fourW thirty: Pearl – Annual Anthology published by Booranga Writers’ Centre CSU Campus Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia. Thrilled to have a short story included in the special 30th edition of fourW. Some of my earliest poetry was published in Volume 1 thirty years ago when I lectured in Design at CSU.
https://arts-ed.csu.edu.au/booranga/home
The Silent Mouth my first flash fiction has won the 2019 Kanturk Flash Fiction Prize.kanturkarts.ie/winning-entrie Huge thanks to judge @NualaNiC
Tin Jug Studio I spent a productive week’s residency here in July 2017.
XBorders Showcase – In 2017 I read at the inaugural cross-border initiative funded by ACNI and the Irish Arts Council at the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin.
With an MA in Creative Writing (Prose) from the Seamus Heaney Centre QUB and an interest in social history my novels explore historical blind spots from unfamiliar viewpoints.
Hoarfrost – Caught between the forces of cruelty and compassion in Famine era Ireland a woman photographer’s determination to bear witness comes at huge emotional cost.
Hoarfrost was a finalist the 2017 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair.
The Bee Orchid – The search for an orchid in 1790s Ireland transforms an English botanist into a revolutionary and unites him with his feral daughter.
The Bee Orchid received an Irish Arts Council Literary Bursary in 2011 and was a finalist the 2013 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair.
Iceland was shortlisted for the 2016 Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and broadcast on RTE Radio in October of the same year.
My short stories have been shortlisted for the Raymond Carver Short Story Award, the 2003/4 Brian Moore Short Story Award and the Fish Short Story Prize.
The River and Other Stories Guildhall Press (2010) was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award and read at the inaugural Publishing NI tour in 2011.
The River and Other Stories – examines the intricacies of narratives between people and place across time and territory. In the title story, which explores the trauma of ‘The Troubles,’ an ageing house painter discovers the River Foyle to be the only true bridge. Elsewhere, a young couple reconcile the past through music, a dusty academic finds release working with a Czech puppeteer, and a surprise awaits the 1948 Tillies Shirt Factory Queen.
These stories display a scrupulous sympathy for characters and the small rewards they find in their attempts to keep going. With great delicacy, these stories ask the question: What saves us from drowning in the past? Sean O’Reilly
Seán Mackel 