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Ladies Who Launch

L to R: Henri, Andy, Paula

This time last year the three of us were sweating our second drafts for our MFA in UCD; now we're looking forward to a season of launches: 

April 2nd marks the launch of Henrietta McKervey's debut, What Becomes of Us (Hachette Ireland). Later this month, she'll be mingling with the glamouratti at the Hennessy Awards.

October 1st sees Andrea Carter's new Donegal- based crime series kicking off with Death at Whitewater Church (Constable & Robinson).

Along the way there will be launches for the new John Murray imprint, JM Originals, and for my own debut, Generation, details tba.

And I'll be getting my kit off for Gorse No. 3, which looks gorgeous, as you can see, and which you can pre-order here. 

Mid-term Artist's Dates

Who here knows what artist's dates are? Go on, raise your hands, all you children of the nineties. For the rest of you, these were part of a programme designed to kick start your artistic side, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I didn't do it myself; I was busy with other programmes from other books: how to type (Typing with Mavis, of course), how to write (Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer), how to swim...

(making me possibly the only person on the planet who learned to swim out of a book). But, taking advantage of  my job - I worked in the Upstart Crow Coffee Shop/Book Shop in Long Beach, California - I did leaf through The Artist's Way in idle moments, and took from what I fancied from it.

I fancied artist's dates. I still do.

Experience has taught me that the kids' mid-term means that I will get no work done. It is pointless to even try. When the Arts Council decides to endow me with plenty, I'll book camps or pay a minder, but until then I've decided to 'accept the things I cannot change'. No work will get done next week, but there's nothing stopping us going on artist's dates (they're supposed to be solo expeditions, but oh well...). Ideas so far:

• the Ór (Gold) exhibition at the National Museum
• the mine in Castlecomer 
• the Little Museum of Dublin
• the Japanese Gardens 

Any suggestions? 

Olwen Fouéré's RIVERRUN

I didn't get much sleep the night before, so I had extra coffee to compensate, but this meant I spent the day zipping through tasks, then crashing, and I wasn't sure what state I'd be in for Riverrun, Olwen Fouéré's adaptation of Finnegan's Wake, no less, and for which I'd bought tickets months before. I only knew that that Fintan O'Toole had said of it that we 'do not comprehend but we do apprehend'.

What to say about it? Every ounce of Fouéré, body and soul, went into that hour. Fading in and out of focus, in and out of comprehension, catching batt on tarf for the Battle of Clontarf in a tide of sound and motion, for example, but having not a clue what was afoot more often. It seeped in somehow - apprehended more than comprehended? - and in the end it was if it was all a dream, my own, not Fouéré's or Joyces. Crossing the East Link Bridge this morning I looked at the river beneath with a new appreciation.

Brief Thoughts on The Passion According to G.H.

Clarice Lispector

I finished The Passion According to GH. It's a strange, mesmerising meditation on life, love, language... actually, I'm not going to even try. It's like nothing I've ever read before. Or, if it is, it leans more towards yoga philosophy, maybe crossed with Julia Kristeva, than any novel I can think of. Like taking mind-altering drugs, there's a shift, or an opening, on reading, after which there's no going back - nothing is the same again.

Nobody Wants To Hear About Your Dreams

So why do so many of us put them in our books? Mea as culpea as anyone, though I do try and limit them to one per book. But no one can stop us blogging about them. . .

I dreamt about a cartoon-like caterpillar, shades of Alice in Wonderland, or Gary from Sponge Bob, only this one was encased in a translucent cube about a centimetre high. And it was a serious dream: the creature in the cube - or maybe the cube was part of the creature - needed to escape, and somehow I was responsible.

Don't go yet - there is a point to this post.

I've started reading Clarice Lispector's The Passion According to G.H., in which 'a well-to-do Rio sculptress enters the room of her maid, which is as clear and white as in an insane asylum...There she sees a cockroach...'  - though I haven't got there yet; in the opening pages we are strictly in G.H's consciousness, and she is 'searching... searching... trying to understand', as is the reader.

Then - no segue - there's my new must-watch TV programme, Nature's Weirdest Events, in which we were treated last night to images of midge larvae - would you look at his little face.

My subconscious mind appears to have combined the maid's bedroom, and the midge, and made - to sleeping me - a quite gripping story. There's the unique character we care about (we do!), there's danger, and rising tension (literally; my cube critter was on an escalator and it was about to reach the top, the bit where you get sucked into the machinery...).

And that's my point. Stories are created by the coming together of disparate ideas, conscious and subconscious. It's just a matter of catching them in the act.

GENERATION to be published by John Murray

Good news!

My debut novel, GENERATION, will be released in July 2015 by John Murray Publishers as one of the launch titles for its new list, John Murray Originals (they published Darwin's Origin of the Species. Originals - geddit!). Here's The Bookseller. And here's a bit from Bookbrunch:

GENERATION (world rights from Ger Nichol at the Book Bureau) is a first novel by Paula McGrath, whose writing has appeared in Mslexia and elsewhere, and who recently completed an MFA at University College, Dublin. Richards said: "Generation is a short novel that contains a huge amount. It takes place over three continents and three generations, and shows how the repercussions of decisions taken by parents play out in the lives of their children. Like Donal Ryan’s The Spinning Heart, it is told from a revolving perspective, as one character picks up the thread from another. It is ambitious and gripping; formally inventive but always approachable." 

There's a cover design competition too, so if you're that way inclined, or know someone who is, take a look here.

I've been hugely enjoying the editing process with Mark Richards, my editor, and I am very excited about his plans for the book. And of course all thanks for placing it in such a good home go to the indomitable Ger Nichol of The Book Bureau.

The Anti-Room at the Dublin Book Festival

I'm slow off the mark writing about it, but the Dublin Book Festival outdid itself this year. Smock Alley was decked out to the nines, and with the lovely Peabody pop-up coffee shop and the handily placed beanbags, not to mention gallons of wine, the punter's every need was catered for. Not least was the line up of panels and launches, which made it very hard to decide what to go to and what to have to ruefully miss.

One I wasn't able to pass on was the Anti-room panel, headed up by Sinéad Gleeson and Anna Carey, with Léan Cullinan, Mary Costello, and Anna McPartlin. Of the three, I have only read Mary Costello's work (and loved it, as do many others, as evinced in her Bord Gais Book Award), but I was eager to hear about the issues surrounding women's writing in 2014. 

In the mid-nineties, I wrote a master's thesis on Edna O'Brien. I'll spare you details (mostly because I can't find the thesis), but the thrust was that reviewers were more interested in her eyes and hair and porcelain skin than in her books. A few weeks ago, I was disconcerted to read this Irish Examiner description of Mary Costello: 'Author of quite brilliant collection of short stories published two years ago, in her late 40s, Mary is attractive with her long blond hair, and luminescent eyes, but there’s a separateness about her...'. So it was no surprise that the discussion was depressingly familiar. Women might be the biggest book buyers, and read books written by both sexes, but men prefer to read men; reviewers tend to be men; these men prefer to review the books of other men; journals publish more men; etcetera. Same old, same old.

These gorgeous bookmarks are available from badaude.typepad.com; proceeds will go towards sustaining the #ReadWomen campaign beyond 2014. 

But the picture is not completely bleak. We should take heart from the very fact of this panel's existence in the Dublin Book Festival, and from the size of the crowd who attended the event. The panelists spoke about how inspired campaigns like #ReadWomen affect women writers, and how they feel about women-only prizes, such as the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (no need for them, in an ideal world, but in the meantime...).

At another event the same morning in the National Gallery, it was small comfort to hear about the shiny, pink cover, featuring a 'Kylie Minogue lookalike' dancing around her Hoover, that was presented to Roddy Doyle for his grimly themed Paula Spencer. Fortunately for him, he was in a position to decline.

Three Colours: Books

Blue:

The first is a collection of critical essays on David Mitchell. It's for a niche market, admittedly, and I'm it. As an author on the perpetual brink of 'emerging', it took a while to get past the fact that here was a writer still in his forties who'd already had a conference dedicated to his books, and now a collection of critical essays. [In his very modest Foreword, he wonders if 'all these bright people (would) feel hoodwinked if they found out that Derrida did (his)head in'.] The essays in question - there are ten - concentrate on Ghostwritten, number9dream, and Cloud Atlas, and I immersed myself fully and geekily in them. In her Introduction, editor Sarah Dillon extols the benefits to be gained by 'engagements between contemporary writers and readers', and looks forward to more in the future - as do I. This collection is good to dip in to, or to read cover to cover. I also found it useful for links to further reading. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves David Mitchell's books.



Yellow:

I've read snatches of The Pleasures of the Text over the years but never had my own copy. It took forever to find this one, but it was worth the wait. I love the language: 'The text you write must prove to me that it desires me', and I love his ideas about language: 'I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me'. And I love the yellow cover. 





Red:
I wasn't quite sure how to take a present entitled Being Wrong, so I read bits, interesting bits, but then it somehow got shelved. But I was wrong not to read it cover to cover, because I could have saved myself so much being wrong-related angst between then and now. Schulz draws on psychology, philosophy, science, religion -- whatever it takes -- and synthesises the lot into a readable, fascinating whole which attempts to explain why we are so often wrong, why we deal with it so badly, and why we should embrace our inner wrongness. I can't recommend it enough to anyone who has ever been wrong.

Two Publications

It's been a good week. My contributor's copies of Surge (Brandon/O'Brien) arrived, a collection of stories from the Creative Writing schools of UCD, UCC, NUIG, Queens, and TCD. It's beautifully done -- thank you to all at O'Brien Press -- and so far (I'm working my way through at the moment) the stories are terrific. Publication date is the 13th, and it'll be launched at the Dublin Book Festival, and in Charlie Byrne's, Galway, and in Belfast's Crescent Arts Centre.

And yesterday was the launch of Emerging Perspectives Postgraduate Journal in English Studies, which includes my paper, "No One's from Chicago: Finding a Balance Between Theory and Practice". Thank you to the English Graduate Society, and to David and Michael in particular. This publication is particularly exciting because it represents, both in the abstract and concretely, a bringing together of my writing with my English Lit background - a circle completed, or something.

Bone Clocks

I promised @hmckervey some feedback on my current reading. I expect this is what being in a book club is like (I've never been invited to join one, and/or I'm afraid to commit to other people's book choices).

My most recent read is Bone Clocks. It's publication was eagerly awaited, it arrived to much fanfare from Sceptre, and I was eager to hand over my €25 for a gorgeous hard-backed, signed copy, having gobbled up Cloud Atlas, and thoroughly enjoyed The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

You can hear the 'but' from here, can't you?

David Mitchell knows how to hook and reel his reader in, and once there, he will entertain. Guaranteed. Bone Clocks did exactly this, through the first novella, and the second, and the third. But — there it is — by the time I got to the fifth novella, the fantastical stuff, my enthusiasm waned and then fizzled out.

My son grew up with Harry Potter and I read the books along with him. And enjoyed them, to a point. Fantasy fiction has at its disposal all the tricks it needs to resolve all the problems it creates, which feels like a cheat to me. I had to remind myself that my disappointment with them was unfair; they were, after all, children's books.

It used to be the case that loosely grouped, ill defined 'genre' fiction was disparaged for being light weight, low brow pulp. Though it's no longer p.c. to describe it in this way, in truth, while I enjoyed my granny's Mills & Boons and Agatha Christie's when I was growing up, they felt a little bit shabby when contrasted with Austen and Shakespeare (school), and Rushdie and Joyce (pre-Uni summer). Like comparing fast food to your Mammy's cooking, both provide calories but one is (in my opintion) far superior to the other. The genre stuff no longer satisfied because it was not nourishing.

Cloud Atlas combined novellas of different genres into a magic mix where the whole was more than the parts, but as I near the end of Bone Clocks I've enjoyed the ride, but I'm just not feeling nourished.

John Boyne and David Mitchell at Mountains to Sea

Friday night's Mountains to Sea event in the Pavillion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire with John Boyne and David Mitchell entertained a full house, with good banter between the two writers and Edel Coffey, the interviewer. They read from their respective books, and riffed on whatever topic
Edel hit them with: Kate Bush, Boyzone... the usual literary stuff.

Boyne talked about his reasons for naming his old school in his book and was
unrepentant about it, having suffered beatings at the hands of priests there in his schooldays. His new book, A History of Loneliness, sounds well worth a read.

Mitchell read a letter from Bone Clocks, which was doubly intriguing because I'm halfway through the book (and enjoying it). He denied being so Irish now that he felt he'd had to write a novel about Ireland, but admitted that he was able to do 'expat living in Ireland' or second generation Irish. Maybe he just needs a few more years...

The highlight, though, had to be when Mitchell, responding to an audience question, said he'd see the young lady (whose question it was) later, and would introduce her to "excalibur"... You had to be there!

Hidden City

Or, to give Karl Whitney's book it's full title: Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin by Foot, Bike, Bus, Train and Tram; In the Sewers and Underground Rivers; Along the Edges and Behind the Hoardings...  As promised to @hmckervey, this is the first of a few short reviews of books I've been reading lately. (It should probably be in Goodreads, not here, but somehow I've never managed to make the time to figure out how or why to use that site. Should I find time? Is it worth it?)

The concept itself is what first recommends the book to me, closely followed by 'dammit, why didn't I think of that'. Whitney moves around Dublin by foot, bike... well, you know the rest, and describes what he sees in clear, unprejudiced prose. Yet, because this is psychogeographical writing at its best -- yes, I stole this term from the flyleaf, and later, from Whitney's book when he references the Situationists, an avant-garde group set in 1950's Paris (where else) -- there is a very personal layer to the essays. Thus, when Whitney explores the fringes of West Dublin, he describes his own family's move there, and the effect the moves had on him. And because his is highly structured and intelligent writing, this move is echoed by the later chapter on Joyce and his family's many moves. You can follow Whitney down Dublin's drains in an excerpt from book, printed in last Saturday's Irish Times. You too might find it completely compelling.

PS For the sequel, I'd recommend taking along that smartphone, and a nutritious packed lunch. It's the Mammy in me -- we worry!

Am Reading

The #amwriting never appealed to me, though I do like the sound of the book by the same name. When I'm writing I'm not chipper enough to be on twitter #-ing.

But, it's September, and I'm not going back to school (Ph D next year, all going well), and suddenly I find myself in a post-college, between novels hiatus. It's not that I don't have a project — I've a new novel started — but with the last one just gone out into the world, there isn't any sense of urgency. I'm good with deadlines...

So, I'm in the happy position of being able to Enjoy Reading for a few weeks. My pile is high and demands attention but I'm going to cheat on it. Come 2nd September, this is what I'll be reading (actually, I don't know which version we're getting in these parts. I like the one on the right, if anyone wants my opinion).


And on September 4th, I'm looking forward to Ben Lerner's 10:04. His Leaving the Atocha Station, which I recommended for Necessary Fiction's Summer Reviews was riveting and infuriating, but mostly riveting, and 10:04 sounds even more so.

And before both of these, I'm hoping to get my hands on Karl Whitney's Hidden City.

BKS Iyengar

I was working in the Upstart Crow, a book and coffee shop in Long Beach, California when I happened upon BKS Iyengar's book, Light on Yoga. This was 1990 or thereabouts, and I'd never encountered yoga before, at least, not up close. It was practically unheard of back at home. But something about the simple silver cover and the black and white photographs attracted me, so with my 30% staff discount I bought it and brought it home to have a go. I opened a page randomly, to prasarita padottanasana. Legs wide, bend forward, how hard could that be...? There was a ripping sound, hamstring maybe...


WhenI bothered to read the introductory essay it became apparent — if it wasn't already — that yoga is not for the faint hearted or the fickle. It requires attention and discipline, and ideally, a teacher. I've been to quite a few classes since, and have been teaching classes myself since the mid-90s. Although I never went to Puna to attend his classes in person, many of my colleagues did. Mr. Iyengar was an exemplary practitioner of yoga and an exemplary teacher, and by all accounts, an exemplary human being.

May he rest in peace.

Irish Women Artists 1870-1970

This exhibition is on in Adam's showrooms on Stephen's Green (free), and it's well worth a look. There are familiar names - but often these are of the famous male relatives of the women artists (Yeats, Henry, Beckett, McDonagh etc.).

Mainie Jellett's cubist paintings are wonderful, though A.E. Russell, apparently, did not agree, describing them as 'subhuman' and a type of 'malaria'. I loved the illustrations of Nationalist, Grace Gifford, and the gorgeous portraits by Estella Frances Solomons. But Camille Souter's impressionistic landscapes are my favourites (you can download the brochure). [In one of those weird synchronicities, she also happens to appear in a story-thing I've been working on; I'll take it as a sign not to abandon it. Yet.]

We followed our visit up with take-out coffees and a shady spot in Stephen's Green - perfect!

Vienna

I'm just back from the 13th International Conference on the Short Story in English in Vienna. There were parallel sessions running each day, along with up to five different readings to choose from, so sadly I had to miss lots of great-sounding events. But there were lots of highlights to compensate:

• an all-round great panel, The Writer's Perspective and Influence on Form, featuring Pat Jourdan's wonderful story-paper "Various Exits" on 11 stages of closure in the short story, Louise Ells' inspirational "What can we learn from Alice Munro?", and the very different approach of Lisa Smithies on how human behavioural biology influences the creative writer (and congrats to Lisa on winning the overall conference short story competition). 

• meeting Robert Luscher, whose theories on short story sequences saved me oodles of time during my own sequence writing crisis.

• meeting Elke D'hoker, whose work on short story cycles I've encountered and admired.

• the warm and lively response to my reading, in no small way thanks to the lovely Rebekah Clarkson and my high-energy co-reader, Ida Cerne.

• the relief of finishing my talk "When is the story no longer a short story?" and the pleasure of listening to, and meeting, my fellow panellists, Paul Mitchell and Neta Gordon, and of course our kind and humourous co-panelist and moderator, Allan Weiss.

• the must-read list I came away with, including...

• the gorgeous conference anthology.

The End Of The MFA (my MFA...)

Nearly two years ago, at the start of my MFA in UCD I wrote this post.
Today I handed in my thesis, a novel-in-stories called No One's From Chicago. It's wonderful to have had the opportunity to spend time with like-minded, same-stage writers, working under the supervision of experienced (kind, patient) professionals. I can honestly say the MFA was two of the most enjoyable, and profitable (artistically!) years I've spent.

And in breaking news, UCD MA alumnus Colin Barrett has just won the Frank O'Connor award for his Young Skins. Well done, Colin!

Skellig Michael

For the sake of my neglected blog, let's call it 'research', or an artist's 1-day retreat. Skellig Michael has been the single item on my bucket list for about 20 years, and I finally got there.

As you can see, those monks had the right idea.

And probably very pert bottoms.

Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof they'd one long stairway just going up and one even longer coming down and one more leading nowhere... Or, a 600-step stone stairs leading from each of the three landing places on the island.

Now to figure out how to persuade those nice OPW people to let me have a sleepover, with these cuddly guys for company.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Mike McCormack at the DWF

Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Mike McCormack took to the stage on Thursday lunchtime for the Art of the Short Story event, ably facilitated by Thomas Morris of the Stinging Fly. He began by introducing the two authors: Nuala, he said, writes 'truths that are rarely spoken' (evoking Robert Olen Butler), while Mike writes black humour and arresting dialogue, deepening into core sadness.

As both authors write short stories as well as novels, he asked about the differences between the two (an area dear to this blogger's heart, as I am currently working on a paper exploring genre, and genre slippage, as in the novel-in-stories).

Nuala approached the question first as a reader, saying that the pleasures are different, that there is resistance to short stories from readers, and that the novel is perceived as the highest form. For her, there is a different 'hit' or feeling, and it is not just about time. The short story, she reminded us, is designed to be read in one sitting. She felt that the reader needed to be trained in the art of reading short stories, and that perhaps this could be achieved by making them more available, for example, as Kindle singles.

As a writer, she says the novel is something you can come back to every day, and that is a great comfort, whereas with short stories, you're constantly starting anew. There is always the fear that you will never write another.

For Mike, the short story holds out the promise that you might possibly get it right, whereas the novelist is condemned to getting it wrong. But, if the novel is created in a quarry, with a lump hammer, the short story is keyhole surgery. It is a much more exacting guest. There is more pressure. It demands your attentiveness. The novel is expansive, generous, openhearted: we are people among people, whereas with the short story, 'you're only codding yourself; we're on our own.'

What if you're not getting it right, Morris wondered. Are there stories you've given up on?
Mike admitted to chiselling away and polishing a story for 18 months, and that sometimes he just doesn't know if he's getting it right. Nuala said that if a story is rejected she will work on it until it finds a home, and that some are constantly rejected until they end up in a book.

On openings: Mike tries to sound a note that will reverberate. He added that a story might survive a bad opening, but it won't survive a bad ending. He admitted that he sees journals and competitions as 'part of the drafting process; the real arguments are when you're putting a book together.'

On endings: Nuala says she has no need for resolution, but that endings are crucial in the short story. She quoted Elizabeth Gilbert who said that the ending 'should bend over backwards and kiss the beginning.' The reader should be 'holding their breath from start to end.' She remarked that with short shorts, or flash, she likes crisp, arresting openings, and decisive endings which make sense.

Neither author plots. Morris wanted to know if it is difficult to trust that. For Nuala, it's the joy and excitement of writing; she might not write it if she knew where it was going; she might bore herself.
Mike starts with an image, a man and a place, for example, and dialogue gathers around it. 'It serves me well.'

Advice to writers?
Nuala: 'Just write. And do years of that. And read.'

On the question of reading one's peers, Morris asked if there was a lack of variety. Mike feels that 'our reputation is bloated,' that we use the nineteenth century Joyce/Chekhov template — linear, single-voiced, past tense, gathering towards epiphany —and we have not developed it, as borne out by the two big collections, Granta and Oxford. He says we have one true genius of the short story since Joyce, rarely acknowledged, and that is Beckett. 'The Irish short story is skewed and misrepresented by his absence.' He wonders why this happened. Before Joyce and Moore, we had the Goths, 'pale, worried Protestants, going to Trinity College,' writing about ghosts and vampires. Beckett, he claims, is a 'reconstituted Goth.'

Nuala notes that there are people pushing against the nineteenth century model, and she mentions Ryan O' Neill, Cathy Sweeney, Dave Lordan, and June Caldwell.

Much food for thought, but too short, as dictated by its lunchtime slot.