Novel no. 4 is calling to me ('Write me! Write me!') and there are exciting developments with novel 3 and my agent, which I can't talk about yet, but which are adding to my distractedness while here. But it's all good :)

Tania and I went to Chester yesterday - a metropolis after Hawarden

NEW REVIEW OF MOTHER AMERICA

There's a brand new review of Mother America at the UK's The Short Review. Thanks to Susan Haigh and Tania Hershman at the Review.

TANIA HERSHMAN ON MOTHER'S DAY

Happy Mother's Day!

As we both have recent books with 'mother' in the title, my friend Tania Hershman and I have decided to feature each other on our blogs for Mother's Day. Tania's collection of short-short fictions is called My Mother Was an Upright Piano and it is a startling, inventive, wonderful read. Writer Aimee Bender has said of it: 'Funny, fresh, lyrical. These stories are like colorful glass lozenges holding the substance of our everyday lives, sparkled up by the unusual and wondrous.'

Learn more about Tania's book here and enjoy the story below, 'The Lion and the Meteorite Can Never Touch You', from the collection. Tania's blogs at Tania Writes:

The Lion and the Meteorite Can Never Touch You

by Tania Hershman

I'll keep you safe, my love, my baby, she whispered into the child's ear, I will never leave you, and the child took it for granted that this was how it would always be. The child grew taller, cleverer, bolder, knowing always that her mother was beside her, ready to throw herself between her daughter and the lion waiting to pounce, the car swerving from its path, the meteorite on its way earthwards. The mother, for her part, did everything her strength allowed to protect the child from any hint of the world as it really is. She sheltered her daughter from tales of rape, mutilation, torture, disease, war and famine. They had no television, the radio was rarely switched on, the atmosphere was peaceful, joyous. The daughter heard nothing of the horrors that we conjure up against one another; she basked in her mother's sun and never doubted her own power.

When they discovered the lump, the mother whispered in her ear as the daughter sat in her hospital bed: You'll be fine, nothing can touch you.  The daughter believed her, heard the mother's words in her ear as the anaesthetic slid into her veins. When they opened her up and discovered a body with cancer colouring every organ, reaching its insidious fingers into each crevice, encouraging every cell to mutiny, the mother broke down. Doubled over in pain, she screamed at the doctors, losing her sanity because she too had believed what she had whispered.

Come, come, said the daughter, helping her mother into the chair beside her bed. I'm alright, I don't mind it. She felt nothing, cocooned by the medication. But her mother couldn't accept. Her own pains grew stronger and stronger, until she was given her own bed in another ward. The daughter, her suffering body allowing her only to slowly limp along corridors, sat beside her mother, whose pale face was fading with the hours. Thank you, the daughter said into her mother's ear. I'm ready for this. I'm ready for anything. And she watched as her mother broke her promise and left this world. I'm alone now, the daughter whispered to herself, and she closed her eyes and let the disease take hold of her until she, too, slipped away. 

TWO POEMS AT *AND OTHER POEMS*

Pic Credit: Stefan Seip

Two of my lunar poems are featured over at the And Other Poems blog today. Thanks to editor Josephine Corcoran for the invitation to submit work. Previous writers featured include my writing pals Tania Hershman, Barbara Smith and C. Murray.

FLASH FRONTIER - S/S/STORY & INTERVIEW

I have a new short short (flash) in the October issue of New Zealand based lit mag Flash Frontier. This is an international issue and the theme is Flight. I am also interviewed there by editor and writer Michelle Elvy. She gives good interview - I was astonished by how much research she had done. We talk openings, titles, what it means to be an Irish writer, Plath, travel, symbols...

Other writers featured include Tania Hershman, Ken Pobo and the evocatively named Daphne de Jong. Wonderful art by Sheri L. Wright too.

CORK SHORT STORY FEST AFTERS

I'm way behind with everything - so much to do, so little headspace! Anyway, there follows a wee look at the week at The Cork Short Story Festival which was fabulous, exhausting, fun, tiring, inspiring, fatiguing, brilliant and so well organised. Hats off to Patrick Cotter and Jennifer Matthews of Munster Lit.

I had a great time lunching, drinking and chatting with Tania Hershman, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, John Minihan, Zsuzsi Gartner, Kevin Barry, Sinéad Gleeson, Witi Ihimaera, Billy Ramsell, Declan Meade, Sandra Jensen, Nick Parker, Kate Bernheimer, Liadain O'Donovan and so many more.

And did I mention tiredness?! I was teaching a 3 hour workshop each morning as well as attending as many events as I could squish in, so I was like a zombie half the time. Do excuse me if you spoke to me and I looked at you as if from far, far away. I am not the most energetic person on the planet especially when hotel-sleep (i.e. very little sleep) is involved.

Craig Taylor, editor of Five Dials

So, to the events. Well, action-packed is the keyword. My first event was the talk by editor of Five Dials, Craig Taylor, who filled us in on the beginnings and development of the magazine. They wanted a digital magazine which people could print out and would look beautiful (which it does). It is such an eclectic publication and that is evident in Craig's approach: an entire issue might be just three poems from one author, or, like the Cork issues, it can span two issues and a festival.

Canadian authors Zsuzsi Gartner, Johanna Skibsrud and D.W. Wilson with Patrick Cotter

A panel on Canadian fiction was ably chaired by Pat Cotter who does what every audience wants: he does not ask predictable questions. He got each writer to talk about their path to publication which is always interesting to hear. Johanna, who won the Giller Prize in 2010 for her novel The Sentimentalists, spoke a bit about her experience with small vs larger publishers. She didn't have a straightforward experience with the publisher of her novel (the book was not widely available even after the Giller shortlist was announced) but she is philosophical about it.

Tania Hershman reading from 'My Mother is an Upright Piano'

Tania Hershman and Nick Parker gave fabulous readings on Thursday afternoon from their respective new collections of short short stories/flash, call them what you will. This was a highly entertaining reading: stories funny, surreal and brilliantly written from both.

Thursday evening saw Mike McCormack and Joe Dunthorne read together. I must not have had my camera that evening as I have no pics. Both read brilliantly and their Q&A was excellent. Mike talked about the importance of place in Irish writing and about the fact that his 'head is rooted in Mayo' as a writer though he has lived in Galway for most of his adult life. (Mike's new collection Forensic Songs (Lilliput) will be launched this Friday in Dublin.)

Nick Parker, self, Tania Hershman

Nick Parker, Tania Hershman and myself made up the panel on Flash Fiction at the City Library in Cork on Friday. We are laughing in the pic above but it wasn't alway so - especially when Patrick Cotter announced that he is thinking of banning flash fiction collections from the Frank O'Connor Award because the judges this year 'never even discussed them'. Tut tut - this discounts the fact that future judges may be flash fanatics. His hope is that 'somebody else' will set up a flash fiction collection prize. Yes, that would be good but why distinguish one length of short story from another? It's the old size matters debate; you know, the same one that posits that the novel is the Holy Grail for all writers. It ain't you know.

On Friday Juno and her Dad joined me in Cork - aw!

My reading on Thursday with D.W. Wilson at Triskel Christchurch went well. D.W. (Dave) read a story featuring Duncan and Vic, the same two characters who featured in his winning BBC National Short Story Award 2011 story 'The Dead Roads'. I read my story 'Peach' from Mother America. It's my longest story - for once I decided to fill the allotted time. The story seemed to go down OK with people, though an American said to me she feels the name 'Dominic' is girly. Not in Ireland it ain't. (That's not the first time an American has made that comment - I think they hear 'Dominique'.)

Zsuzsi Gartner

Sarah Hall

Canadian author Zsuzsi Gartner and multi-award winner Sarah Hall from Cumbria were a fine pairing. Zsuzsi's story was a madcap complaint letter to the narrator's son's teacher and it was funny and helter-skelter. (Read this on Zsuzsi's site, btw, about when interviewers are terrible - funny and disheartening and then heartening again. I had a lazy interviewer lately; I was soooooo mad.)

By contrast to Zsuzsi, Sarah read her Finland-set story from her wonderful collection The Beautiful Indifference, a tense, atmospheric piece set on and in a lake. Spooky. Great Q&A afterwards in which Sarah articulated much of what I believe. We could be BFs, I'm sure of it :)

Sandra Jensen reading at the Flash event for Culture Night

I ended up not reading at the flash event for Culture Night. I was speechless with tiredness by 11pm so I listened to a few readers, including the wonderful Sandra Jensen, then slipped off back to my hotel to rest.

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne read three extracts from stories from her new collection The Shelter of Neighbours, which worked really well, giving the audience a flavour of different narrators and styles. Éilís gave the advanced fiction class at the festival which, by all accounts, was much enjoyed.

John Banville

Another Irish great, John Banville, read an extract from his new novel Ancient Light - a very moving passage on parental grief. We had all been curious to see if he would in fact read a short story. I was happy to hear him read anything at all as I hadn't heard him live before.

Lydia Davis dwarfed by the festival book

As I had to leave Sunday (thereby missing O'Connor Laureate Nathan Englander) Lydia Davis was the last writer I heard at the festival. I had heard her already this year at Cúirt and again she had the audience laughing and divided. Some people just don't 'get' her work. It's the long vs short thing again, I think.

Once again, a fabulous festival where I bought an armful of books and met a whole lot of new people, listened to new-to-me writers and old favourites. In a sense, the week is overwhelming when you normally spend so much time squirrelled away. But you need to be overwhelmed now and again and no place better for it, for me, than Cork. Thanks again to all at Munster Lit for another great year.

WORD ASSOCATION WITH TANIA

I am over at Tania Hershman's blog today on the quirkiest stop to date on my blog tour. Instead of an interview, Tania got me  to play word association with words relevant to the book e.g. Love, Mother, Story, America etc. Her post is here.

TANIA HERSHMAN - THE SHORT REVIEW INTERVIEW

Author Tania Hershman’s latest book is a collection of short short stories called My Mother Was an Upright Piano. Tania runs The Short Review which exclusively reviews short fiction collections, new and old. After making a living for 13 years as a science journalist, writing for publications such as WIRED and NewScientist, Tania gave it all up to write fiction. Lucky for us :)

Accompanying the reviews in The Short Review, there is often an author interview and it struck me that Tania had never been asked the questions. So she is here today, answering her own questions, on Women Rule Writer. Enjoy!

1) How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?

Wow, it is very strange to finally be having to answer the same questions I've been asking authors for the past 4.5 years for The Short Review but never thought I'd be asking myself! Anyway, the fictions in my book were all written between 2007 and early 2012.

2) Did you have a collection in mind when you were writing them?

No, not at all. For a long time I wasn't convinced that a collection of very short fictions worked. I thought perhaps so many stories would be too much for a reader all together - I'd not really read any successful examples of such collections. But then I read both Stefanie Freele's Feeding Strays and David Gaffney's The Half Life of Songs, and saw how it could be done, and done so well. So I started contemplating, but the stories were all written with no thought of collection.

3) How did you choose which stories to include and in what order?

I had over 150 that I'd written during that period and so - in contrast to my first collection, which contained basically everything I'd written up to that point  - I got to pick my favourites, the ones I really love, the Top 56, you could say. That's a really nice and different feeling. I can never put my own stories in order - my fabulous publisher, Richard, at Tangent Books, did it for me. We didn't want any conscious thought of ordering by theme so he tried as much as possible to mix them up - but then you read them and things jump out at you. Like how many times trees appear. And certain images I clearly like to use, that I'd ever seen before!

4) What does the word "story" mean to you?

Oh god, I always admired our interviewees' answers to this question, I never knew how to answer it. I think, for me, it means anything that transports me, however briefly, outside my own skin, into another world. Not just short stories but any stories - films, TV, novels.

5) Do you have a "reader" in mind when you write stories?

I write to amuse myself, to move myself. I write to express things I wonder about. I don't write with any thought of a reader, I am always, always amazed that anybody who isn't in my head ever connects to anything I've written. And doubly amazed when they see things I didn't know were in there. Having readers is a miraculous thing, I think.

6) Is there anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection, anything at all?

These tiny fictions were written with no thought of a collection, of a book. Do they work together, are they somehow in conversation with each other, despite that?

7) How does it feel knowing that people are buying your books?

The second time around, it is a different feeling. The first book was elation mixed with terrified trepidation. This time it's more pride, that I've actually managed a second book, that I kept on going and someone had enough faith in me to publish another one. I will never take it for granted - the publications or the fact that people spend money to buy my books. I would like to give them away (sorry, Richard) but am learning to deal with the fact that I do need people to actually purchase them. I am very grateful for anyone who does that, and I really love the idea of my book being on someone's shelf, in their house, in different countries. It feels like a little piece of me is in all these places.

8) What are you working on now?

Right now, an idea for a biomedically-inspired screenplay, as well as a science-inspired radio play. I am also co-editor of a new textbook on writing short stories, forthcoming in 2014 from the Arvon Foundation, so about to start work on that with my wonderful co-editor, Courttia Newland. I am also toying with the idea of a collection of science-inspired fictions, a collection that I conceive of as a book from the outset. I have a number of stories written, but I am also wondering about the future of publishing and what a collection means for a short story writer, what will it mean in a few years? Not sure. I'm always writing pieces which might be called flash fiction or might be prose poems, who knows?

9) What are the last three short story collections you read?

The Weight of a Human Heart, by Ryan O'Neill, his third collection - I just met him at a conference and am loving this new book! Revenge of the Lawn, by Richard Brautigan, a collection of 62 ultra-short stories first published in 1972 and which make me so happy I've taken to carrying the book around with me. And This Cake is for the Party, by Sarah Selecky, which was recommended to me by Ali Smith and which I greatly enjoyed and reviewed for The Short Review.

*

 

Tania is teaching the flash fiction workshop at this year's Cork Short Story Festival. Go here for details and to book.