Heroines and The Light Room by Kate Zambreno: An evolution from selfie mode to third-person universality
In her cult-classic text Heroines, Zambreno’s prose is performative; in The Light Room she reflects on motherhood and care
I recently spent an afternoon sobbing over a very big bag of squid
Food plays an important role in identity, and asserting your taste becomes a means of asserting who you are
I Love You I Love You I Love You by Laura Dockrill: A ‘will they, won’t they, tale’, tinged with noughties nostalgia
The legacy of Dockrill’s young adult writing career is evident in chirpy proses that brims with exclamation marks, superlatives and capitalisations
Are we deceiving aliens about the reality of life on this planet? Or just ourselves?
The Golden Record on Voyager 1 brings a curiously optimistic collection of sounds and images for potential discovery by non-Earthlings
Reeling in the Queers by Páraic Kerrigan: a reminder of the stigma and violence gay people faced
This book is as much a celebration of queer joy, as it is an insight into the transgression, trauma and tragedy that shaped queer Ireland over the past fifty years
Imagine if the Government had made real efforts to engage with disabled people
A conversation on reforming the welfare system for people with disabilities is needed – the Green Paper on Disability Reform was not the answer
Handouts, homelessness and other stories from the edge
Brief reviews of: Better Broken than New by Lisa St Aubin de Terán; The Wilderness Way by Anne Madden; The Deep End by Mary Rose Callaghan
‘I live in a body in which there is often no value to the pain I experience . . . it’s just a glitch in the system’
My experience would have me believe that if pain is akin to a black hole, an enigmatic force will pull, tug, expand and contract our being, warping time and everything else within it
Who was this dancing man with ashes on his forehead in the National Concert Hall?
Something beautifully incongruous during a concert in the National Concert Hall causes my mind to rush with questions
Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver: Crisp prose that can humble the reader to silence
This collection revolving around the lives of black Americans gathers work by formidable talent Diane Oliver, who died in 1966 in a motorcycle crash aged 22
Magnet fishing: ‘An engagement ring, a gold coin – the crowd willed the fisherman to draw something valuable from the water’
Casting a line for something other than fish is a long-odds game but, fleetingly, all shared a sense of hope
Brigid O’Dea: My attempt to describe an acute migraine attack
Often it starts with a frantic energy that fizzes up from my feet
The Irish Writers Handbook: How to maintain self-belief in the face of rejection, and other solid advice
This guide demystifies the writing and publishing process, a journey that can feel elusive even to writers themselves
Michael Viney’s Natural World review: Late Irish Times writer’s book achieves the near impossible
Browser: Plus reviews of A Ramble About Tallaght: History, People, Places, by Albert Perris, and Twiggy Woman by Oein DeBhairduin
I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax: Vivid account of depression that defty balances comedy and sincerity
The comedian ensures the reader feels held in this journey into her descent into a ‘typhoon of mental torture’