Hello and welcome to my website
I’d like to be offering you refreshments as I’m in a mood to celebrate!
After thirty years of being for hire, mostly to fix other people's grammar and typos, my pen is at last off the leash. And I’m relishing the freedom of being a born-again writer.
First step in my new status is a novel, Lena’s House (Jasap Press, 2022).
Somehow in the midst of miscellaneous day jobs, which often stretched long into the night and over weekends, I managed occasionally to publish short stories, reviews, articles in various anthologies and newspapers, and a novel, Breaking Out (Blackstaff, 1996).
While an idea for another and very different novel bubbles away in the background, I plan to enjoy creating new stories some short, some long.
My latest (ad)venture is What's the Story? on Substack. Here you will find a community of people who love to read and write and share in a fortnightly discussion of books, mostly fiction but also some poetry and essays. Once a month I will post one of my own stories or an episode from a novel.
For me, writing fiction is an act of discovery. Characters arrive unbidden and fully-formed in my imagination insisting that I follow them, often in surprising directions. Like magnets then, they draw incidents I have heard, seen, dreamt or lived, into their orbit, along with details I have never witnessed or consciously devised.
When not reading or writing I like to spend time with my wonderful husband, cooking for friends, walking our dogs, and travelling.
I'm excited to be introducing my new novel, which tells the story of a mature, witty, irrepressible Dubliner, Lena O'Neill. We meet her as she plans to embark on a new phase in her life, enjoying the freedom of retirement and no family obligations. Or so she imagines. Like many such plans hers are thrown into chaos by scheming neighbours and her politically ambitious brother who all have designs on her house.
They, in turn, are bewitched by an upstart investment guru, who seems to have the whole country in thrall.
Meanwhile, Lena gradually pieces together the truth of a harrowing event that has dogged her life until now and may yet determine her future.
Click HERE to read a chapter from the novel. And HERE to read a personal account of Dublin in the heady days of Lena's youth.
I will update Lena's journey regularly with blog posts, so click HERE to read more.
To buy Lena's House click on one of the buttons provided here or order from your local bookshop.
