Category: About writing

About writing

A radio interview and a publishing dilemma

by clareodea7 Comments on A radio interview and a publishing dilemma
The Swiss version, featuring a house from Mary Shelley’s time, if not before.

Today my family WhatsApp groups are full of photos of the snow in Ireland. If there’s one thing that makes Irish people happy, it’s snow. Another thing Irish people love is talking. Which is why we have so much talk radio to choose from.

I recently did an interview with Dublin South FM which I’m pleased to share with you. Rhyme and Reason is the name of the show and it features a different writer each week talking about their life and work. I got to choose three pieces of music and a Swiss poem. Many thanks to the presenter Helen Dwyer for the invitation!

Last month, I also got to meet and interview the talented Dutch writer Anne Eekhout (rhymes with stakeout, I discovered) at the Société de Lecture in Geneva. Anne’s fourth novel, Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein, has been translated into English.

Every time I read or meet an author writing in a language other than English, I am reminded of how rare and difficult it is for them to have their books translated into English. The translation traffic is overwhelmingly one-way, and it’s a real shame.

A life of extremes

Anne’s new book is a fictional reimagining of the life of Mary Shelley, set between Dundee in 1812 and Geneva in 1816. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley had an extraordinary biography, starting with her parentage and the radical opinions she was exposed to at home.

After running away from home with Percy Shelley at 16, Mary’s youth was marked by intense self-education, intense romantic feelings, intense grief, adventurous travel and hard work. You can only marvel at her resilience and productivity.  

I have to agree with Mary Shelley’s biographer Miranda Seymour, who reviewed the novel for the Financial Times, that Anne Eekhout did an amazing job inhabiting Mary’s spirit and bringing us into her world.

To be or not to be?

As for that dilemma I mentioned, it’s an age-old question: What to do if you can’t find a place for your book in the market. Should you conclude it was never meant to be, and move on the next project? I’ve done that before, more than once, and it hurts! But if I hadn’t moved on and written something new, I would never have been published.

Then again, sometimes it’s wrong to abandon your work to gather cobwebs. If you did a good job, what a waste! At the Geneva Writers’ Group conference last November, I attended a workshop with April Eberhardt who is a US-based author advocate (great job title).

April has observed that traditional publishing is moving too slowly and new models are filling the void. She sees this as a good thing because it’s giving authors more control and more choice.

According to April, authors should of course try their dream publishing option first. But if that fails, you need a Plan B. I have written a children’s novel that I would now describe as ‘Prophet Song’ for kids. It’s about a brother and sister on the run in a country controlled by a sinister, all-powerful company. I haven’t been able to find a publisher for this story, even though it’s timely with the current drift away from democracy in so many countries. And it’s a great adventure story.

So, what better focus group to ask. What do you think I should do? Should I self-publish this book even though it’s in a new genre for me and would involve a fair amount of effort and some expense? Or should I wait for publishing prince charming to come and rescue me?

Any advice appreciated!

About Switzerland, About writing, Book reviews

Miscellany of book news for the new year

by clareodea3 Comments on Miscellany of book news for the new year

We’re running out of January days which is not necessarily a bad thing. But what I do like about January is that it holds the promise of a new start – a new year where we all get a second chance, or a 52nd chance in my case.

Until a few weeks ago, I had virtually no plans for 2024. Now, I’m glad to say, I have a few literary dates in the diary, and pop-up event in March connected to the Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg.

On February 14th, I’ll be interviewing Anne Eekhout about her book Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein. The event is taking place in the Société de Lecture in Geneva, and it should be popular with the locals, seeing as Mary Shelley started writing her iconic novel in that part of the world at the tender age of eighteen.

Interviews and history

When I was asked to do the Eekhout interview, I bought Miranda Seymour’s biography of Mary Shelley. I’ve been blown away by how daring and talented this 19th century woman was. Running away with a married poet at sixteen precipitated a life very much out of the ordinary but also plagued with loss. I’m still waiting for the Eekhout translation (from Dutch) to arrive. Tickets and more info on the event available here.

Also at the Société de Lecture, I will be interviewing Deborah Levy on May 29th. I’m a huge fan of Levy’s writing, especially her memoir trilogy. Really looking forward to both these conversations.  

My third literary interview of the first half of this year is with Bern-based Kim Hays whose third book, A Fondness for Truth is coming out in April. Kim is having her Swiss launch on June 13th in the Progr venue in Bern. Her Polizei Bern crime novels are cracking good reads, showing the murky side of Swiss life.

Then there is the event connected to the Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg. We haven’t got an exact date yet but it will be in the week of March 11th to 17th – Ireland Week. All being well, we’ll have a pop-up historical exhibition in Fribourg about Ireland’s early ties to the European Continent. Think saints and scholars. Details to follow soon.

Writing talk

As for my own writing, I’m still working on my second novel and hope to submit it soon. It’s a story about human connection, where we rejoin two of the characters from Voting Day whose paths cross again in the present day.

I’m also very pleased to have a memoir essay published in the Sunday Miscellany Anthology, edited by Sarah Binchy, which won Irish Book of the Year at the Irish Books Awards in November. It’s nice to have a tiny share of the glory (100+ contributors), even if it’s from a distance. My essay Northern Sky is about the time I went to Russia as a student in the early 1990s and met some Irish language enthusiasts there. You can listen to me reading the piece on radio here.

Speaking of radio, I will be interviewed on Dublin South FM on February 23rd. You can listen live to the programme Rhyme and Reason with Helen Dwyer or listen to the podcast after the show has aired. It’s a chat about books, life and Switzerland with some poetry and music.

Apart from the culture and books, I am carrying on with my regular freelance work and weighing up other options. One thing I’m looking at is possibly to train as a secular funeral celebrant in Switzerland. There’s a long story behind that, which I’ll tell another time.

Very best wishes for 2024! If you’ve any exciting plans or good news, do let me know in the comments.

About Ireland, About Switzerland, About writing

Festival time: when Ireland came to Fribourg

by clareodea6 Comments on Festival time: when Ireland came to Fribourg
At the welcome desk in Equilibre (photo credit: Patrice Bechtiger Photography)

Exactly this time last week, the Irish festival in Fribourg was in full swing. I was in La Spirale Jazz Club enjoying an exhilarating performance by The Dixie Micks. At the end of the sold-out concert, I ended up on stage with fellow organisers Julie and Deirdre for a rendition of Whiskey in the Jar. I can’t remember the last time I was part of such a joyful gathering.

The day had started at the university building with a writing workshop, followed by two public lectures and an interview with John Boyne. Later, there were two more author events in Equilibre Theatre, and two films (A Date for Mad Mary and Redemption of a Rogue) before The Dixie Micks concert.

Before that, bright and early, I was standing at a bus stop with a sandwich board and a bunch of large cut-out arrows in bright orange card. Things got so busy on Sunday afternoon that I needed my bicycle to travel quickly between the The Celtic Cello concert set-up, the Welcome Desk at Equilibre Theatre and the Cinema Rex to announce the Irish-language film The Quiet Girl.

From the launch party on Friday afternoon to finally packing away the welcome desk on Sunday evening, I had seen friends, guests, volunteers and visitors happily take over the streets of Fribourg, secure in their welcome. In the 20 years I’ve lived here, it’s never felt more like home.

The Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg (IFF) has gradually taken over my life in the past year. Before the festival fades into a blur of indistinct moments in my memory, I want to get some highlights down in colour. I want to remember how amazing it was.

I hope you enjoy these photos, some taken by friends, some by our official photographers Rromir Imami and Patrice Bechtiger.

John Boyne signing books after his interview with Helen Stubbs Pugin (Photo credit: Rromir Imami)
The Celtic Cello performance in l’Hôpital des Bourgeois (Photo credit: Rromir Imami)
With Deirdre Coghlan (L), Julie Hunt (R) and The Dixie Micks (Photo credit: @seaagency1)
Padraig Rooney and Nuala O’Connor (Photo credit: Patrice Bechtiger Photography)

Captive audience at the lecture by Shane Walshe of the Swiss Centre of Irish Studies (Photo credit: Rromi Imami)
The writing workshop with Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (Photo credit: Rromir Imami)
Véronique Platschka of Tourism Ireland and Shane Walshe at the Welcome Desk (Photo credit: Patrice Bechtiger Photgraphy)

A week on, today, the festival team – temporarily scattered by illness and other work commitments – got together to review the weekend. The verdict: we couldn’t have asked for a better first edition of the festival, we expect to come back in 2025 (tbc) and we need time to tend to the neglected parts of our lives – in my case writing.

A thousand thanks to all who came to Fribourg for the festival, to the volunteers, our local partners, the guests of honour, the visitors and those who made the inaugural IFF possible through financial and practical support:

Loterie Romande, Tourism Ireland, l’Agglomération de Fribourg, l’Etat de Fribourg, Culture Ireland, Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme, Colm and Ella Kelleher, the Irish Embassy Berne, Max Geilinger Stiftung, IFI International, McGonigle Watches and the Swiss Centre of Irish Studies. 

About Ireland, About Switzerland, About writing, Book reviews

Behind the scenes: the slow business of show business

by clareodea4 Comments on Behind the scenes: the slow business of show business

The first quarter of the year is over and the Irish Festival Fribourg/Freiburg is taking shape. A lot has been accomplished since I last wrote about the festival in October. Even though there is plenty more to do, and it feels as if new tasks are added to the list daily, we are also seeing the first results of the winter’s work.

I’ve attended my fair share of cultural events over the years but only once before actually worked on the organisational side. That was in 2003, the last job I had before I left Ireland for good, when I worked as a producer for Gúna Nua theatre company. I’d forgotten how enjoyable and satisfying it is to make things happen! But, my God, where did that 20 years go?

The most important breakthrough this year was that the Agglomération de Fribourg, the equivalent of the city council, decided to back the festival. Without their support, other potential funders would automatically have said no.

We got the news on March 9th after sending in our 25-page application at the end of November with 13 supporting documents. More supporting documents were requested in January, including a contract with one of the venues. The project was discussed at three meetings before we finally got the good news. A champagne moment. 

Group effort

Having the support of the Irish Embassy, Tourism Ireland, Fribourg Tourism and the Irish Film Institute International helped make our case much stronger. There are still some funding decisions to come in and possibly more applications to send out. In the meantime, we are getting everything else lined up – the programme, the venues, the website, publicity, ticketing, volunteers, insurance, travel … the list goes on.

Now it’s as sure as sure can be: Ireland is coming to Fribourg for the weekend of 6-8 October. Save the date! We’ll be announcing the programme in June, which is suddenly around the corner. Just a note that I’m not using the royal we. I’m joined in the whole enterprise by two brilliant Fribourg women – Julie Hunt and Deirdre Coghlan. Follow the festival Facebook page to hear more about our progress.

Book anniversary

In other news, it’s a year since Voting Day was published by Fairlight Books, and two years since the Swiss edition came out. I’m visiting two Swiss schools in the next few weeks to talk to students who’ve studied the novel and I’ve been invited to a university in Poznań in Poland later this month for the same reason. I’m delighted the story is still making waves, and I love meeting readers of all ages.

On my own reading pile, I’ve been working my way through the excellent Wyndham-Banerjee series of crime novels, set in Calcutta in the 1920s. I was lucky enough to interview the author Abir Mukherjee at the Société de Lecture in Geneva last week. We were in the beautiful yellow room you see above. I don’t have photos of the event yet.

More reading tips

My standout read of the year so far is Haven by Emma Donoghue, an extraordinary, captivating story set in seventh-century Ireland, featuring three monks on a quest to found a monastery in the most inhospitable place possible – Skellig Michael off the coast of Kerry. It was amazing to be transported back that far in history. Donoghue must be one of the most accomplished writers of historical fiction working today. I can also highly recommend the film adaptation of her 2016 novel, The Wonder.

And there’s a treat in store for fans of Swiss crime fiction with the publication of the second title in the Polizei Bern series by Kim Hays this month. Sons and Brothers centres on the suspicious death of an eminent (but not very likeable) heart surgeon whose body is pulled from the Aare in Bern on a winter’s night. The investigation leads detectives Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli back to the doctor’s childhood home in the Emmenthal region.

Time for me to wrap up and wish the readers of this blog a pleasant Easter break. This is birthday season in our home with three birthdays coming up next week, so my to-do list is taken over by presents, cakes and parties for the next while. A very welcome change.

About writing

Three books that offer an antidote to apathy

by clareodea2 Comments on Three books that offer an antidote to apathy
No books were harmed in the taking of this photograph

Do you find it hard to read about the climate crisis? When I really take it in, I feel overwhelmed. I support word for word what the campaigners say yet I make no meaningful contribution of my own. A version of the bystander effect.  

I’m currently reading Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist, a “miraculous memoir” that describes the 14-year-old writer’s fascination with the natural world and his urgent desire to protect it. I feel the same sorrow and worry, though not as nobly or intensely as McAnulty does.

I would support the most radical systemic changes but the path to those changes seems blocked. In the face of that failure, making small individual changes seems futile. I’m willing to do anything but I end up doing nothing.

Ece Temelkuran describes a telling moment in the opening of her book Together: A Manifesto Against the Heartless World. She’s at her local recycling bins in Zagreb, a few weeks into lockdown and just a week after the 2020 earthquake. The world has gone to hell and she and a stranger, in their crooked masks and messed-up hair, start laughing helplessly when they make eye contact. A dust cloud still hangs over the city, everything is in chaos, and “here we are at the start of the twenty-first century, looking like the garbage of human history”.

On Time and Water

Up in Iceland, Andri Snær Magnason is applying his sharp mind and passion to pushing back against the climate crisis with words. Magnason’s book, On Time and Water was a national bestseller in Iceland in 2019 and it’s been translated into about 30 languages. The words from Iceland have travelled far.

Magnason campaigned against the destruction of the Icelandic highlands. He ran for president of the country in 2016 on a platform of environmental issues. What comes across strongly in his book is that he cares deeply about his family – past, present and future. I interviewed Magnason at Le Livre sur les Quais festival this year in Morges.

The Icelandic author and filmmaker uses a conversation with his daughter as an illustration of the passage of time in the world. His grandmother’s long life (94) has overlapped with his young daughter’s life, and she might know and love a child in her family who will still be alive in 2186.

“Imagine that. Two hundred and sixty-two years. That’s the length of time you connect across. You’ll know the people who span this time. Your time is the time of the people you know and love, the time that moulds you.”

This exercise is meant to make the vague future closer and more real. Magnason rightly understands the impossibility of writing about climate change because it’s too big to comprehend. The phrase climate change has become white noise. “The issue’s enormity absorbs all the meaning.”

He writes about the subject by going “past it, to the side, below it, into the past and the future, to be personal but also scientific and to use mythological language.”

The points made in On Time and Water spark uncomfortable reflections. “Anyone who understands what’s at stake would not prioritise anything else. We have the antithesis of mass hysteria; we have mass apathy.”

And then Magnason goes on to explain what is a stake, and it’s frightening. But he still believes that when our backs are against the wall, which they very nearly are, humans will work together. The breakthrough just announced in nuclear fusion energy offers a glimmer of hope.

The right direction

The book is rich in storytelling but also interwoven with facts about what Magnason calls “humanity’s contemporary bomb of consumption and waste”.

Half of the CO2 in the atmosphere is due to emissions since 1990. China used more cement in each of the three years after 2004 than the US used throughout the whole twentieth century. Ocean acidification is “more frightening than words can say”.

Throughout the book, Magnason reminds us that “business interests and human comfort have been seen as more important than the ocean, the atmosphere and all the world’s grandchildren for all time.”

But thankfully, he does counter that with optimism: “The world is not just an out-of-control and meaningless flood, always in flux; it can be influenced, can be steered in the right direction.”

Magnason writes about people who have made a difference. He makes the argument that we need to rethink everything: nutrition, technology, transport, manufacturing and consumerism. Yes please!

If my own weak actions yet strong feelings are any guide, there is a huge untapped willingness to change and to sacrifice. And I hope that this positive side of humanity will be harnessed before it’s too late. We can be useful and we can make a difference.

I’ll be writing one more post this year about some of the best novels I’ve read in 2022. Thank you for continuing to follow this blog and to support my writing. Leaving you for now with a picture of my local forest in the snow. Happy Christmas!

About writing

All kinds of everything from TEDx to theatre

by clareodeaLeave a Comment on All kinds of everything from TEDx to theatre
Geneva Graduate Institute in March 2022

One of the challenges of working as a freelance writer is that you constantly have to renew and redirect your career. It does not happen by itself. At the beginning of this year, I set myself the goal of writing more journalism because 2021 had been a bit of a fallow year for journalism after taking a detour into science writing and communications for a while.

I also wanted to write another book in 2022, and I put together a proposal for a Swiss true crime book. In hindsight, I’m glad that project didn’t work out because the crimes were gruesome and I think writing about them would have taken its toll.

If I do manage to produce the bones of a book this year – and time is running out – it’s more likely to be fiction, as I have something percolating in the back of my mind and I’m waiting for news on a related funding application, coming next month. Fingers crossed!

One really positive development was that I completed my first literary translation, a long-standing goal. I had the pleasure of translating a play by Joëlle Richard from French to English. I have translated non-fiction books in the past but this was a different kind of challenge. Very rewarding.

The play Mångata (a Swedish word for the road-like reflection of the moon on the water) tells the story of a Venetian woman who falls in love with a mermaid. It’s a bittersweet contemporary fairy tale about love, lockdown, isolation, self-hatred, gender fluidity, tolerance, female desire and empowerment. It packs a punch, and will be performed in Fribourg in the original French in September.

Opinion writing

On the journalism front, I have become a regular contributor to The Local Switzerland and I’d like to share some of my opinion pieces here in case you might be interested. If you’re based in Switzerland, it would be worth subscribing to the website which produces extensive coverage of Swiss news plus a lot of material that’s helpful to Swiss residents.

It’s also possible to read a couple of articles to get a taste without hitting the paywall. Some recent articles of mine include pieces about the climate crisis, food security, abortion, the European Union and Ukraine. The picture below is the river I mention in the climate story.

I was also thrilled to be able to write about Voting Day in the Irish Times around the time of publication. I find it interesting and disappointing that although Irish women had the vote 50 years before Swiss women, it hardly did them any good. Cold climate for Swiss and Irish women with or without the vote – The Irish Times

TEDx

An expected opportunity came along in March, when I was invited to give a TEDx talk by students at the Geneva Graduate Institute. My topic was the lack of voting rights for foreigners and TED chose to feature the talk on their website, which meant it was only released online two weeks ago. Check it out! (If the embed doesn’t work, you can click on the hyperlink in the previous sentence.)

To round off this writing news update, a reminder that Le Livre sur les Quais festival is taking place next month in Morges. I’ll be interviewing four writers in two events this year. The guest country of honour this year is Iceland so it’s a wonderful opportunity to discover Icelandic writers. The English programme is not up on the website yet; will keep you posted.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, preferably in the shade!

The River Gérine in Marly
About Switzerland, About writing, Book reviews

Introducing Kim Hays, new author of Swiss crime fiction

by clareodeaLeave a Comment on Introducing Kim Hays, new author of Swiss crime fiction
Kim Hays at the launch of Pesticide in Bern (photo credit: Bettina Vollenweider Stucker)

There are lots of reasons why I would like to recommend the work of Swiss-American author Kim Hays. First, she writes great crime fiction, and if you like her debut novel Pesticide, there are more to follow soon in the Linder & Donatelli series. Second, her authentic, clever and gripping police procedurals are set in Bern, a city I know well. Third, she has served her time in the writing trenches and is now enjoying well-earned success. And, finally, she is my friend.

Kim’s heroine in the series is homicide detective Giuliana Linder, ably assisted by her younger colleague Renzo Donatelli. Both characters are sympathetic and have depth and realistic married lives. They grapple with the moral questions thrown up by police work, and the little, or not so little, complication of being attracted to each other. I particularly like Urs, the character of Giuliana’s husband, who is a freelance journalist, working all hours and keeping the home fires burning. Nice to come across a male character in this role.

Swiss noir

The murders are brutal and gruesome as murders inevitably are but the violence is not the focus, nor is it there in any way to titillate – something that puts me off a lot of crime fiction, especially with female victims and sadistic killers. Kim writes the kinds of murders that could happen to people you know, involving murderers you might meet in the corner shop or a Dorffest (village festival).  

Kim has a flair for dramatizing the investigation in a really interesting and human way, building momentum, unravelling all the knots, as her heroes doggedly search for the truth, and hopefully justice.

The suspense-filled stories take place in a Switzerland I recognise, an ordinary, gritty, diverse, and complicated place with secrets beneath the surface. The settings are pleasingly far from the clichés of bankers and Alps.

Double murder

Pesticide. No flowers were harmed in the taking of this picture.

Here’s what you need to know about the opening action of Pesticide …

When a rave on a hot summer night in Bern erupts into violent riots, a young man is found the next morning bludgeoned to death with a policeman’s club. Giuliana Linder is assigned to the case. That same day, an elderly organic farmer turns up dead and drenched with pesticide. An unexpected discovery ties the two victims together.  

If you want to order the book, you can find it in the usual online places. For Swiss deliveries I recommend Books Books Books in Lausanne or Stauffacher / Orell Füssli. The book is in the system so you should be able to order it anywhere in the US or Switzerland. Published by Seventh Street Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

To find out more about Kim Hays, check out her website and blog or read this interview on the Cosy Dragon website. I’ve known Kim since 2016 when I sat beside her at a writing workshop in the Geneva Writers’ Group and we got on like a house on fire.

Summer reads

A little more about my summer reads, which also fall into the category of liking the author before discovering their work. I am just about to start Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale about the life of the enigmatic British WW2 poet Charles Causley. Before that I read the wonderful Edith by Martina Devlin about the life of Edith Somerville around the time of the Irish War of Independence. I keep finding treasures in this booming genre of historical biofiction.

I have another book on the go about real-life conflict but I’m working through it slowly. It’s much harder to read because it’s set in (recent) present-day Ukraine and it brings the reader straight into the horror of what Russia has perpetrated there. The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan is visceral, depressing, eye-opening, staggering. If you think that’s too much to take, Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees is a gentler version of blighted lives in the occupied zones, more sweetly devastating but still hard hitting.

Finally, Voting Day was mentioned on this list of summer reads put together by Isabel Costello on her literarysofa blog, which I’ve been following for years. She found my novella “very moving and beautifully written”. I still can’t believe it when I get a reaction like this. Feeling very grateful.

You’re bound to find some reading inspiration on the list. Lest I forget, Isabel Costello’s highly enjoyable new novel Scent is the quintessential summer read, set between Provence and Paris. A heady summer affair from her youth comes to the surface for Clementine in a disturbing way just at the moment when her own marriage seems to be grinding to a painful, empty halt. Clementine is a successful perfumer with her own shop but the time has come to confront the façades in her life.

Happy summer reading, folks! Do report back if you pick up any of these titles.

About Ireland, About writing

Listowel Writers’ Week – a feast of culture

by clareodea4 Comments on Listowel Writers’ Week – a feast of culture
Sophie Grenham, Clare O’Dea and John Boyne in Listowel

The last time I went to Kerry it was for a week-long diving course. I took the train and bus from Dublin to a tiny place on the coast but the diving school/hostel had lost my booking and given their only instructor the week off. The hostel owner phoned around and found me a place in a school two hours’ drive away in Baltimore. He then drove me all the way to Bantry in Co. Cork where I was handed over to my newly hired teacher to complete the journey. So I’ve had unfinished business with Kerry for the past twenty years and now the universe has paid me back handsomely with a different kind of exhilarating Kerry experience – Listowel Writers’ Week.

This legendary festival has been running since 1971 and it was back in person after a three-year hiatus. The whole town was in high spirits. The fact that the Listowel Races June Bank Holiday Meeting overlapped with the literary festival added to the excitement – and the fashion on display.

Hotel HQ

A lot of the action was centred around the 18th century Listowel Arms Hotel, which overlooks the Town Square and the racecourse. Throw in a few First Communions on the Saturday and I’ve never seen so much finery in one place. All we were missing was a wedding.

Floating serenely through all this activity was the organising team of the Writers’ Week, giving directions, selling tickets, rounding up writers and herding audiences, while manning (mainly wo-manning) and managing the 50+ events on the programme.

There was something happening every minute of the day – workshops, walking tours, author interviews, plays, poetry readings, art exhibitions, and a prize-giving for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year to kick things off on the first evening. The award went to Claire Keegan for her exquisite novel Small Things Like These.

Listowel Arms Hotel

Irish novel of the year

I was lucky enough to see Claire Keegan being interviewed by Rick O’Shea on the Thursday evening. Claire has quite a regal presence and strong ideas; frivolous would be the last word to describe her. We all listened with rapt attention to her carefully chosen words.

She said many things I agreed with – on the importance of structure and how she doesn’t like cryptic books, for example. ‘I want to be moved by the book and I can’t be moved if I don’t understand.’ Hear, hear! She’s also inclined to quiet prose rather than drama and, she says, the subject material never matters. ‘A good book can be about anything.’

Last quote from Claire Keegan: ‘Beautiful sentences make me tired. What I love is a good paragraph.’ Basically, she believes that sentences shouldn’t be competing with each other to display their individual brilliance but should work together to create a pleasing whole (to paraphrase with less perfect words). I like it.

The 12-week challenge

I caught Donal Ryan and Louise Kennedy at a joint event in town’s old dance hall which is now called the Plaza Centre.  One thing Donal said that fascinated me is that it takes 12 weeks to get a novel written, at least the first draft. Apparently, a lot of writers feel 12 weeks is a magic amount of time, if you’re writing in an applied way. When I think about it, the first draft of Voting Day took me 14 weeks to write, so not far off.

Both Donal Ryan and Claire Keegan teach creative writing (oh to be in those classes!) and they both mentioned that they can’t really write while teaching. This seems like such a big sacrifice but they still manage to produce great work so maybe it’s a good balance overall. By the way, Louise Kennedy worked as a chef for 30 years before she wrote anything. She was dragged along to a creative writing class by a friend and never looked back.

Listowel Castle

Heritage town

In between events, there were lovely places to discover in the town – the River Feale walk, Listowel Castle, St. John’s Church, John B. Keane’s pub. Team O’Dea included my mother and two sisters and we enjoyed exploring together.   

I had a great chat with Margaret in the Castle. It was the perfect weekend for striking up conversations with anyone and everyone (hello Audrey!). And if you’re looking out for someone in Listowel, you will definitely bump into them (hello Denis!). You can also be brave and introduce yourself to people you admire (hello Martina Devlin and Patrick Gale!).

In conversation

By the time my event came around on Friday afternoon, I felt totally at home. Sophie Grenham did a brilliant job directing the discussion with John Boyne and myself. We certainly had plenty to talk about but I need someone else to tell me what I said! One thing I do remember is our comments on how to approach writing a character who is quite different to you. In my case, all of them! But as much as there are differences between me and a disenfranchised and uneducated 1950s Swiss farmer’s wife or a young mother from a Yenish background, I believe there are enough things we share that can help me understand and express their frustration, joy and despair. If as writers we can’t tap into that shared humanity, we might as well all pack up and go home.

Tarbert ferry

Slán go fóil

I did eventually have to tear myself away from Listowel and I took the scenic route back – well, there are many – by getting the ferry across the Shannon estuary from nearby Tarbert to Killimer in Co. Clare. It was a happy ending to a joyful festival.

I hope you enjoy my photos of Listowel. I have nothing worth sharing from the events because my phone snaps didn’t come out well. But the hardest working person at the festival was the photographer Ger Holland and you can find all her fantastic pics on the social media accounts at the end of the Writers’ Week page.

And if you still haven’t read Voting Day, it’s available to order in bookshops pretty much anywhere, or through the usual online retailers. For online orders in Ireland, I recommend Kennys.

About Switzerland, About writing, Journalism

Making a better world, fuelled by friendship

by clareodea1 Comment on Making a better world, fuelled by friendship

They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes but I can assure you that you are safe with Ece Temelkuran. When I heard the celebrated Turkish writer was coming to speak in my back yard – not literally, the event was about ninety minutes’ drive away – I knew I had to be there.

Temelkuran took part in the Bibliotopia festival on May 15, hosted by the Jan Michalski Foundation in the beautiful setting of Montricher in the foothills of the Jura mountains. The Bibliotopia programme is in French and English with simultaneous translation. It’s a great place to discover international voices.

Temelkuran played a prominent role in public life as a critic of the Erdogan regime until it was no longer safe for her to stay in Turkey. In her 2019 book How to Lose a Country: The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, she passes on her hard-earned wisdom as a dissident who experienced first-hand the slide towards right-wing authoritarianism. I found the book fascinating and reviewed it for the Dublin Review of Books.

Having listened to the author yesterday speaking about her new book, I have high expectations for my newly-purchased copy. Entitled Together: A Manifesto Against the Heartless World, the book offers a roadmap to a better present and future. She gives us 10 guiding principles and each one is a choice, such as ‘choose dignity over pride’ and ‘choose strength over power’.

I was very interested in what Temelkuran had to say about friendship, which she considers the best medium to redefine our political connections. “Citizenship is not working, political party membership is not working, comradeship is not really working – it sounds so retro now. So how about we become friends?”

There is a chapter in Together about the unique role that friendship, with its lack of hierarchy, obligation, duty or power dynamic could play. It is the only type of relationship where, as Temelkuran says, absolute justice can be found.

“When friendship has a solid foundation that allows it to mature, friends and conversations with friends eventually become the gravitational force in one’s life. Friendship is the most profound confirmation of the individual as a human being. It is the confirmation that you are able to see the beauty in humankind and the ultimate recognition of the fact that you are, as well, human.”

She goes on to talk about enlarging this kind of “warm regard” to the scale of humanity. Just to give you a little bit more …

“What stands at the core of such wide-scale friendship is not sentimental love but a moral stance; a commitment to acquire and maintain a certain perspective on life and humankind.”

Living in a time where the word friend has been stripped of much of its meaning by social media, I find this exploration of the theme of friendship really important and encouraging. I will read more and report back. Or you could start reading Temelkuran yourselves.

Temelkuran spoke about a lot of other things, ably interviewed by Patrick Vallélian of Sept Info. She said that representative democracy had failed in its fundamental promise which was equality. This has left it hollowed out and vulnerable to right-wing populism. When there is no social justice, it is easy for a ruthless leader to come along and exploit the system, manipulating people into making choices against their own interests.

When asked to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she used the words tragic, absurd, incomprehensible and frightening. However, she cautioned against demonising the Russian people, who, she says, should not be equated with Putin.

Temelkuran wrote Together because, “I wanted to heal my politics and my faith in people.” Here’s hoping that her message of faith and courage will travel far.  

About Switzerland, About writing

Three words for Voting Day on publication day

by clareodea5 Comments on Three words for Voting Day on publication day
Voting Day in its natural habitat

If I could describe Voting Day in one word, it would be dignity. That’s what each of my characters has in common, despite all the limitations and frustrations they face. Not that I set out with this theme in mind but this is what Vreni, Margrit, Esther and Beatrice brought to the story.

I only came to this realisation when I had to answer the question in this interview for Fairlight Books. You can also read an extract from the book at the end of the interview. The other two words that sum up the novel are solidarity and hope.

Today, April 1 2022, is publication day for Voting Day with Fairlight Books in the UK, the US, Ireland and beyond. I am over the moon that the novel is going to find new readers outside Switzerland. Though it is a quintessentially Swiss story, the dignity of oppressed women and solidarity between them is a universal phenomenon. As is hope for a better life.

I’d like to share links to some of the reviews I’ve seen so far for the book. This lovely review by Anne Goodwin includes a bonus piece of flash fiction inspired by Voting Day. Anne writes: “Clare O’Dea’s fiction debut is one to savour, with beautiful language and convincing characterisation.”

This one by Craig Smith for the Mechanics’ Institute Review is pretty amazing too: “Each tale is beautifully told by first time author, Clare O’Dea, who skilfully depicts the character of each woman and spins the connections between them into a compelling, coherent narrative.” 

And you might be interested in this opinion piece I wrote for The Local Switzerland about the Swiss response to Ukrainian refugees (there may be a paywall, not always). As the horror of the war drags on in Ukraine, I admire the dignity of the Ukrainian people and I hope for a swift and just end to their ordeal.

To find out about the inspiration behind Voting Day, check out this essay I wrote for the Women Writers website. I’m going to steal the closing paragraphs of that essay for today’s post.

“When I covered historical injustices in the care system as a journalist, I felt deeply sorry for the survivors. Even in the less severe cases, where ‘nothing bad’ happened, there was the pain of being looked down upon, of growing up without love or protection. I ended up writing about one such child in Voting Day.

By the time I sat down to write, I felt familiar with the life and times of my characters. I knew what their homes looked like inside, what they ate, how they spoke and what their worries were. I was also able to borrow from the traces of the past that are still visible today.

It has taken almost two decades of living in Switzerland to bring me close enough to inhabit Swiss characters. Once I set the story in motion, I only had to follow and see what they would reveal. What have I learned? How difficult it is for us as humans to truly see and accept each other. How easy it is to make a difference when we do.”

Many thanks to the team at Fairlight Books for believing in my book and giving it wings, especially to Laura Shanahan, Daniela Ferrante, Sarah Shaw and Louise Boland. And congratulations to my Fairlight Moderns twin Polis Loizou whose fantastic novel A Good Year, set in Cyprus in 1925, is also published today.

Ps. If you’re in Dublin on April 21st, come along to Hodges Figgis at 6pm for the launch of Voting Day with Anne Griffin!