The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
West Clare based American writer, Tara Darlene Smith, has released a powerful new memoir exploring war, relationships, mental health and healing “I knew nothing about Ireland at the time, I certainly never imagined that one day I’d be living here as a writer,” says Tara Darlene Smith as she reflects on the odyssey of releasing her first book. Twenty years ago, in 2004, the then 22-year-old arrived at Shannon Airport as a US soldier en route to Iraq. The brief stopover gave her enough time to purchase a silver shamrock necklace in a green box labelled “Tara,” which she wore every day at war. Thirteen years later, she returned as a civilian and a tourist to begin what she calls a “love affair with Clare”. It has been, she says, “a journey of healing the traumas of childhood and of war” and “discovering a sense of peace I never thought possible”. In her candid and gripping memoir entitled Sunflowers in …
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