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Category Archives: Short Stories
The Entertainments Jar
My first published short story, The Entertainments Jar, was published in The Sunday Tribune newspaper in 1992 as part of the monthly New Irish Writing pages. This has now been running for 40 years and in celebration of that fact, The Irish Independent, where the writing now appears on the last Saturday of every month, publishes a special supplement today featuring many of the writers first published there who have gone on to literary careers, as well as some new voices who will surely be publishing novels in the years ahead. It features writers such as Sebastian Barry, Glenn Patterson, Colum McCann, Joseph O’Connor, Dermot Bolger and my own first short story, republished for the first time in almost 20 years. In 1993, the story was shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award.
The Big Blog Story
Twenty children’s authors who are taking part in this year’s Bath Festival of Children’s Literature are also taking part in an ongoing story project which moves from blog to blog – or rather has been moving from blog to blog – for the last week or two, with each author continuing the story as it travels. It’s my turn today so you can catch up on the entire story by clicking the links below, then read my contribution that follows it:
Part 2 by The Etherington Brothers
Part 4 by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
And now, here’s part 10, written by me!
CHAPTER 10
What is it? Scribble scribbled on his pad and Mr Catch, the legendary fisherman, stepped away and pointed Scribble in the direction of the periscope.
‘Take a look,’ he said.
Scribble pressed his eye to the viewfinder and stared into the depths of ocean, waiting until his eyes adjusted to the dark blues and greens swirling before him. In the distance he could see a pale white light stretching from as far to the left as he could see, to as far to the right, where shoals of fish were swimming towards it, disappearing in the distance.
Is that it? Scribble wrote in his pad.
‘Is that what?’ asked Mr Catch.
The moon.
‘I think it might be.’
It’s closer than I expected.
‘That’s only because of the way the light is dispersing through the water,’ explained Mr Catch. ‘Why, it could take us hours to reach it. Even days. Well, maybe not days. But a long time anyway.’
Scribble wrote nothing now and stared out at the whiteness in the distance. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt an extraordinary need to get close to it as quickly as possible. Where had this all come from? He had never thought much about the moon until recently and now, it was all he thought about. He stepped away and felt his heart start to beat a little slower in his chest; he stepped back, looking at the distant moon again, and it returned to its regular beat. He felt that it was calling out to him somehow, as if it knew that he was the only person who could save it.
‘Scribble!’ cried Mr Catch suddenly and Scribble turned around in surprise for he hadn’t heard the legendary fisherman sound quite so startled in all their adventures so far. He didn’t bother reaching for his pad, he just shrugged his shoulders as if to say What?
‘Scribble, look!’ said Mr Catch, pointing at the submarine’s floor and to his astonishment there was a sprinkling of blue fur scattered around his feet. He shook his head in surprise, for it was exactly the same colour and texture as his own blue fur, but as he did so, more and more started to appear beneath him.
‘It’s coming from you,’ said Mr Catch. ‘Scribble, you’re shedding your fur!’
The next part of the story will appear on Wednesday September 28th on Catherine Bruton’s blog.
The Trib
During 2007 I wrote 50 short short stories, each with a maximum word count of 500 words, that were published in Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper throughout the year. It was a difficult task; some weeks I had lots of ideas, some weeks I had none at all. But I wrote them and it was a hugely enjoyable and educational experience.
Sadly, The Sunday Tribune folded earlier this year and to mark its closure an anthology of the best writing from the newspaper is published this week, featuring four of my short short stories – Oil, Memory, Friends and Gazebo.
You can order the book from Amazon here.
The Aphrodisiac
A new short story, The Aphrodisiac, has been published in the Spanish language newspaper Publico. You can read it here, if you speak Spanish. I’ll put the English language version on the website soon.
The Telegram Man
Exciting news from Australia. Three years ago, while on a book tour of Australia, I met with a young filmmaker called James F Khehtie who was interested in making a short film of a short story of mine called AMERICAN FARM ’44. The story was originally published in an anthology called ‘Wake’ in 2005 and tells the story of a man who is charged with the responsibility of delivering telegrams to families who have lost their sons in the Second World War.
I stayed in touch with James as he developed the script and we met again last summer during my second tour of Australia. By now he had developed storyboards and a location to shoot the film and was in the process of funding the film.
All of that is in place now and the film begins shooting in a small town about 200 kms north of Sydney towards the end of April. The story, originally set (as the title would suggest) on an American farm has been moved to Australia and James, together with screenwriter Victoria McIntyre, has created a deeply moving script which will, I think, lead to a powerful film.
I am Executive Producer of the film, my first time to take on such a role, although I was of course very involved with the feature film of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. Veteran Australian actor Jack Thompson (‘Breaker Morant’, ‘Australia’) is attached to the project and we’re all thrilled that he will play the lead role. Further casting will be announced shortly.
More news of the film be here soon.
A Dead Thing
A new short story, entitled A DEAD THING, is published in today’s Irish Times Christmas edition newspaper.
I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve written about writers and their peculiarities, and it’s definitely the first time I’ve written something to coincide with Christmas. There’s a nice illustration to complement it too (above).
You can also read the story in the Irish Times online edition.
Happy Christmas!
Grist
A new short story of mine entitled THE END OF THE PIER is published in THE GRIST ANTHOLOGY OF NEW WRITING, published by Grist Books in association with the University of Huddersfield. The anthology features work by creative writing students at Huddersfield, alongside established writers including Helen Simpson, Simon Armitage and myself. You can buy it from Amazon or Waterstone’s or other booksellers. I’ll publish the story on the fiction page of my website in a couple of months time.
From The Republic of Conscience
To the National Library last night for the launch of FROM THE REPUBLIC OF CONSCIENCE, a collection of 30 short stories by leading Irish writers, each one exploring a different article in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The stories, which were commissioned by Amnesty Ireland, ran on a weekly basis in the Irish Times last year but this is the first time they’ve been collected together in book format and the book was launched by former Irish President Mary Robinson.
The collection features new work by – amongst others – Maeve Binchy, Dermot Bolger, Eoin Colfer, John Connolly, Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Carlo Gebler, Hugo Hamilton, Seamus Heaney, Jennifer Johnston, Neil Jordan, Claire Kilroy, Colum McCann, Frank McCourt, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, Joseph O’Connor, Glenn Patterson, Colm Toibin and myself. I wrote THE ROUND HALL, based on Article 10, which states that everyone is entitled to a fair trial.
It’s available now in bookshops, also from Liberties Press itself and on Amazon.
Exam Stress
It’s almost 20 years since I did my leaving certificate in Ireland - our close-out exams at the end of school – and I haven’t given it a second thought since. Until this week when I learned that both THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS and one of my short stories which was originally published in The Sunday Tribune last year (PARADISE), featured on this year’s English examination papers. The idea of teenagers all over the country writing essays based on these is a somewhat surreal one. Still, it’s great to see that the English papers are allowing contemporary writers on to the syllabus (I wasn’t the only one – many more contemporary published novelists are poets are being studied in Irish schools. Or their work is anyway.) You can read PARADISE on the short stories page of my website. And you won’t have to answer any questions on it afterwards. Oh, and if you wonder what the accompanying photograph means – read the story.
Human Rights Stories
More on the 30 articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights that 30 Irish writers are, week by week, responding to. I’ve just realised that if you don’t live in Ireland or don’t have access to the Irish Times every Saturday, you can catch up with all the stories at your leisure on Amnesty’s Irish site here.
