I Do Not Think We Remember Our

I'm Very Keenly Aware That There Aren't Very Many Women Writing Literary Fiction In Ireland And So That Gives Me A Sense That What I Say Matters, In Some Small Way.

Story Is About Pulling The Reader In And A Plot Is A More Externalized Mechanism Of Revelation. A Plot Is More Antic, More Performative, And Less Intimate. When You're Telling A Story You're Telling It Into Someone's Ear.

Naming Is Nice. It Took Me Days Before I Was Able To Speak A Name For My First Child (what If People Did Not Like It?), And I Suspect We Gave Her A Secret, Second Name As Well, To Keep Her Safe.

Sometimes I Will Spend Two Or Three Days Not Speaking To Anyone Outside Of The Immediate Family When They Come Home, And Then I Find That I've Been Emailing Like Fury. Once You Give In To That Silence, It's Quite Nice.

Imagine That You Are Dying. If You Had A Terminal Disease Would You ­finish This Book? Why Not? The Thing That Annoys This 10-weeks-to-live Self Is The Thing That Is Wrong With The Book. So Change It. Stop Arguing With Yourself. Change It. See? Easy. And No One Had To Die.