Windsor

 

 

London town

A visit to London town is always busy. Its a case of cram it all in as quickly as possible. I always breath a sigh of relief when I step off the plane back in Dublin. As nice as London is; its hard work.  After arriving at a ridiculously early hour and dropping our bags at our digs it was breakfast at Borough Market. I chomped down on a sausage bap  for my second breakfast of the day. Then it was onto the V&A. A quick look around the photography and the fashion room before I had the worst coffee I've ever tasted.  Back out on the street we didn't really know what was going on. Police and army appeared from no where with helicopters looming over head. To be honest my first thought was 'has a bomb gone off somewhere?' Paranoid much? Later on we discovered it was a Pro-Palestinian protest about to make its way around the side of Hyde Park. We settled ourselves and headed for The Photography Gallery. With enough energy for one last stop we made our way to the John Soane Museum. He was an architect and collector. He left his house and estate to the State instead of his children. I'm sure that went down well. So fitting that A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth is part of his collection.  Defeated we returned for naps before dinner. And oh what a dinner it was! My sister works at The Garrison. To say that we were looked after would be understating it. The service was fantastic, the food impeccable.
The photo of the Shard above is the view from my happy dinner perch. With just enough room (I decided not to dessert for this reason) we headed to The Hide for cocktails.

With the cocktail residues still merrily making their way around my system I woke up nice and early. I had a people watching coffee and croissant back at Borough Market as I waited for the troops to convene and then it was around the corner to The Tate Modern. The Malevich exhibition was my destination. Would have checked out the Matisse too except for we ran out of time and had to high tail it across town for Sunday lunch at Brawn. And what a f#*%ing lunch it was too. I have two words only: go there. I rounded out the day with dinner in Pizarro watching the last of the rain and  stragglers making their way down Bermondsey Street on a lazy Sunday evening.

One last cultural hurrah at Sotheby's for the Unauthorized Banksy Retrospective. I couldn't quite figure out who was taking the piss out of whom?! But the snobby girl at the door made it all worthwhile.

Thursday and the recovery continues ...

Fish Short Memoir Competition 2014 Long List

I was bored on Sunday night and started poking around the internet looking at competitions to enter and competitions I didn't make the cut for. At least I thought I didn't make the cut for. I entered the Fish Short Memoir Contest earlier in the year and promptly forgot about. I subsequently deleted the email announcing the winners of the competition. My only thought on that is I must have been having a bad day! So I was really surprised to see my own name on the long list as I scrolled down through the list of writers and their stories. I'm particularly delighted to make it to the list as its the first time I've had a non-fiction piece recognised. There's no greater impetus to keep on going!

Liberty Silk by Kate Beaufoy

Another Tuesday, another book launch in the Gutter Bookshop. Liberty Silk by Kate Beaufoy was delightfully introduced by Ciaran Hinds. Yes, that Ciaran Hinds!
Kate Beaufoy is the new pen name for Kate Thomspon. If you recognise the name its probably because you have either seen Glenroe or read one or two of the eleven books she has written.  
Kate was also the first VIP guest author for the NCBI and Childvision's annual Readathon in 2008. She kindly returned to help us celebrate its five year anniversary last year.
The idea for the book was born from letters her grandmother wrote after the first world war - all of which feature in the book. The story's breadth stretches from Paris 1919 to Hollywood 1945 to 1965. It is "an evocative story of survival, betrayal and the invincibility of love." Available in all good bookshops now.

Fallen by Lia Mills

A fortnight ago I went to the launch of Fallen by Lia Mills in the Gutter Bookshop. It was a warm muggy evening and the shop was busting at the seams with Lia fans. Not only did the book sell out but I didn't even get near the wine table! Luckily for me a very generous gentleman gave me a copy so I didn't go home empty handed.
I started it last night greedily devouring the first half in one sitting. The writing is stunning and the story engaging and unique. Anne Enright, during her introduction, observed that this is probably the start of many stories around the backdrop of the 1916 rising but that Lia has the edge on being one of the first, and of course being the best. Having received rave reviews in the run up to the launch expect to hear people talking about this book for a while to come. Get reading!
Check out her blog Libran Writer.

Siri Hustvedt

I recently saw Siri Hustvedt in Smock Alley Theatre during Dublin Writers Festival. I am in awe of the woman. Intellect seeps out of her pores. What amazes me is how lightly she carries it. Her breadth of knowledge doesn't weigh her down with pretentiousness. She spoke of the complex theories and ideas wrapped up in her new book "The Blazing World". Her eloquence is an inspiration.  I've started the beautifully written book but already I've had to stop to research books and artists she's referenced. I managed to track down "On the problem of empathy" by Edith Stein (another amazing woman, a Jewish philosopher who changed to Catholicism and later died in Auschwitz, Phenomenology was her modus operandi.). Although I'll be saving it for another day. I love how this isn't just a book to be consumed but that it gets me reaching out into a spiders web of another book, after another book, after another. I can't recommend it highly enough and I'm not even half way into it.

Here she is being fabulous in a recent short interview from The Guardian.

Siri Hustvedt is the internationally bestselling author of What I Loved, The Summer Without Men and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. Her latest novel, The Blazing World, is a brilliant, provocative novel about Harriet Burden, an artist who, after years of being ignored, conducts an experiment: she conceals her identity behind three male fronts in three solo exhibitions.

What's the message here? Does the world hate women? Or do women need to try harder?
I really do not want to use the word "message". This is a much more complex story. Harry – the artist Harriet Burden – is right that there is a "masculine enhancement effect". The arts are often thought of as "sort of feminine" and science as masculine. These divisions are underlying our perceptions. There are a number of other positions and perspectives that are meant to complicate the reader's understanding of this story. There is no message. There is nothing simple about this. The act of reading the book mirrors the content of the book. It is meant to be a game and a puzzle. You can't think of Harry's story as simply a feminist parable. Even though had she been a man her work would have got more recognition.

Where did the idea for Harriet come from? Could it happen in real life?
There have been art hoaxes and they're mentioned in the book. I suppose it could happen. But the kernel of the idea was a woman hiding behind male masks as an experiment. I wanted a book that felt refracted. So you have this intimate, bold voice from the notebooks [Harry's diaries] but all these people commenting on the same story. Which, of course, changes the story.

What made you choose the polyphonic structure?
I knew it was going to be many voices. Part of it came out of a desire that I always want to do something I haven't done before. I began to think of this as my "multiple personality disorder book" because I had to have all these different voices and inhabit them. There is a lot of unconsciousness involved in summoning those voices and sometimes they surprise you. It's not a situation of absolute control.

The art world was the backdrop for What I Loved. Why return to it?
I continue to write essays about art. The visual is always part of my work and it gives me immense pleasure to make up the words of art and create them verbally rather than build them.

Do you consider that your own work is ever judged a certain way because you are a woman? (A German reviewer once said that he "knew" her first novel, The Blindfold, was written by Hustvedt's husband, novelist Paul Auster.)
This is extremely difficult to answer. This is why sexism can become so riddled. Many writers will tell you they think women writers are treated differently. I get asked: "What advice do you have for young women writers?" I answer: "Would you ever ask a male writer, 'What advice do you have for young male writers?'" Women are in an unequal position and so giving that advice makes sense. But really these are unconscious forms of sexism.

When did you first know you were a writer?
The fantasy arrived when I was 13. I was in Reykjavik for a summer and it never got dark. There was a whole library of English books and I was a great reader. I suddenly had access to books that were too hard for me before. Lots of Dickens. Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights. Jane Austen. I couldn't stop. I read the abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I read some Mark Twain. While reading David Copperfield in the middle of the night – probably because of the light I had insomnia for the first time – I looked out of the window and thought, "If this is what books can do, this is what I want to do." I published my first poem in The Paris Review in 1980.

What's your favourite waste of time?
If I have open time and I'm in Manhattan, I'll just walk to wherever I'm going, even if I could get there faster on the subway. I just love walking the streets of New York.

Writing for the Ear

I've spent the last four Fridays teaching a creative writing class called "Writing for the Ear" to NCBI service users in Dublin. The aim of the course was that each person write a short piece about an event in their life.  Something from their childhood, something that's happening now, something that affected them or their perceptions and how it changed them. Designed to suit all levels of writing; from the experienced to the novice. I covered how to get started, engaged listening and reading, the narrative arc, language use, editing, critique and constructive criticism.
Listening to other people's stories on StoryCorps and Sunday Miscellany gave us lots of inspiration

I had the most amazing time. It was such a privilege to be able to help each participant write their story and listen to the finished pieces. It was especially great to hear, not only the stories of people who had never written before but, how much they enjoyed doing it!

I'll act as producer as each participant records their story in the NCBI studios. Once the finishing touches are applied we will have a CD book which we hope to launch at the Dun Laoghaire Social Inclusion Week in October, 2014. So keep an eye out on my blog for updates.
In the long term I hope to oversee an archive of stories from unheard voices. Stories that you would never have heard otherwise. Personal experiences and stories that will enrich your own life once you've heard them. I know that sentence sounds grandiloquent, but believe me once you've heard the stories you'll agree.

If you have any enquires about this project please feel free to contact me!


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