It feels somewhat implausible that Claire Hennessy, the woman sitting across from me in a wing-back chair with a pot of tea, has been a published author since 2000. It all started just before she turned 14 with her first book, Dear Diary. A gifted child, she was a student at the Centre for Talented Youth Ireland for six years, which could explain how she was ready a decade before many people have debut novels.
The centre is an organisation where youngsters of high academic ability can thrive among their peers through extracurricular programmes. “It’s a weird situation to be in. I’ve been publishing on and off for 25 years, which means that you get to be a level of jaded that really is unseemly before you turn 40,” she says, reflecting on her creative trajectory.
“Writing was a thing that you could do on your own. You didn’t have to go to an organised activity with people that you may or may not get along with, so it was where I was spending my energy. I started looking into publishing and how you go about that. This is going to make me sound ancient, but it was an era before most publishers had websites.”
That does sounds unheard of in our app-driven, AI-riddled world. “That whole process of how you go about what you send, I read about that in a newspaper interview, which seems impossibly quaint now. I was researching publishers by getting the address from that copyright page of a book.”
We’re in the Trinity City Hotel, around the corner from Trinity College Dublin where Hennessy completed her bachelor’s degree in English and history and her master’s degrees in popular literature and creative writing. In 2009, she started the Big Smoke Writing Factory with Nicole Rourke, her friend of more than 20 years. In 2014 she cofounded the award-winning Banshee Press, which produces a literary journal and books, and she worked for the Irish division of Penguin Random House, editing young adult (YA) and children’s books from 2014 to 2018. She has published 12 YA novels, more recently Nothing Tastes as Good, from 2016, and Like Other Girls, from 2017. (She has also reviewed YA titles for The Irish Times each month for the past decade or so.)
While Hennessy has certainly enjoyed facilitating other people’s creativity, it must be liberating to return to her own voice. “When people are looking for stuff from you, it’s easy to prioritise that because it’s an external thing, and then it feels like you’re being of service,” she says.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think the world would be a better place if more people felt that being of service was worthwhile. We need to think more communally, rather than being hyperindividualistic. It does feel slightly strange to be in writer mode and talking about my own work and prioritising it over other things.”
In the Movie of Her Life, her first collection of stories for adults, is the result of 15 years’ work. Some earlier versions of the 24 pieces were published in journals such as Autonomy, Crannóg, Litro, the Moth, Books Ireland and Wordlegs. In the Movie of Her Life showcases topics close to her heart, most prominently reproductive rights and body autonomy. Hennessy campaigned to repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2018 and donates to the Abortion Support Network, a charity that helps women access necessary reproductive health services. The money comes out of her account on the eighth of every month, which means that once a year the payment lands on International Women’s Day – the day she and I meet, coincidentally.
The collection also featrures dystopia, societal issues, a bit of fantasy and, of course, given her YA roots, a good helping of teen angst. “This book feels very exciting because there’s definitely elements that I’m good on. So it’s like, ‘Oh yes, the inner lives of girls and women’. Sad girls being sad in Dublin is a thing. Then let’s just throw in a few dystopias or fairy-tale retellings, or things that felt like a stretch, things that felt like a challenge.
“I’m still not sure I actually know how to write a collection. Do you know what I mean? I think a collection is actually a thing you assemble out of what you already have, and that does take time.” Perhaps due to her experience and natural ability to engage the reader, her tales flow like arresting, fitful dreams. You effortlessly insert yourself into the situations she has created and at least seven could potentially grow into their own books. They are offbeat, provocative and sardonically witty. At times, they can be rather scary: wait until you get to Colony.
What bind the work together are the characters’ disappointments and their discrepancies between expectation and reality. My personal favourites include Blue, about a young woman who finds a stranger’s phone and fantasises about her being her birth mother; Good Tenants, where two potential evictees turn to witchcraft; and the title story, in which a struggling writer begins to accept that her day job might be permanent.
“I think that tension between pursuing your creativity and actually paying the bills and functioning in society – that’s a big concern. I suppose the work that I do is reminding people that a sustainable, creative habit isn’t the Eat, Pray, Love version of things where you’re able to take extended time off or drop out of your life entirely, go live in a hut on the side of a mountain and be at one with your creativity, but lot of the time it’s a half-hour at a desk somewhere at a coffee shop or on your phone, on the bus, making notes or jotting down a few sentences.”
In 2023 she took a big trip to Zambia that included a visit to an elephant sanctuary, which seems to have done her the world of good. She stayed in a friend’s spare room. In a way she had her own version of Eat, Pray, Love – the discount edition, where she checked her emails.
Hennessy has found herself at a crossroads in the past couple of years. Haven’t many of us since Covid? There were rumours of a rift with her fellow Banshee Press founders, Laura Cassidy and Eimear Ryan, which prompted Hennessy to leave in 2022. Was there tension or was it a case of having done all she needed to do?
“It’s like a band breaking up, but I think all small organisations are like that,” she says. Were they not getting on? “I think there’s an element of that, yeah.” She remains tight-lipped and I understand why. The Irish arts community is tiny and if you publicly speak about anyone negatively, you risk having an awkward encounter in Tesco. Cassidy has since bowed out.
You can absolutely drive yourself demented by obsessing over how your work is received – or not received – because most work isn’t read
Hennessy says, “People come and go from those kind of roles a lot, and I think the band is a good example, because people are working on a thing, but also people are doing other things.” So the Banshee partnership worked until it didn’t. “It is very hard to do that and also focus on your own stuff. It’s difficult for people and there’s not a tremendous amount of money in it.” She laughs dryly, relieved when we move on to Big Smoke Writing Factory, which ended amicably with her business partner Rourke, who will perform extracts from In the Movie of Her Life later this year.
Speaking of expectations, what are Hennessy’s hopes for her new book? Her response is one of the wisest and most reasonable that I’ve heard from a writer. “You can absolutely drive yourself demented by obsessing over how your work is received – or not received – because most work isn’t read,” she says.
“There’s so much work out there, and people can often have a really inflated expectation. A really common one is they imagine that if they have a book published, somehow everything else in their life will be fixed. They will never be anxious. They will never be worried. They will suddenly feel validated and loved, and a worthwhile human being. No one thing can do that for any of us, so I’m wary of trying to pin too much on any one book.
“My hope for myself is that I keep writing and working on other things, because that’s the thing that you have control over. With this book, I’m doing some events and I’m happy to talk about it, but ultimately I cannot control other people’s version of me or that book or anything else – none of us can.”
Yet there is a restlessness about Hennessy which would explain why she always appears to have several projects on the go. Based in her native Dublin at present, she’s “obsessing over MyHome.ie” and the soul-crushing hamster wheel that is the Irish first-time buyers’ market. And best of luck to her. Apart from tending to her own work, she teaches online and works with libraries. Then there’s the Centre for Talented Youth Ireland, where she has taught for 20 years, mainly on its summer programme. It’s a space where she feels at home.
On her constant output, she is self-deprecating as usual. “I never feel like I’m working hard enough or achieving enough. Let’s blame capitalism for that,” she says with a wry smile.
In the Movie of Her Life is published by Doire Press on April 3rd
