There are few tag-lines more attractive to me than this one: ‘How to work less, achieve more and regain your balance in an always-on world’. With her book ‘Slow at Work’, Aoife McElwain is writing for our generation, the one with plates so full we’re in danger of bringing the whole Greek wedding down. She […]
Hard as it is to believe, it’s been nearly a year since I travelled to New York to participate in the inaugural UL Frank McCourt Creative Writing Summer School. As it was the first of its kind, we weren’t sure what to expect, but our bravery was very well-rewarded. Our time at New York […]
Creative Writing at UL and Narrative 4 present IMPAC AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST COLUM McCANN Author of Let the Great World Spin INTRODUCING NARRATIVE 4 IRELAND Wednesday, November 5, 2014 5pm – 6pm Lecture Theatre KBG 12 in the Kemmy Business School with JOSEPH O’CONNOR: UL Frank McCourt Chair in Creative Writing and Honorary Member, N4 Narrative […]
I have the great fortune and privilege (more on that at a later stage) to study Creative Writing at the University of Limerick and part of this very interesting course is the production of a literary journal. No ordinary university print, this journal (to be launched in 2014) will feature fine artwork, short stories, flash […]
* Full disclosure – Emily Westbrooks is a dear friend so if I come across all Kanye West-ish (it’s earth-shattering / history-changing / work of a modern god) you know why. But apart from that, it really is fabulous. Honestly. Arriving to our shores some six years ago, Emily Westbrooks will admit that she wasn’t […]
I described this on Twitter as being an easy, light-hearted summer read, and I still think that’s the most accurate, albeit concise description I can come up with for ‘That Part Was True’ by Deborah McKinley. Set over a short period, this is very much a brief snapshot of two lives, told partly through letters […]
Well, I just finished ‘Sisterland‘ and if – and it’s a big ‘if’ – I ever run a marathon, I’m pretty sure I’ll feel the same way. Exhausted. It’s essentially a book about twin sisters who have a vague ability to predict the future. One becomes a flaky hippie, hawking her ability as something of […]
It’s not often my husband comes home wanting to visit a museum, but that is indeed what happened last week, when he read in the local paper of a pop-up museum in Limerick’s oldest home. No. 55 Rutland Street was built circa 1760 as one of the first grand merchants’ homes opposite the Custom House […]
**Possible Spoilers** It’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever type, but the recent Emily Blunt / Tom Cruise film ‘The Edge of Tomorrow’ reminded me hugely of Kate Atkinson’s prize-winning novel, ‘Life After Life’. Imagine that you could re-live your life over and over again, learning to avoid dangerous obstacles and people, so that […]
‘Kiss Me First’ is a thoroughly modern book centring on a girl called Leila, who is convinced by an internet cult leader to take over the online life of Tess, a suicidal woman who wants to disappear from the world without hurting her family. This might sound relatively fanciful, but in the skilled hands of […]