Sandra Bunting A Question and Answer Session with the author of "The Wind Throws It Back"

March 1 to April 7

"The Wind Throws It Back"

Sandra Bunting

If you would like to participate in ISSM3, please then contact me.

 "Contact the Wind" by Sandra Bunting

Sandra Bunting lives and writes in the west of Ireland 

Sandra Bunting studied and worked in communications (radio, television, print media, PR) in Toronto before travelling and living in France and Spain

On the editorial board of literary magazine Crannog, she has been a member of the Galway Writers' Workshop that meets at the Bridge Mills since 2002. She also helps edit Tribe Vibes, a newsletter of the Galway City Community Forum.

A writer of both prose and poetry, she is now working on a novel.

Besides writing, Sandra enjoys silk painting, batik and print-making and has an exhibition at the local library in March, 2005.

She has published extensively both online and in print journals

Sandra Bunting lives and writes in the west of Ireland 

Sandra Bunting studied and worked in communications (radio, television, print media, PR) in Toronto before travelling and living in France and Spain

On the editorial board of literary magazine Crannog, she has been a member of the Galway Writers' Workshop that meets at the Bridge Mills since 2002. She also helps edit Tribe Vibes, a newsletter of the Galway City Community Forum.

A writer of both prose and poetry, she is now working on a novel.

Besides writing, Sandra enjoys silk painting, batik and print-making and has an exhibition at the local library in March, 2005.

She has published extensively both online and in print journals

"Encounter On Buttermilk Lane" by James Mullarkey

"Encounter On Buttermilk Lane" by James Mullarkey  (2012, 7 pages)

March 1 to April 7

Jim Mullarkey

Galway

ISSM3 will be open until at least April 7.  Your participation is welcome.   E Mail me if you are interested or have any questions.

Jim Mullarkey is a writer I have wanted to read for some time.   I was very glad to see Lisa Frank has included one of his stories, "Encounter On Buttermilk Lane" in her great collection of short stories set in Galway, Ireland, Galway Stories.   In addition to being a wonderful collection of stories, it also helps give us a feel for one of the very greatest literary cities of the world.  I am starting to be convinced that per capita Galway has the highest number of writers and artists of any city in the world. 

As the story opens a man is on his way to the library to borrow a book on herbs.  He knows the book well, as he does herbs, and wants to read it almost more for the beauty of the images than the familiar words.  Galway must be a very walker friendly city as the streets teem with people of all sorts, many of whom seem to know each other.  There is a human element too encounters even with beggars in the street, one that would not be found in lots of the places I have been.  In my Q and A sessions I have asked many of the authors what they miss about Ireland when they are out of the country.  Several said it was the ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger without seeming mental to the other person.

The man runs into a friend he has not seen in years, a school mate.   He wonders if the man had made anything of himself in the time since he had seen him.  The man is very reflective, very introspective and self-aware.  He and the man decide to have coffee in one of the many Galway coffee houses.  The other man gives money to a beggar, the narrator has learned to ignore them.  He wonders what is in the psyche of his friend that makes him feel obligated to give.  Mullarkey has worked as a psychotherapist  and he has made good use of that experience in this story.   There is a very subtle multidimensional analysis of a dream in one of the conversations between the two men that is really interesting.  You can see the narrator does feel self-conscious over his own lack of prosperity, he wonders if it shows and he knows he has had years of experience of letting other people insist on paying the bill in cafes.   

"Encounter on Buttermilk Lane" is a very good story and I know I will soon venture to read his recent collection of short stories, published by Doire Press, And.  The things I liked best about this story, besides the beautiful prose and the acute human insights were the conversations between the two men, getting the feel of each other after years, and just the sense the story gave me of the streets of Galway.

Author Data

JIM MULLARKEY is a fiction writer, psychotherapist and teacher.

He was a Labour member of Galway City Council from 1993 to 1999.

His story ‘Heaven’ was runner-up in the 2002 RTE Francis McManus

Award. ‘Mary up in Donegal’ was short-listed in the same competition

in 2005. ‘First Love’ was long-listed for the Raymond Carver Short

Story Award in 2004.

,

In recent years Jim has facilitated creative writing

workshops for adults with learning difficulties. He lives with his family

in Galway. And, his debut collection of short stories, And, was published by

Doire Press in 2011.

Jim Mullarkey has kindly agreed to do a Q and A Session for ISSM3 so look for that soon

Mel u

"The Awakening" by Daniel Corkery

"The Awakening" by Daniel Corkery  (1917, 17 pages)

 Irish Short Story Month Year III

March 1 to March 31

Daniel Corkery

Cork

In 1917 the British Prime Minister Lloyd George announces that England is ready to offer self-government to the parts of Ireland that want it, excluding six northern counties that do not want it.  

Daniel Corkery (1878 to 1964-Cork, Ireland) was a teacher at several schools. At the close of his career he was Professor of English at University College Cork where Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain were among his students.  He was active in the Irish language revival movement.   He was also a playwright, wrote a novel, and some cultural works but he is mostly read now for the short stories he wrote about the lives of people in Cork.   He published several collections of short stories in his life.  Last Year during Irish Short Story Month I posted in his excellent short story, "The Priest".   

"The Awakening" centers on a fishing boat owned by the widow with a son who will soon become the captain of the boat.   The story is a master work in the way it shows the bonds between the men who work the boat, their constrained emotion and by the very clear picture it paints for us of what it was like to work on a fishing boat off the coast of Galway.  The description of the smell of the boiling fish and potatoes on the boat made me hungry.    The captain was the best friend of the owner.  For a long time he has run the boat for his widow and he has always be scrupulously honest with her.    Her son works the boat also and he is to take over as captain at the end of this voyage.   I will quote a bit so you can get the feel for the prose style of Corkery.

"It was very dark. Everything was huge and shapeless. Anchored as she was, tethered besides, clumsy with the weight of dripping fish-spangled net coming in over the gunwale, the nobby was tossed and slapped about with a violence that surprised him; flakes of wet brightness were being flung everywhere from the one lamp bound firmly to the mast. Yet the night was almost windless, the sea apparently sluggish: there must be, he thought, a stiff swell beneath them. What most surprised him, however, was to find himself thinking about it. That evening coming down the harbour, he would not have noticed it."

I read this in  Classic Irish Short Stories edited by Frank O'Connor.  

"The Spectre of Doom" by Bram Stoker

"The Spectre of Doom" by Bram Stoker  (1881, 5 pages)

March 1 to April 7

Bram Stoker

Dublin

Resources and  Ideas 

Whether you love it or deplore it or find its power confusing, you can thank an Irish short story writer, Bram Stoker (1847 to 1912) for getting the world's fascination with vampires started.    He might not have been the first author to use a vampire as a central character but it is to him the credit belongs through his Dracula. If you have not yet read Dracula, it really is a fascinating book.   Stoker also wrote a number of paranormal short stories.  Last year during ISSW2 I posted on his story "The Gypsy Prophecy".  I feel I should not wind down ISSW3 without posting on a story by Stoker.

"Can somebody explain why
it took an American to write
the best Leprechaun story?"
Rory 

"The Spectre of Doom" is written in a prose style similar to that of Lord Dunsany.   It is set in an ancient past in an unknown place.   As the story opens we meed a young orphaned girl whose father died long ago and her mother recently.  She survives by making flowers out of paper and selling them. Her temperament is so angelic that the birds love her and often come into her humble room to keep her company and sing.  The bullies of the community, knowing she has no one to protect her, bully and mock her, calling her "Big bird" (OK I know what this brings to mind now but try to block it out!).   One day she sees a giant form over the city.  She tells others about it but she is the only one who has seen it.  She is treated as if she is mad.    She meets a very old blind man.  His appearance is that of your classic wizard looking blind old man type with long flowing white hair and beard.   He believes the girl and they become very close.

The invisible giant is plague and the old man knows that.  Soon the giant comes into the city and more and more people begin to die.  It seems as if the whole city is under a spectre of doom from which there is no escape.   The giant does consent to leave the city but only after a great sacrifice is made.

This story and lots others by Stoker can be read here.

"Bram Stoker, a decent writer but my Daddy  Mr
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu had the
whole idea first"-Carmilla

Mel u

"MA Short Stories Blog Pushing Outside the Comfort Zone" by Ruth Quinlan

March 1 to April 7

Ruth Quinlan
Dublin

Q and A Session with Ruth Quinlan

I first became acquainted with Ruth Quinlan as I was reading and posting on all of the short stories in Abandoned Darlings.  This book is a great collection of short stories and poems by recent graduates of the National University of Ireland at Galway MA in creative writing program.  She answered a lot of questions for me and made the process run much smoother than it otherwise would have.  I also greatly admired her short story, "Crossing the Dunes".   I asked her if she would write a post for ISSM3 talking about some of the short stories used in the classes at NUI Galway in the MA program which she kindly agreed to do.

Author Bio

Author Data

Ruth Quinlan is from Tralee, County Kerry. She worked in IT before taking a break in 2011 to try and scratch the writing itch and she has just completed the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. She was shortlisted for the 2012 Cúirt New Writing fiction prize and long listed for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition. Her work has been published by Emerge Literary Journal,Thresholds, SIN, Scissors and Spackle and as part of the current Irish Independent Hennessy New Irish Writing series. She has also recently contributed towards two group anthologies, Abandoned Darlings (fiction) and Wayword Tuesdays (poetry).

She blogs here.    

"MA Short Stories Blog

Pushing Outside the Comfort Zone"
by Ruth Quinlan

One of the greatest gifts someone can give you is to insist that you read something you wouldn’t normally select yourself. Many of us are guilty of snuggling back into the well-worn pages of our favourites when we want a bit of literary comforting. However, when I did the MA in Writing in the 

National University of Galway last year, I had no choice but to read novels and short stories that I would never have picked up. And in the end, I was glad that that choice was taken away. I was amazed at what I had been neglecting in all my years of reading. In the paragraphs below, I have elaborated on just three of the short stories that particularly struck me during the MA.

The first is ‘A Real Doll’ by A.M. Homes. This is a writer who is not afraid to lift the floorboards of everyday life and show you the roaches scurrying underneath. It is the story of a teenage boy’s erotic obsession with his younger sister’s Barbie doll. Published in 1990, it is the final short story in The Safety of Objects. This collection shows that the banal objects with which we surround ourselves are sometimes very far from safe and can instead lead us down dark paths.

Homes takes the innocent role-play of childhood and escalates it into a story of lust-fuelled obsession, laced with dark humour. She explores the seamier facets of our sexual urges: the paradoxical connection between pleasure and pain, the conflicting dualism of man’s sexual evaluation of women, and the concept of women as man’s possession.  What is so disconcerting, yet intriguing, about this story is that all of the above is done by taking a mass-produced, familiar object like Barbie and showing what can happen once our secret fantasies are let loose.
‘A Real Doll’ should be read to catch a glimpse of what roils beneath the bland, homogeneous surfaces of American suburbia. Read it if you never want to look at a Barbie doll in quite the same way.

The second story is ‘The Lumber Room’ by Saki (H.H. Munro). On first reading, this seems a rather old-fashioned, almost simplistic tale and some rather archaic words like ‘veriest’ could tend to discourage the modern reader. However, this short story is worth the extra effort. Within just a few sentences, Munro resurrects an entire era, suffusing the tale of a young boy’s exploration of a forbidden room with the atmosphere of Edwardian England. The mystery and adventure of the Empire’s colonies are evoked through descriptions of what the child finds in the lumber room – the Indian hanging and a carved, sandalwood box. These are juxtaposed with mundane, inherently English objects – the teapot fashioned like a china duck and the hump-necked brass bull figures. 

Munro often took malicious glee in skewering the hypocrisies and pretentions of his social peers and he does this expertly through the character of the pompous aunt. He ridicules the warped reward and punishment logic she uses in her attempts to control the children. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot restrain the boy from following his own natural impulses to explore. This was a common theme for Munro – that nature will always win out, breaking free from the social and moral restrictions we try and impose upon it.
The shape of the story is also beautifully polished, starting at the breakfast table and ending at the same table at tea-time. It has come full circle within less than twenty-four hours. Something essential has changed for the boy by the end of the piece, yet nothing is rushed or forced; the action of the story is gently measured in keeping with the slower pace of life at the time. 

The third story is ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson. This story provides a master-class in how tension can be built, even within the confines of a short piece. The initial pace of the story is slow and relaxed and Jackson uses this device to create a sense of complacency in the reader. She gives us just enough information so that we can picture the season (it is summer), the place (a small, rural village) and an approximate indication of time (modern, indicated by references to tractors, banks, and post offices). The only slightly jarring note at the start is the fact that the young boys are gathering stones in their pockets. However, this is easily dismissed as irrelevant. The setting is idyllically pastoral, which makes what happens later so much more jarring.  Jackson highlights the fact that bad things can happen anywhere, even in the most beautiful of surroundings.
Much is made of the trappings associated with the lottery ritual. For example, we are told every detail of the black box used to contain the slips of paper – its history, its appearance, where it is kept throughout the year. We learn that the lottery is of great social importance to these people, that it is done for the benefit of the whole village. Yet, we do not know what the lottery is.

The camaraderie and affection between the villagers is shown through their familiar chatter as they gather in the square. Mrs. Hutchinson, one of the main characters in the piece, is introduced rushing into the gathering, declaring that she had forgotten what day it was. Again, this puts the reader at ease. Surely, this ritual must be a mere nod to tradition if someone has forgotten completely about it? However, Mrs. Hutchinson is swiftly transformed into a yelling shrew once she realises that she is at risk. Our sense of dread is immediately heightened as we see a woman desperately casting about, seeking an escape from her fate. But still, we are not told what the lottery is.

And then Jackson unleashes the truth upon us; we learn why the children were filling their pockets with pebbles. The same people that teased each other about dirty dishes are prepared to conduct human sacrifice, using the oldest of sacrificial weapons – stones. I dare anyone who has not read this story to do so without a sharp intake of breath at the end.

End

I offer Ruth Quinlan my great thanks for sharing this with us. If these three writers, Saki is an old friend of The Reading Life, I have read "The Lottery" and happily A. M. Homes is a new to me writer I look forward to reading.

Mel u

"I Lie Here in My Coffin" by Jillian Godsil

"I Lie Here in My Coffin" by Jillian Godsil (2012, 6 pages)

March 1 to April 7

Julian Godsil

Dublin

You are invited to join in ISSM3.  You can do a Q and A, contribute a story, an article and perhaps even a poem.  Sometime latter this year, if I can get enough source material and poets interested in participating I may well take the plunge and go totally out of my comfort zone and host 21th century Irish Poetry Month.  I know many of the writers I have featured this month are also poets.   The only way out is deeper in.  

"I Lie Here in My Coffin" comes from a marvelously named collection of short stories by Jillian Godsil.  The collection is entitled The Irish Book of the Dead - Part 1.  Of course this title is meant to make us think of The Tibetan Book of the Dead and it brought to my mind James Joyce's "The Dead".  

A lot of people imagine what their funeral will be like.  How many or will any people show up?  How fancy a casket will they shell out for?   How upset will my kids, my spouse, my friends and family be?  We like to imagine ourselves there to observe it.  Of course thinking this also lets us feel we do survive death and will know what is going on in our world.  I think part of what this marvelous story is about is the huge pain of knowing the world will go on without us and we will not know what happens.  We will not know if our children made good lives or if the boss we hated got hers one day.  

"I Lie Here in My Coffin" is told in the first person by a recently dead of a heart attack woman.  She died grocery shopping and she wonders what the store did with the items in her cart.  She recalls the kind of underwear she had on, now we know why our mothers told us to always wear clean underwear.  She thinks back on her life long issues with her sister  Ruth, dead five years ago and she seems mostly concerned over who has the best coffin.   Then I admit I was a bit shocked when she recalls some of the affairs she had during her long term marriage.

I greatly enjoyed this story.  Jullian Godsil is a quite productive writer and has lots of interesting and challenging life experiences which she uses to fuel her creativity.  

Author Bio

 have been a writer since I was very little.  I had no doubt as to this career in my first decade of life.  On entering my teens, I was just as adamant but strangely found little time to actually write fiction, only a few scattered attempts echoing whatever book I happened to be reading at the time.  Into my twenties, I found university and then travel absorbed my time.  I lived in London, Sydney and Singapore, before returning to Ireland with my first husband and first child.  For my thirties it was all marriage and my children, two girls, which occupied me, as did a very demanding job and restoration of a period house in Wicklow, South Ireland.  It was as I approached my forties, I suddenly went ‘Whoa! Where are my novels?’ and realised for all my talk I hadn’t actually started let alone finished any novels.  In my final year of my thirties I sat down and wrote my first children’s novel, The Bell Tower.  I had been experimenting earlier with pre school children’s literature but this was my first full scale attempt at writing a novel.  It took two weeks to finish.  It was also an autobiography with no relation to my life, just samplings of my growing up.

Next up, I wrote Running out of Road which is my first adult book and it took four years to write.  It is most definitely not autobiographical but my divorce over this period had a huge bearing on the novel.  Once, half way through the writing, I met an old work colleague and as we were both struggling writers we compared notes.  One point he raised was his inability to write sex scenes.  It was very funny as I had discovered my divorce had given me the courage to write on lots of topics, one of which was sex!

I have also written many short stories and towards the end of 2011 began blogging in earnest. 2012 was a good year for my writing. I did it more frequently and with more passion. I am slowing leaning to hone my craft.

In a parallel world everything else was falling apart. My dream house, the Raheengraney of these pages, was hurtling towards repossession. I am in court now struggling to make sense of it. I have another offer on the house but the bank still refuses to talk to me. It would prefer to repossess than try and recoup some money.

My business also collapsed in 2011 – and the bailiffs were called in. I thought that was bad but I struggled on for another year until I had to call time on my office and long term colleague. That nearly killed me. I moved home and starred for long hours at the computer. I wrote a bit. I slept a lot. I found it hard to get up in the morning. I experienced at first hand the mind crushing impact of loss of money and home and a financial future can do to a person. So I wrote a book, called Does my DEBT look big in this to try and help others. My book is about the emotion of debt and how to hang onto hope even when it is in very short supply. The profits are pledged to  Pieta House, the front line charity for the prevention of suicide in Ireland.

I was also writing other books. Too many rabbits some might say but these are starting to come to a natural end. The first is a non fiction book about a family coping with a severely disabled child. It is a very hard story to tell. I hope to be finished this first quarter of 2013.

I am also writing another book with a good friend on her life with horses. An inspiring woman, she founded the only equine charity in Ireland and has dedicated her life to horses.

I am writing still about injustice and abuse. I feel I have a obligation to use my words to help  others.

I write a lot of fiction too – some in short story format. I am getting into my stride in this area too.

I have a great family and many very good friends who have helped me during these tough years. I thank them here.

Finally, I have two fantastic girls who keep me on the straight and narrow.

Jillian Godsil has kindly agreed to do a Q and A Session for ISSM3 and she will tell us about some of her other interests there,I hope.

Mel u

Aoife Brennan Question and Answer with the Author of Cougar Diaries

iMarch 1 to April 7

Q & A with Aoife Brennan

author of Cougar Diaries

If you are interested in participating in ISSM3 please contact me.

Today I am very happy to present a Question and Answer Session with Aoife Brennan, author of Cougar Diaries.  I recently posted on her very well done short story, "Affairs -1 Marriage- 1" (In my post on the story there is a link where you may read the story).  

Author Data

Aoife Brennan lives in Dublin with her two teenaged sons.  Her first novel, The Cougar Diaries, Part 1 is available as a Kindle Book on Amazon.  Reviewers have called it a literate 50 Shades of Gray.  Part Two and Three will be out shortly.  I hope to read all of them soon.  

Aoife Brennan

1.Who are some of the contemporary short story writers you admire? If you had to say, who do you regard as the three best ever short story writers?

I am a little biased here but I love Kevin Barry, William Trevor and Frank O’Connor. All men and all Irish – that probably means something terribly significant (Like I should broaden my reading base). Sometimes you read prose and it acts like short stories, for example Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Each individual chapter could stand alone as a short story. He doesn’t waste any words. It is cut to the bone. I love that style of writing.

2. I have read lots of Indian and American short stories in addition to Irish and alcohol plays a much bigger part in the Irish stories. How should an outsider take this and what does it say about Irish culture.  Drinking plays a big part in the story of yours i posted on and it was behind the extra-marital affair of the woman-added question-people say if it were not for alcohol Ireland would have a near zero birth rate-does your story back that up?

Lol I think we might as a nation still manage the dance with no pants – even without the benefits of alcoholic libation. However, alcohol definitely lowers inhibitions, and in my short story the unhappy wife literally falls into bed with a friend, a decision she so regrets in the morning.

I don’t think Irish people need alcohol to have sex. If it were such a huge liberator then affairs would be the norm, and despite my story and the moderning of Ireland, I think our ratio (of affairs) would be a little less than other countries, such as our neighbouring UK. However, give us time - the divorce rate in Ireland is rapidly catching up with the rest of the world – now that divorce is finally legal in Ireland (since 1997).

Having said that, alcohol is the elephant in the room in modern Irish society, less for sex, than for a more range of problems from health and obesity through to behaviour and violence. Our culture embraces the pub and the craic, which centres around drinking. There was a bit of scandal recently when county councillors in Kerry wanted to alter the drink driving rules for rural farmers by increasing the level of alcohol allowed. There was some thought behind it – rural farmers do not have access to public transport and for many the pub would be their only form of socialising. But, as was overlooked by the well-meaning but slightly kooky councillors, those same farmers could still go to the pub and drink orange juice instead.

It was also a problem for our country in celebrating our national day. It is possibly the only national day celebrated by so many other cultures and in so many countries – but the emphasis on drink comes at a cost. Our tourism board was valiantly requesting videos around the world to showcase people celebrating St Patricks day – without alcohol.

So, to answer your question – yes alcohol is undoubtedly part of our culture: when we celebrate and we cry, there is alcohol. We drink at weddings and we drink at funerals. And sometimes we say that a good funeral is better than a bad wedding!

3. Declan Kiberd has said the dominant theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing father? Do you think he is right and how does this, if it does, reveal itself in your work. The missing father seems to somehow be very big in your work.

Ah,very good question. I have seen both sides of the equation personally. I had a wonderful father who is sadly dead now and my children have an absent father who lives in another country. Am I more informed by my own childhood or by theirs? Perhaps the direct contrast makes me dwell on it even more. I do know that to have the unconditional love of a parent is something no child should lose. I have to say also that I also have a slightly quirky nature when I come to write so I frequently kill off things or poke fun at what I personally hold dear. My writing personality can quite different from my day to day values! I shall look at my male characters with an increasingly critical eye in books two and three.

4. did you experience a period of sexual liberation after your divorce that also stimulated your creativity to write

Aha – that old chestnut!  If I had written a book about a murder, would you have asked had I committed a crime? But, actually you are right – less in the sexual liberation but in the liberation of my soul. I found myself in marriage that was very unhappy and we were just not compatible. I never dreamt I would get divorced but once I took that step, I felt so free. So yes the liberation of freedom stimulated my desire to write – and to write more bravely than I would have before

6.   Did you in anyway use 50 Shades of Gray as a role model for Cougar Diaries?

Absolutely not! My character is the total antithesis of Ana. My character is real, she is in her forties and yes she has sex – but some of it is funny and some of it is disastrous. I did give her some good sex too – I can’t be a meanie author all the time! And I am going to give her a lot more fun in books two and three.

PS I am very thankful to EL James for bringing erotica mainstream. Take a bow Ms James!

7. Tell us a bit about your non literary work experience please

My first job after college was working as a systems analyst. I have worked in a range of different jobs since in sales, marketing and to a lesser extent programming. My idea job is beach bum!

8.    tell us a bit about your education

I read English in university and loved it. I lived in Dublin and had an hours bus ride into college every day so I just devoured novels during the week. I have never minded public transport when armed with a book!

9. Why have the Irish produced such a disproportional to their population number of great writers?

We are a nation of one liners – it’s just some people put them together and create books!

10. (This may seem like a silly question but I pose it anyway-do you believe in Fairies?-this quote from Declain Kiberd sort of explains why I am asking this:

" One 1916 veteran recalled, in old age, his youthful conviction that the rebellion would “put an end to the rule of the fairies in Ireland”. In this it was notably unsuccessful: during the 1920s, a young student named Samuel Beckett reported seeing a fairy-man in the New Square of Trinity College Dublin; and two decades later a Galway woman, when asked by an American anthropologist whether she really believed in the “little people”, replied with terse sophistication: “I do not, sir – but they’re there."

Sadly I do not believe in fairies but I know that by even saying that I’ve killed one of them. Terrible

11. Do you think the very large amount of remains from neolithic periods (the highest in the world) in Ireland has shaped in the literature and psyche of the country?

We are shaped by our history and not always in a good way. We have long memories and longer grudges. Conversely, while we may show great enthusiasm in hating our enemy, we will also share a drink with them (ah, the dreaded drink again) and end up slapping their backs at the end of the night.

12. When you write, do you picture somehow a potential audience or do you just write? when you write sex scenes, do you find it arousing at times?

When I write I see what I am writing, like a third eye. I am there and not. But I do not see if as an audience – if I did I might stop and not go on, regardless of the subject matter. Writing is like baring your soul, I don’t really want to see how others see me. It would be too painful

By the same corollary, writing about sex is like disrobing in private. I do not think for moment how others will see it or read it or imagine it. I do not disrobe in public. And yes I am turned on when I write sex scenes, the same way I might cry at a sad point or laugh at a funny moment. I am there and not.

13.  The heroine of Diary of A Cougar seems to have a penis fixation? can you talk about this a bit. In the world of your book is the measure of a romance how many times you have sex in a weekend? Is the measure of a man how many times he can climax in 24 hours?

Does she? I hadn’t noticed. I rather thought she had a rather healthy regard for and interest in the male member. And of course the measure of success of romance or a man is neither the amount of sex nor the number of ejaculations. However, my character is approaching sex again with a new eye, almost as a teenager might. So every moment is counted and remembered. It is like catching your first fish or doing your first bungy jump – everything is exciting and bigger is better!

14. Does the character of the "stage Irishman" live on still in the heavy drinking, violent, on the dole characters one finds in many contemporary Irish novels?  

I hope not. I would find that tiresome to read about someone like, no more than to meet someone like that. I think it is an overplayed cliché like a latin lover or regimental German.

15. William Butler Yeats said in "The Literary Movement"-- "“The popular poetry of England celebrates her victories, but the popular poetry of Ireland remembers only defeats and defeated persons”. I see a similarity of this to the heroes of the Philippines. American heroes were all victors, they won wars and achieved independence. The national heroes of the Philippines were almost all ultimately failures, most executed by the Spanish or American rulers. How do you think the fact Yeats is alluding

too, assuming you agree, has shaped Irish l

I agree to a point. We do like an underdog. We very much play that role in Europe and the world. But ultimately we like to see the underdog winning – now that makes us happy. That is why you have the amazing scenes when the Irish are in the Soccer world cup. We are not meant to do well in soccer and no one really treasures it – unlike the Gaelic sports or Rugby, both of which have strong traditions in Ireland. However, when Jack Charlton brought us to the world cup in ’88 he captured the imagination of the country. Jack’s Army or laterally the Green Army are like a sea of green at all our games, they sing like a people possessed, and they celebrate win lose or draw.

16.   One could say in the world of Cougar Diaries if a woman does not have beautiful breasts and a great body she is of no-value just as man with -quoting-"a flacid penis" is of no-value-where are the ordinary looking people in this world

iterature

Absolutely not. There is some talk at the start of this novel about dating again. The main character has not seen another man naked for almost 20 years. When she dated before her marriage, while she had the normal insecurities of youth, she still had her youth! Now, she is in her forties and she feels vulnerable. To take off ones clothing in front of a ‘stranger’ is scary. Age is no protection against these nerves, in fact it only exaggerates them. Age may bring many gifts – wisdom, learning, understanding – but gravity is crueller!

17. Do you think poets have a social role to play in contemporary Ireland or are they pure artists writing for themselves and a few peers?

I would suggest it depends on the poet. I like the new breed of performing poet, like Dave Lordan. Actually he is the old/new breed because of course at one time that is how poets delivered their craft – orally.

18. "To creative artists may have fallen the task of explaining what no historian has fully illuminated – the reason why the English came to regard the Irish as inferior and barbarous, on the one hand, and, on the other, poetic and magical."-is this right? Kiberd, Declan (2009-05-04). Inventing Ireland (p. 646).

The Apes and Angels idea. I think when any country is looking to subjugate another, it has to represent the other nation as inferior, otherwise it could not argue it had the right to rule. If you can label a people, then you enforce rule over them with equanimity, this is a given regardless of nationality. However, I think the English were confused when we fought back in literature. If we had been a nation of mechanics or farmers or even sportspeople then we would not have created such a confusion for our rulers. As you mentioned earlier, we have a disproportion number of talented writers beyond our population size. In Ireland there is a book in everyone. In other countries, this does not compare – maybe a pilot or president or a footballer – but in Ireland it is a book and a writer.

So while the English may have used propaganda and stereotypes to label the Irish people, we fought back with words, lot of them!

19. Do you think Irish Travellers should be granted the status of a distinct ethnic group and be given special rights to make up for past mistreatment? Are the Travellers to the Irish what the Irish were once to the English? I became interested in this question partially through reading the short stories of Desmond Hogan.

Well, to be honest, I can’t answer this because I would like to hear what they would like. I am not sure that a separate status would be beneficial – or that it would not be. I genuinely do not know. I think in today’s world homogenisation will do the trick regardless. We have Irish teenagers sounding more like kids from Dawson Creek than the previous generation. Maybe we should all seek special status before we end up being subsumed into one global culture!

20.  gettiing rude now-is any of this autobiographical-if one of your sons became as a adult a serial seducer would you applaud him

The Cougar Diaries is autobiographical in the sense that I, as the author, have drawn on my own experiences and then put them through the fiction mill. It is fiction however. I am still waiting to meet ‘Chris Sex God’ lol

I don’t think I have any serial seducers in my novel. On a separate note, I think the term seducer is very emotive. It implies that the one person is being used by the other, especially when the term serial is used to describe the noun. I do not like people using one another.  If, on the other hand, my son had multiple consenting sexual partners then I would have no problem (except that he uses a condom).

21.   do you have more women or men readers or same

Definitely more women, A male friend read the book and complained he had to wait until chapter six to get a boner!  What I like about my book, and so too do my readers, is that it has plot, lots of it. The sex is important, but it is a sub plot to the overall story. I believe people would still read my novel if I stripped out all the sex scenes.

22. there is a lot of oral sex in your novel-do you see the performance of oral sex by a woman as one of domination of the woman or is it one in which she is a sexual tool for the man

Absolutely not. I think oral sex by both genders is an important part of love making and sex. However, I have described some behaviour which is very predominant in modern porn. I am not condoning it nor am I blaming it – it exists. Generation Y (the men in my novel) have largely had their defacto sex education through porn which generates certain behavioural patterns, and I have described some of those. The difference is my character has the ability to reject or accept these behaviours.

23. If you were to be given the option of living anywhere besides Ireland where would you live?

In a sunny place please. When my children are reared I hope to move abroad and spend half my year in the warmth and then return home for six months. Heaven!

24. If you could time travel for 30 days (and be rich and safe) where would you go and why?

Back to King Arthur and the Knights of the round table. That would be very exciting I reckon. I’ve been looking for my knight in shining armour for some time now… maybe if I went back in time I might find him!

25. Have you attended creative writing workshops and if you have share your experiences a bit please?

No, I have not. Sadly. I think it might be intimidating.

26. Flash Fiction-how driven is the popularity of this form by social media like Twitter and its word limits? Do you see twitter as somehow leading to playwrights keeping conversations shorter than in years past?

Maybe twitter has had an impact. There are so many words in this world, 140 characters is a blessing at times.

27. How important in shaping the literature of Ireland is its proximity to the sea?

I suspect very little. We don’t eat much fish either, unless you count frozen fish fingers. Funny that!

28.  When you are outside of Ireland, besides friends and family, what do you miss the most?  What are you glad to be away from?

The greenness. It is hard to say just how green Ireland is. I know it’s from the rain and our lack of urban development, but still it is so green.

I don’t miss the rain.

29. Quick Pick Questions

a. sex in a back alley with a handsome dangerous stranger or a dirty weekend with a 70 year old billionaire in his Mayfair Mansion?

The first please

b. dogs or cats

dogs

c.  best city to inspire a writer-London or Dublin

Dublin

d.  favorite meal to eat out-breakfast, lunch or dinner?

Dinner

e. RTE or BBC

BBC

30. OK let us close out on this note-what is your reaction these lines from a famous Irish poet?

I was born to the stink of whiskey and failure

And the scattered corpse of the real.

This is my childhood and country:

The cynical knowing smile

Plastered onto ignorance

Ideals untarnished and deadly

Because never translated to action

And everywhere

The sick glorification of failure.

Our white marble statues were draped in purple

The bars of the prison were born in our eyes

And if reality ever existed

It was a rotten tooth

That couldn't be removed.

Michael O'Loughlin

How depressing. If I have bars, then I look out with hope. If I am in the gutter, then I am gazing at the stars. I wouldn’t swap my eyes with his, nor his teeth by the sound of things!

Thank you

Aoife

My thanks to Aoife Brennan for her very open and insightful answers. I know sometimes in my questions it may seem I am over the border of being rude. What I am trying to do is to bring out interesting, real responses that may at times push the responder a bit.

Mel u