Tag: writing community

About writing, The everyday

A social experiment – first results

by clareodeaLeave a Comment on A social experiment – first results

For the past month, I’ve been experimenting on social media by posting videos on a regular basis. I’d been threatening to do this for a while but something* always held me back. Fourteen reels later, I am still finding my feet and trying to figure out the point of it all.

Among the videos I’ve shared are a couple of informative chats about the Swiss German dialect. These were instant ‘hits’ with views in the thousands and friendly reactions. I couldn’t believe that I was able to reach that many people so quickly. I think if your topic is clear, you will be matched with the right audience for that topic. I’m still playing around with topics.

I did two short readings from Before the Leaves Fall and these did not get people excited. Direct communication seems to be what people respond to. Especially if you have some news. A post I did about The Naked Irish going out of print was popular. It was lovely to hear from people who had read and appreciated the book.

In another reel, filmed when it was about 30 degrees at 8pm, I explained the link between Voting Day and Before the Leaves Fall. The novels are set 60 years apart with the two youngest characters in Voting Day, Ruedi and Margrit, returning in their old age as the main characters of Before the Leaves Fall.

It’s been fun filming these videos and figuring out the technical challenges. My videos are far from slick but I like coming up with ideas and I’ve got quicker at putting everything together. But why am I actually doing it?

Partly for the same reason I started writing this blog 13 years ago. It’s an outlet, a channel of communication and a record of what’s happening in my writing life. I enjoy seeing what others are doing so why not add my own drop to the never-ending flood of content.

It’s also a way of pushing back against obscurity – in the knowledge that no-one else will do this for me. In my day job working for a Swiss book wholesaler, I see the conveyor belt of new titles speeding along faster than readers and booksellers can keep up with. People won’t stumble across my book unless I put it in their path to trip over.

For authors published by small presses, if you want your book to have a long tail, ie. not disappear from sight completely, you need to stay active in different ways. Social media is one channel that I can control – and it’s free. I’ve enjoyed this month of producing content and I plan to keep going for now.

These videos are light in nature. They only show a slice of my life but they do reflect that fact that I am living through a tranquil phase and I am very grateful for that. I know that there is no escaping the vicissitudes of life, which makes the good times all the more precious.

If you’re not following me already, drop by and say hello on Instagram. And if you have any gentle feedback on which reels work best or ideas of new things to try, do let me know.

*actually many things held me back, probably the same things that hold many people back. They may also kick in again any time: low or fragile mood, discomfort about my appearance, lack of inspiration, fear of being seen to be foolish, a desire for privacy, distrust and dislike of social media companies – the list is long!

About writing, Book reviews

What others say about Before the Leaves Fall

by clareodea6 Comments on What others say about Before the Leaves Fall
At the Zürich James Joyce Foundation event with Rafaël Newman in February 2026

In this post, I’m giving the floor to those who have been kind enough to write about my novel since publication day. These literary sommeliers genuinely love books. Their engagement is a safety net for authors and a fantastic resource for readers. If you follow them, you will be rewarded with great insights and recommendations.

The book reviewers and cultural voices in question are Linda Hill of Linda’s Book Bag, Cathy Brown of 746 Books, Susan Osborne of A Life in Books, Madame Bibliophile Recommends and Zürich-based Rafaël Newman.

The highest praise came from Linda’s Book Bag review. I’m amazed and extremely grateful for Linda’s generous review. “Before the Leaves Fall is magnificent. It’s one of those quiet books that permeates the reader’s soul and ensures an indelible impact. I adored it.”

“A book about a person – Margrit – deciding that they wish to die before the autumn, thereby avoiding yet another winter, perhaps sounds grim and unappealing. Before the Leaves Fall, however, is absolutely not depressing and miserable. Instead, it is a beautifully written insight into humanity, our flaws and the means to atone and come to terms with both ourselves and others. Not a single word is wasted in this exquisite narrative.”

And I was truly honoured by Cathy Brown’s review on 746 Books. Cathy runs several popular reading and reviewing initiatives on her blog such as Reading Ireland Month and Novellas in November.

“Clare O’Dea’s Before the Leaves Fall is one of those quietly affecting novels that seems modest on the surface but grows richer with every chapter. Like Voting Day, her debut, it shines a gentle light on the unnoticed corners of people’s lives, and although it’s not a direct sequel, it carries that same emotional intelligence and sense of humanity that made her debut so impressive and features one of the same characters, now at a later stage in her life.”

A Life in Books blog has been a fantastic source of recommendations for me over the years, which makes it all the more special that Susan has given Before the Leaves Fall her seal of approval in this review.

“This could very easily have become one of those issue-led novels with two-dimensional characters there to make a point but O’Dea neatly dodges that, exploring the complexities of both Ruedi and Margrit’s lives. The narrative alternates between the two, both engaging characters who change over the course of the summer. … I enjoyed this brief, moving and humane novella with its depiction of a choice made without duress, eased by an empathetic character who learns much from the experience of facilitating that choice.”

In her dual review of Before the Leaves Fall and Voting Day, Madame Bibliophile Recommends picked up on the gaps in communication within families, which so often leads to resentment and misunderstanding.

“Before the Leaves Fall follows the developing friendship between Margrit and Ruedi, as they both reflect on seemingly uneventful lives and how well these have been lived, as well as what living there is left to do. It’s deeply moving in its portrayal of how we hurt the ones we love and how insurmountable gaps in communication can seem.

As different relationships grow and develop through Before the Leaves Fall, they are evoked with compassion but without sentimentality.”

And finally, in his essay for 3 Quarks Daily, The Written Voice, Rafaël Newman finds special significance in Margrit’s own writings in the ‘life audit’ notebook gifted to her by Ruedi. Initially I had my doubts about this part of the storytelling but my editor was in favour of it. It did allow me to capture Margrit’s voice as vividly as possible.

“And as her initially cursory notes on the various decades of her life grow into something richer, as recollections of chance encounters become vignettes with a profound philosophical resonance, Margrit’s resolve is strengthened: not necessarily in the binary particulars of her decision—whether or not to end her life, which remains unknown until the novel’s conclusion—but in her assumption of a more generalized agency. An agency in which her own memory, her own will, and her own perspective are central.”

Rafaël Newman also analysed Voting Day in this essay about voting in Switzerland, and I’m very grateful to him for exploring the themes of my novels in such depth. All these contributions help rescue the work from potential oblivion and make the rewards outweigh the risks. If you’d like to support Before the Leaves Fall, I’d be happy to see more reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. Every mention and every star counts in keeping the book afloat.

I’d like to finish with one more paragraph from the 746 Books review: “Before the Leaves Fall ultimately becomes a story about acceptance and about facing the choices that we have made in life with a clear eye and an open heart. It is compassionate, finely observed, and deeply humane and a lovely companion to Voting Day.”