Category: On Writing
Notes on the Flesh: An Arab Disability Narrative
“The MRI itself was an uncanny and strange experience. I had never been in that machine –it was very much like a white coffin. You get wrapped up in a blanket, like a baby, or a dead baby…Whatever happens, you cannot move” (Alshammari, 39) There is usually a strong and clear distinction between academics and […]
Recommended Reading: Not Your Mammy’s Books
Despite so much that’s terrible these days it’s a wonderful time to be a writer and a reader. Amidst growing attacks on the truth, and the maniacal scapegoating of fake news, there’s burgeoning honesty, bravery, inclusion, and revolution in fiction, and in particular Irish women’s fiction. Irish literature—once dominated by men, suppressive norms, and scenes […]
Why I Switched From YA to Middle-Grade Fiction
Let the record show that I didn’t start out writing middle-grade fiction. I started in young adult, and had three books published in that category before trying my hand at a younger age group. So, why did I switch? What was the draw for me to suddenly drop the angst and excitement and budding romances […]
Why I write, by Phaedra Patrick
A lady came along to a library event I delivered recently (I don’t know her name so I’ll call her Mrs Miggs) where she proceeded (rather nicely) to list a few things she didn’t really like about my debut novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper. Please believe me that this doesn’t happen often! Readers, […]
Republishing My Indie Book: Not Just An Ego Trip
Self-publishing my book felt like giving birth in a bar. The atmosphere was unwelcoming, the people who assisted were incompetent—so much so that I felt I was doing it alone on a cold, cement floor reeking of cigarette smoke and liquor—and the product (had I not designed the cover, hired a professional editor, and done […]
An American Road Trip ‘Playlist’ of Books, by Helen McClory
When I started writing Flesh of the Peach I was struggling to live and write in New York. One summer, I decided to take a research trip by bus to where Sarah Browne, the novel’s immigrant protagonist, settles herself against her own failures: New Mexico. The journey took over 2,000 hungry, dirty, beautiful miles in […]
The Creative Unconscious
There’s a lot to be said for writing to a plan or outline. Words emerge much faster if we know where our characters are going and what they’ll encounter along the way. But there’s a downside to approaching our work with an overly rational mindset. Too much order and we lose the capacity to amaze […]
Ancestors As Inspiration
My family history gave me the courage I needed to start my career as a novelist. I can remember a decade ago writing down in Julia Cameron’s The Writer’s Way that I really wanted to write a novel and learn French, but in the years before Amazon I had no idea how to make that […]
If You’re Anxious And You Know It
Being a writer is nerve-wracking for everybody. Self-doubt, uncertainty, writer’s block, nerves–it all kind of comes with the territory. Right? Well, while everyone feels these things sometimes, or to some degree, a lucky group of us feels it all the time. That’s the difference between what I call lower-case anxiety (as in a commonplace feeling […]
Social Media: To Share Or Not To Share?
In this golden age of social media, I still find it a bit of a novelty that I can tweet my favourite author. Even more so on the occasions when they tweet me back! Having this kind of direct access to an author would have been unimaginable just 20 years ago. Back in the old […]
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