On and off I had been making notes and reading around an idea for a novel, and had accumulated 10,000 words or so. It occurred to me that I could not presume that I would have a long life.
Earlier that year I had been diagnosed with melanoma, which required painful surgery and a break from work. At that time I had 20 or so stories, a dozen of which seemed to sit well together – the makings of a collection, I suppose. It is set in the north of Ireland in the 1970s on the night a young woman’s life is changed by a murder she is witness to. In September 2019, I was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for a piece called In Silhouette. I suspect it is due in no small part to a textbook studied by everyone who reached the age of 14 in an Irish school between 19 – Exploring English 1.” Was there pressure on you after publishing your story collection to turn out a novel or was it a natural progression for you? You said: “Irish people get short stories. You previously told Big Issue North how you stumbled into writing at age 47 and quickly found you were able to write short stories.
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