Category: Contemplation

Collaboration, Contemplation, Exhibitions, Writer Interview, Writing Life, Writing News

St. Brigid’s Day Celebrations

I’m delighted to discuss Mantles: Encountering Brigid with Meath Libraries Executive Librarian Mary Murphy as part of Meath Libraries and Meath County Council St Brigid’s Day Celebrations. See YouTube below to watch our discussion which will premiere on Feb 1st 2022 at 6pm.

On the evening of February 1st, I will be talking about my research on Brigid, and Creative Ireland (Kildare County Council) funded project Mantles, to members of ATGI Tour Guides of Ireland.

Many thanks to Meath County Council and ATGI for the invitations!

Image of Cover of Mantles: Encountering Brigid

As part of my celebrations of Imbolc, Brigit and St Brigid, I will also be attending events and exhibitions and furthering my reading:

Wishing everyone a much healing, health, and heart this St Brigid’s Day and Imbolc.

Contemplation

Rest, Reset, Renew: the creative self

Photograph of Killarney Lakes, Killarney National Park, County Kerry (c) Shauna Gilligan

Flannery O’Connor states in her wonderful essay “The Nature and Aim of Fiction”,

Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.

And it strikes me that the dust and muck still stick even after the drafts of fiction have been written. Perhaps it’s only by getting out into the air, feeling the cold, and the wind, and seeing all the mess and the beauty that surround us that we can begin to see, really see, what is there in our creative space.

Julia Cameron maintains that “art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself.” And incubation takes time, energy, and space. We need to rest, reset and renew ourselves and our energy so that our creative selves can be open enough to let our creations emerge. It is only then we can accept – and then fine tune – the manuscript that sits before us.

Contemplation, On Reading

Reading: Immersion into other worlds

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately and, as always, I find that after a long, intense spell of being immersed in writing fiction I need a complete break.

This break tends to be baking (yum! everyone benefits!), gardening (nice looking sunflowers growing happily!) and, after a few days of being brought from mind to body, reading.

Photograph of five books: Trading Time by Owen Martin, Let me tell you what I mean by Joan Didion, The Unlimited Dream Company JG Ballard, The End Of The World is a Cul De Sac by Louise Kennedy, Yours ‘Til Hell Freezes: Kevin Barry by Síofra O’Donovan.

I’m enjoying the other world immersion and the mix of genres I’ve selected. I am enjoying, to quote Roland Barthes

the change in the level of perception…both reading and writing are redefined together.

I am also looking forward to my next few Writers Chat interviews which are based on reading some of the books in the photograph above.

Whatever you are reading – be it book, newspaper, online, hardcopy, paperback, on screen – after immersing yourself in another world, relish the change in your perception of your world.