Nuala Ní Chonchúir's Blog, page 51

'DON'T PANIC - WORK DOGGEDLY ON'

Patchwork by Pippa QuiltsI like this one of Sarah Waters' Ten Rules for Writing Fiction from The Guardian in 2010:

'Don’t panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends’ embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there’s prayer. Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.'

Yes, 'working doggedly on' is the only thing. The novel I am working on (novel #3) has had some hair-raising moments (the writing of it) but I am near the finish line, thank Saint Francis de Sales. Actually, the last sentence is written, but there are some in-between sentences that still need to be done, so I am patchworking at the moment and it is slow, laborious work, much like real patchwork.

Tonight I go to hear Colum McCann read from Transatlantic at Galway Arts Festival with a dear writer friend and I look forward to him, and to her, and to immersing myself in other writers' worlds for a few hours. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Who knows, my patchwork may even be a bit neater by the time I get back to the book on Wednesday :)

Cork Literary Review Poetry Manuscript Competition

The Cork Literary Review is now accepting submissions for the Cork Literary Review Poetry Manuscript Competition 2013. If you have a full collection ready to submit, this may be for you.
The prize includes the publication of a first poetry collection by the winning author and twenty free copies of the book. The overall competition winner and two runners-up will also be featured in the next edition of the Cork Literary Review.
Judge: Joseph Woods.
€20.00 registration fee.

The closing date for sending submissions is 5.30pm on the 21st July 2013.
Poets make an initial submission of 5-10 poems.

In August a long-list of poets will be announced. Long-listed poets will then be contacted by the Competition to submit their full collection. The winner and two runners-up will be announced in late summer/early autumn.

Further details can be found on the Bradshaw Books website. 

NEW REVIEW AND 'QUIET' BOOKS

North Carolina based Irish writer Rich Rennicks has just reviewed my novel YOU, which came out three years ago (I can hardly believe it's been three years). Rich reviews it on his blog A Trip to Ireland. I love this about the internet - there is no two-week window for your book to get noticed; there is endless time and scope and space.

A small quote from the review: 'YOU is a quiet, surprising novel, that captures a young girl’s growing perception of the world quite beautifully.' Cheers, Rich, much appreciated :)

As an aside, 'quiet' is a word I often hear about my work. It gets me a bit knicker-knotted because I don't quite get what it means, except I feel I am being told that it is not altogether a good thing to be 'quiet'. The feeling I get is that publishers/reviewers/agents really want fiction a bit more shouty than mine and that's what will make a book a big hit, as opposed to the minor hits that I've had. Anyway, I think, as an introvert, quiet is where I'm at and will continue to be at for a long time to come. For what it's worth, Mr Rennicks didn't seem to think 'quiet' was a negative but others have (agents/publishers who have rejected my work in the past). Anyway, with a publisher I like for my last two books and my next (New Island) and a new agent on the foreshore also, this 'quiet' irritation may belong to the past.

THIS NEVER WAS MY TOWN - reading

 
10 Days in Dublin - an indy culture fest - is now on and I will be reading at it on Friday (the glorious 12th!) at This Never Was My Town, a multi-city event organised by writer/blogger Marcel Krueger.

From Marcel: "This Never Was My Town is a series of expat-themed, cross-European prose and poetry readings hoping to evaluate the question of how much identity is linked with the place you live in. Is a city adding to your personality, or does location have no influence whatsoever in our globalised and interlinked world any more? A group of expat writers from Dublin and other cities in Europe (patched in via screen) will read from their works and reflect on placelore, identity and if it's really possible to make a place 'yours'." . I am exiled in Galway, hence my participation.

Because Marcel is German (!) there is a schedule :). See here:

Introduction: Marcel Krueger 5 pm
Storymap Dublin Story and Commentary: Tom/Andy 5.10 pm
Edinburgh: Stu Anderson 5.20 pm
Aberdeen: Kit Fryatt 5.30 pm
Dublin: Nuala Ní Chonchúir 5.40 pm
Berlin/Dublin: Marcel Krueger 5.50 pm

Tickets are €5 and €3 and can be bought at this link.

TOM VOWLER INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY

Writer Tom Vowler
I am delighted to welcome back writer and blogger Tom Vowler today, to celebrate the paperback publication of his début novel What Lies Within. Tom has very kindly agreed to give away one copy of the novel to readers of this blog. Just leave a comment to be in the draw.

Tom’s short story collection The Method won the international Scott Prize in 2010 and the Edge Hill Readers’ Award in 2011. Now an associate lecturer at Plymouth University, his first novel What Lies Within is a psychological thriller set on the uplands of Dartmoor. It has already received wide critical acclaim. Tom is Assistant Editor for the literary journal Short FICTION and in 2008 he attained an MA in Creative Writing and is now studying for a PhD, looking at landscape and trauma in contemporary fiction. More at his website here.


Hi Tom and welcome once more to WWR. Always a pleasure.
Thrilled to be back your way, Nuala.

Your début novel What Lies Within is a literary thriller. Can you give readers a flavour of what to expect from it?
The story began in my head with a shocking news event, but it was the contrails of this that fascinated me. I wondered how far someone would go to hide their past, particularly to those they love, but also how things would evolve once that past returned. That’s the thriller bit, if you like. But language, character and setting are more important to me than plot, so it was important to weave the action, the narrative, into a textural milieu I felt comfortable with. I also like to challenge the reader morally, ask them some difficult questions.
The novel’s title is ambiguous and intriguing – did you deliberately reach for a layered title? How important is titling in your process (in stories and novels)?
Good question. I am drawn to abstract, evocative titles (see Peter Hobbs’ and EvieWyld’s latest – great books, great titles), more so than a single summative word, though of course we can name plenty of these that work well. What Lies Within might have been The Kiln at one point, but then the lovely Alex Preston mock-mooted Kiln Me Softly and I couldn’t take the former seriously again. But often these things are governed by factors outside your control. It’s always easier to think of titles that don’t work. Finding the right one is deeply pleasurable.

One reviewer said of the novel’s landscape: ‘The moor is more than just a backdrop to this story. The sense of unease and menace is compounded by the wild and lonely landscape.’ Is Dartmoor a place you know well? Is the setting a crucial part of the novel’s make-up?
I live on its fringes, and although I had a fondness for the place, it wasn’t until I spent a year immersed on its slopes, researching everything from the people who live and work there to its flora, geology and fauna, its pubs, that it got into my marrow. Certainly the moor adorns the book, working as allegory and metaphor for its narrative and characters. But I wanted the place to become a character itself, so the reader invested in its past, present and future as much as they did the people in the novel. To me the two – character and place – are inextricably bound. Landscape in fiction brings characters into relief, reflecting their internal states, often saying what they cannot. A symbiosis must occur between the two, where character and setting lay claim to one another in mutual dependency.
Were there times, during the two years or so it took you to write the novel, when you thought ‘What the hell am I doing?’, or did you have a clear path ahead of you as you wrote?
I like to plan, yes, having a vague sense of structure to fall back on, but it’s important to be flexible, to give your characters enough rein to wander, without being able to flee entirely. I’m not sure the path ahead is ever clear. If it is, you’re probably in trouble.
A lot of writers who write both short stories and novels say they are truly passionate about the short story rather than the novel. Do you have a preference for one over the other?
The two forms come with their own set of challenges, their own particular thrills. As someone who came late to fiction, I worked my way through the novels you’re supposed to read, enjoying many, one or two staying with me, forging an early influence. But I think reading and writing short stories really tightened my craft, awoke part of my aesthetic faculty that lay dormant. The story seemed to take more risks, be conducive to avant-gardism. It won’t be tied down or encumbered by structure, as the novel sometimes is. This said, I’ve read some wonderful novels in the last year, my love affair with them rekindled for now. And it annoys me when people, often writers, say how nothing can be wasted in the short story, that every word must count, as if you can just waffle on inconsequentially for pages at a time in a novel.
You seem to have had a good experience with your agent. Were you a long time looking for representation? Was it a smooth or bumpy ride?
As soon as I wrote something strong enough, I found an agent. There’s no real mystery. Yes, of course they are seeking something with at least a semblance of commercial value, but more than anything an agent wants an original voice. I wrote the obligatory dreadful first novel, submitting it everywhere, confidently waiting for it to be picked up, which of course it wasn’t. I look back, when I can bear to, at that book and for the most part it’s terrible. Most emerging writers send their work in too soon. Let it simmer. Move onto the next one, build up a body of work. But, yes, Charlie Brotherstone (A.M. Heath) deserves special mention for the impact he’s had on What Lies Within as well as my second novel. He’s a good drinking buddy too.
He sounds like the kind of agent most writers dream of having. Well done!
I know you are a big fan of Irish fiction. Who are the UK or international writers who keep you reading into the small hours?
I’ve mentioned two above, rising stars, the kind of writers to cause a small thrill in me when I see they’ve a book imminent. David Vann is one to watch also, Legend of a Suicide is a wonderfully brave and modern novel. And I’ll always come back to Banville, like a wavering addict needing a hit. Who else can write like that?
You play cricket. Can we expect a cricket novel – maybe the next Netherland – any time soon from Tom Vowler?
Not sure my agent or editor would be thrilled with that idea. Or at the Dartmoor pub-themed memoir lurking at the back of my mind, We Need To Walk About Devon.
Ha ha, love it.What is next on the agenda for you, and/or what are you working on now?
The final edits for my second novel, due out next spring, plus the PhD are keeping me busy. Reading and editing stories for Short Fiction too. Like a stalker or sleuth, the third novel is loitering in the shadows, about to announce itself to me just as I plan a holiday.
Thanks for dropping by, Tom. Wishing you lots of luck with the book. Readers can buy What Lies Within here.

CORK SHORT STORY FEST WORKSHOPS

The Cork Short Story Festival (CISS) has some exciting looking workshops coming up in September: Flash/prose poetry with Dave Lordan, Short Stories for Beginners with Jon Boilard, Photography with John Minihan and a Fiction Masterclass with Michele Roberts.

When: 18 - 21 September daily, 9.30am - 12.30pm
Where: Venues TBA, with most being no more than a 10 minute walk from the readings venue, Triskel-Christchurch in South Main Street. The exception is Alannah Hopkin's workshop on 'The Uncanny: Horror and Ghost Stories' which takes place at University College Cork - a fifteen minute walk to Triskel, Christchurch, or a 5 minute bus ride.

Fee: Prices vary. Please see individual class descriptions for more information.
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Speaking of CISS, I didn't get a chance to blog about David Constantine's winning the Frank O'Connor Award with Tea at the Midlands - anyway, delighted for him! And for his publisher, Comma Press.

SOUTHWORD SUMMER 2013 - ONLINE NOW

The new issue of Southword is now online. The incomparable Ted Deppe is there with a poem called 'An Art Critic and the Colour Yellow' and also Nell Regan with a beautiful poem, 'Gifted'. There's a story full of smoky 1970s images from Switzerland-based Irish writer Pádraig Rooney called 'The Tin Tabernacle'.

There is poetry in Irish, an essay about a carjacking by Paula Cunningham and reviews of two recent books by Cork-born writers Dave Lordan (short stories) and Theo Dorgan's début novel Making Way .

I have a flash in there called 'The Road That Mills and Boon® Built' which is based on an anecdote told to me at Cúirt 2012 by a lovely young Irish woman who lives in London called Isolde Roche - thanks for the inspiration, girl.

RACHEL TREZISE REVIEW FOR THE SHORT REVIEW

I recently reviewed Rachel Trezise's fab new short story collection Cosmic Latte for RTÉ's Arena. I have now reviewed it for the most excellent The Short Review and you can read it here.

Writing.ie Short Story of the Year Award

Good news for the Irish short story with the announcement of a new category in the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards: the Writing.ie Short Story of the Year Award. (Maybe my emails to them last year paid off, though I got no reply?) It's a limited response to a much needed category but at least it's something.
This new category is open to short stories of up to 7000 words published between 1stNov 2012 and 31st October 2013 in any of the following contexts: a collection of short stories by a single author; an anthology of short stories; or an established journal or magazine, digital or print, that has been in existence for at least six months within the period of eligibility.
Stories must be original fiction, i.e. neither a reprint nor adaptation of a previously-published work, and all stories must have been or will be published in English or Irish during the qualifying period.  Stories published in Irish must be supplied with an English translation. The author must be Irish by birth, citizenship or long-term residence.
Stories should be submitted via the online form here by editors ONLY. Closing date for entries is 1st September 2013.
Stories may only be submitted by the editor of the publication in which the story appears, with full permission of the author, with a maximum of one story per edition or collection. Self published works, at this stage, are not admissable. An individual author may be entered more than once for the competition if their work appears in more than one publication. It is the editor’s decision which author will represent each of their publications. Submission of an entry is taken as acceptance of all the terms and conditions of entry which can be found here.

*GALWAY STORIES* - DUBLIN LAUNCH

Tomorrow, Wednesday 26th June at 7pm, in the IWC, Dublin, sees the Dublin launch of Doire Press's latest anthology Galway Stories. There will be Galwegians who are now Dubs. Dubs who are now Galwegians. Longfordians who are from everywhere but live in Galway. There will even be Galwegian Californians. There will also be books, readings, wine and chat.