Writer's Block in The Gloss Magazine

Here’s my interview with the lovely Sophie Grenham for her Writer’s Block column earlier this year. I talked about multi-generational living, winning an Irish Book Award, and the best places in rural Meath to unleash your toddlers…

“O’Donnell’s astute observance of an ever-changing Ireland through the eyes of the foreigner has caught the attention of many literary commentators. She has the mind of a visual artist, due to her powerful use of colour and the sheer clarity of her images. Her wit and effortless realism gives her work an addictive quality”

— Sophie Grenham, The Gloss Magazine

New Voices in The Long Gaze Back

Here's an article I wrote for The Irish Times about my experience of being published in The Long Gaze Back, a ground-breaking, award-winning anthology of Irish women's writing... 

Interview with January Magazine

So she tells you that she’s a writer and you ask what she writes and she says “short stories” and you say: “Are you working on a novel?”

I was delighted to be interviewed by January Magazine for their July issue. We had a great chat about the merits and challenges of the short story form, and I tried to answer the question 'why write short stories instead of a novel?' Stories can be harder than novels; with a novel, you create a world and then sustain it for a few hundred pages, but with each new short story you have to build a new world from scratch. But stories can also be incredibly liberating... 

I'm thrilled to have been asked to contribute to The Glass Shore, an anthology of stories by women from the North of Ireland

Last autumn, I took part in an event at the Belfast International Arts Festival in which the four Northern contributors to The Long Gaze Back read from and discussed their work. Joining editor Sinéad Gleeson in conversation were myself, Lucy Caldwell, Anne Devlin and Bernie McGill. One of the questions raised at the event was 'why hasn't there been an equivalent anthology of stories by women from the North of Ireland?' 

Not one to turn down a challenge, Sinéad has now announced the forthcoming publication of 'The Glass Shore.' The anthology will be published by New Island Books in autumn 2016, and features a beautiful cover by designer Martin Gleeson. The anthology will include work by: 

Linda Anderson, Margaret Barrington, Mary Beckett, Caroline Blackwood, Lucy Caldwell, Ethna Carbery, Jan Carson, Evelyn Conlon, Anne Devlin, Martina Devlin, Polly Devlin, Erminda Rentoul Esler, Sarah Grand, Rosemary Jenkinson, Sheila Llewelyn, Bernie McGill, Alice Milligan, Rosa Mulholland, Anne-Marie Neary, Mary O’Donnell, Roisín O’Donnell Tara West, Una Woods

I'm excited to see how the new anthology turns out. I have a sneaking feeling it might be quite different from The Long Gaze Back, but I'd better keep my predictions to myself for now!