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The Heartsick Diaspora

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I’ve been looking forward to Elaine Chiew’s collection of short stories for a couple of years ever since I read a few in the Unthology anthology brought out by Unthank Press. Elaine is ethnic Chinese from Malaysia, educated in the USA and now lives in the UK. A very modern spread of identities.

Well at last it’s here and I pitched a review to Litro Magazine.

I was attracted to Chiew’s writing by its sheer brilliance and by how it captures the giddy sense of living in a world where everyone is guessing the rules. As I mention in the review, one takeaway point from the stories is that the clash between the older generation’s values and the newer is greater than east-west divide.

Easily the best collection I’ve read this year.

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Mentoring

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I have edited fiction and non-fiction for Mira Publishing UK for some years. I have taught courses in creative writing and been involved in many writing groups. I also proofread commercially in my day job.

I am on the Irish Writers Centre list of professional mentors.

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Writers’ Workbench at IWC

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Enhance your creative/critiquing skillset and knock your writing into shape.
This course takes a hands-on approach covering:
Creativity,
Dialogue & description
Finding your voice,
Style, Structure/plot,
Editing

Practicing editing techniques will be a crucial component and some of the mechanics of dialogue, description, and POV will be covered. The course is suitable for those who have attempted some writing and for those in need of a new approach. Participants will be expected to complete two pieces of fiction or creative non-fiction.

At the Irish Writers Centre on Parnell Square

Bookings via the IWC website: https://irishwriterscentre.ie/collections/spring-2020/products/the-writers-workbench-with-aiden-oreilly-2020

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Irish Times classics revisited

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I see Rob Doyle has a regular column in the Irish Times where he introduces his best-loved books.

Doyle is the author of Here Are the Young Men and the short story collection this is the ritual – link is to to a few notes I made on it. His fictions generally zoom in on the anxieties, manias and apostates of these strange days we live in.

Here’s a list of the columns so far. There are a couple of my own favourites in there too.
And below is how he introduces the series

I read for delight and fascination, even when these demand a toll, opening old wounds or inflicting new ones. The books I’m going to recommend are eclectic. What they’ve got in common, aside from the fact that they were written prior to the 21st century, is that they have all made this human lifespan I find myself undergoing deeper, stranger, grander, and full of amazement.

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Backstory of a book

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This article first appeared on the Writing.ie website in September 2015.
The Backstory of a Book.

It’s been a year since my debut collection of short stories Greetings, Hero was launched to the world. My tales of drifters and deviants incapable of accepting any “central source of validation” were a long time in the making. The oldest was written in the Staatsbibliothek on Unter den Linden in Berlin, during a bitterly cold winter. Some were written in Poznan, one in Prague, and several in Dublin. They were written slowly, left to mature, inspected, pruned with a buzzsaw to meet submission wordcounts, rejected, reconstructed, lost in virtual space, found again, re-edited. Subjected to the above cycle a few times, and perhaps somewhere along the line accepted by a magazine in Ireland, the USA or the UK.

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Writers’ Workbench course with Keegan & myself

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Colm Keegan & myself are teaming up to give a 6-week course in creative writing. Enhance your creative/critiquing skillset and knock your writing into shape.
writersworkbenchdublin@gmail.com

Six-week course, Wednesday 7pm-9pm. Starting Feb 6th. This course takes a hands-on approach covering:
Creativity,
Finding your voice,
Style,
Structure/plot,
Pace,
Dialogue,
Punctuation,
Editing

Schematically Keegan will cover the ‘Creative’ aspects and O’Reilly the ‘Critiquing’ – but the main reason for two instructors is for variety. Held at Block T creative hub, just a minute walk from Fatima Luas stop. Or 5 minutes up from James Hospital / 10 mins from Heuston station.
Contact: writersworkbenchdublin@gmail.com
It starts Wednesday Feb 6th at:
Block T artistic social enterprise
8 Basin View
Dublin 8
Limited places €130

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