The Dublin Writers’ festival is taking place this week, and I am very pleased indeed. Rebecca Miller will be speaking at 6pm on Tuesday evening in Liberty Hall. Since reading Rebecca Miller’s short story ‘She Came To Me’ in The New Irish Book of Short Stories edited by Joseph O’Connor, I have become a firm fan. I’m fascinated to see her in the flesh, because of who she is married to (Daniel Day Lewis) and who she is the daughter of (Arther Miller). Yes, I admit these aren’t very literary reasons, but in my defense I am a curious human being which, no one can deny, is an excellent and most necessary trait for a writer.
In other news I have added a new teenage Summer Camp to my schedule. It will take place on the south side of Dublin in Newpark School, Blackrock, from 4th – 8th July. I used to go to Newpark, back in the day (it is where I met my very handsome husband, Oisín van Gelderen – in the back row of Geography class!) and I have fond memories of the place. I also did my teacher training in Newpark. Unfortunately, then as now, Newpark pupils could spot a student teacher half a corridor away, and yelled with delight when I arrived to teach tranisition year German. I had to coax them off window sills and off the floor, when the whole class decided to push back the furniture and sit in a circle chanting, ‘We Will Not Be Moved’. Nevertheless, I managed it and nothing has ever been as challenging (in the teaching department) since. It will be good to be back in A and B corridor, and to see the school locker where I once found a single red rose on Valentine’s Day. A girl doesn’t forget such moments.
There are other advantages to my teaching in the south side: I can stay with my lovely parents who live in the neighbourhood , and go swimming in the Forty Foot after class. It has great options for diving and jumping off rocks into the sea (we don’t have anywhere as good for that in Skerries) and I can pop into Teddies for an ice-cream afterwards.
So this is a call out to all keen writing students on the south side of the city. I’m looking forward to meeting you!
Roll on July!
