Tag Archives: author

WHEN West Clare author Meadhbh Chambers completed working on her debut children’s book Rosie the Daisy there was certainly no shortage of little readers to give their reactions. As well as being a mother of four, Meadhbh is the infant teacher at Kilmihil National School. “I’ve tried the book out on my own kids, and in the classroom, and my kids have 33 cousins as well so I’ve given it out to a few kids to get feedback and it’s been very good so far,” she tells us. Launching this Friday in Kilrush Library, the book tells the tale of a daisy named Rosie, with Meadhbh explaining that as well as being a touching children’s story it is also a resource aimed at encouraging communication between children and trusted adults. “The idea behind it is that it would be a resource for adults to open up conversations with children, about sharing their thoughts and worries and feelings. The story is …

SIXMILEBRIDGE based author and Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) lecturer Tracy Fahey has overcome the limitations of lockdown to produce a new collection of stories entitled, I Spit Myself Out. Tracy, who is Head of Department of Fine Art and Education, at the Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), had to face and overcome the challenges of Covid-19 in order to produce the collection. She penned I Spit Myself Out during the anxious days of the first lockdown of 2020. Her previous book, The Unheimlich Manoeuvre, nominated in 2017 for a British Fantasy Award, explored the psychological terrors of the enclosed female domestic sphere. Tracy said that, given this preoccupation with confined spaces, writing during the pandemic wasn’t easy. “I found it difficult to write this book,” she said. “There was the cognitive dissonance of trying to stay cheerful and mentally healthy, and then the imperative of going to these dark places to write. Now that I re-read this book, the inflections of …

PRISON might seem an unlikely environment to inspire a creative career. For Lisdoonvarna’s Bill Bradshaw, however, working in that tense, high-pressure environment did exactly that. The Rathkeale native is an award-winning screenwriter and novelist, and credits a long career as a prison officer with his unique writing style, as well as some of his subject matter. Bill has just published his third book, Delphine, which draws on influences such as horror writer Stephen King and explores moral taboos and family dynamics. Two more novels are in the pipeline and Bill is actively fundraising to turn Delphine into a six-part Netflix series. He is also part of a Clare-based publishing initiative, backed by the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) and bringing together a number of other creative minds. While his work in the Irish Prison Service is partly responsible for Bill’s approach to his writing, it is a career that has taken a heavy toll. “There is a raw reality in a …

East Clare author Edna O’Brien has won the 2018 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. It is a major award with a prize of $50,000 and it will be presented at the 2018 PEN American Literary Awards Ceremony in New York on Tuesday next. According to PEN America, the award is “conferred annually to a living author whose body of work, either written in or translated into English, represents the highest level of achievement in fiction, non-fiction, poetry and/or drama, and is of enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship”. PEN said Ms O’Brien’s “acclaimed work broke down social and sexual barriers for women in Ireland and beyond”. Born in Tuamgraney in 1930, the now 87-year-old Ms O’Brien went to school in Scariff and Loughrea. In 1960, her first novel, The Country Girls, was banned in Ireland, as were a number of subsequent novels. She has been a prolific writer in the years since and in 2002, In The Forest was …

Shannon author and broadcaster, Rachael English’s second novel, Each and Every One, has just hit the bookshops. Rachael’s voice is among the most well-known in the country, as she presents Morning Ireland, and has more than 20 years’ experience on RTÉ Radio, after starting out on Clare FM, when Irish local radio was launched in 1989. Her first novel, Going Back, was quite well received on its release last year, but her nerves were still jangling last week, as she prepares to see how readers and critics react to the latest novel. Even presenting a radio show to hundreds of thousands of listeners isn’t adequate preparation, she said. “I’d love to be one of those people who doesn’t get nervous about these things but I do get far more nervous about book things than I have ever done about anything to do with broadcasting. It’s mad.” She said she feels like people will almost be passing judgement on a part …

CLARE-based writer Niall Williams has missed out on being shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. The Kilmihil resident was named on the longlist for the prestigious prize in July but was ruled out of the running when the final six were announced this week. Mr Willians’ book History of the Rain is set in the village of Faha in West Clare, where young Ruth Swain lies bedridden in an attic room piled high with 3,958 books. The character tells the story of herself, her father and the family of English clergymen from which he came. For the first time in its 46-year history, the £50,000 prize has been opened up to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the UK. Unfortunately the prize will not be coming to Ireland as Cork-born author Joseph O’Neill also missed out on the short list. Chair of the 2014 judges, AC Grayling, stated that reducing the 13 books on the …

THE Clare branch of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign will have a public meeting next Tuesday with guest speaker Smadar Lavie. Ms Lavie is from Israel and is an anthropologist, professor and author whose mother’s family are Jewish Arabs from Yemen, while her fahter’s people are Jews from Lithuania. She is an ardent activist against racism towards Palestinians and Jews of Arab descent in Israel. Based at the University of California Berkeley, she has written or co-authored four books. Speaking in advance of her visit to Clare, Ms Lavie said that Israeli society is quite fractured between Jews of European descent, called Ashkenazi Jews, and Jews of Middle Eastern descent, or Mizrahi Jews. “Fifty per cent of the population are Jews from the Muslim and Arab world, from the margin of the Ottoman Empire, like Bulgaria or Turkey or the former Yugoslavia. Only 30% are Jews from Europe. However there are less than one per cent women professors who are of Mizrahi …

MARTIN Sixsmith, the journalist and author, whose book inspired the critically acclaimed and Oscar nominated film Philomena, will appear at the Ennis Book Club Festival just days after the Academy Awards ceremony. He is just one of many well known authors and personalities who will visit the town in March for the popular festival. Ciana Campbell of the Ennis Book Club Festival voluntary committee said they are delighted to welcome Sixsmith to Ennis, along with the other participants. “It’s all taken off for him; it’s been brilliant so we are looking forward to welcoming him. In fact he seems very enthusiastic about coming here. He will be here just after the Oscars ceremony, but Oscar or no Oscar the success has been phenomenal for him,” she outlined. In 2009 Sixsmith wrote The Lost Child of Philomena Lee about the forcible separation of a Limerick mother and child by the nuns of an Irish convent during the 1950s, and the subsequent …