There was great glee and fun last week in the Lewis Household. A short story collection. An Irish short story collection. A local launch of an Irish short story collection.
The Girl missing from the Window by Paul O’ Reilly was launched in the Presentation Centre in Enniscorthy during Focal Literary Festival.
Paul O Reilly is a writer of stories, drama, screen plays and is also a talented musician and techy guy. He has a busy family and runs his own company. He has been published in every single good literary magazine there ever was and has been listed for every single good fiction competition there ever was. He is also a terribly nice man. We could be jealous but let’s not.
He read a couple of excerpts from his collection, “What Rosie Did” seems to the be the one that is being pulled out everywhere and rightly so, it is very interesting and does reel you right in. I have read nearly half the collection already, which is pretty good as I have been terribly busy with painting pebble dash at the front of the house, raising a baby, boot camping with buggy buddy babies and meeting my fiction group to get all critiqued! I am also completing a short story at present, facilitating a professional development techy course for primary teachers online and preparing a teaching demo for my upcoming place at the Summer Writing Institute in Maynooth University at end of the month.
However, I will be posting my thoughts on Paul’s collection and getting stuck into Edge Hill Short Story Readers’ Prize, Madeleine D’arcy’s debut short story collection.
Summer 2015 could be called the year of the Irish short story collections!