Tell us about your new book, Wanda Broom, illustrated by Fay Austin
All Wanda wants is to be an ordinary girl. Which is not easy when your mother is a witch. When Wanda, her mother and her granny are forced to move after yet another spell goes wrong, Wanda is determined to blend in and not attract attention. Then, the world wide web of witches and warlocks informs Esmerelda that she has to undergo an assessment to determine whether she is fit to remain a witch. Wanda is certain her mother will fail the test. Part of her wants her to. Then she can get what she’s always wanted. An ordinary life.
What inspired you to write a children’s book?
I got the idea during lockdown when Covid seemed to have given me a terminal case of writer’s block. Once I started working on the story, I was cured. It was different to anything I’d written before and there was no editor peering over my shoulder asking if we were there yet. There was a freedom to the project that made the words fly on to the page, as if Esmerelda had cast a spell that worked for a change!
What do you think makes a good children’s book?
No matter who you are writing for, the same rules apply. You need authentic characters, interesting stories. Children are the most discerning readers I know. Patronise them at your peril.
Which are your favourites?
I loved the Five Find Outers by Enid Blyton. Like Fatty and his pals, I too lived in a sleepy little village but nothing ever happened. I didn’t go to boarding school. I’d never eaten a macaroon. But they made my mouth water, all the same.
Tell us about the podcast, BookBirds, which you co-host with Caroline Grace-Cassidy
Another project born out of lockdown. We reread novels we adored in the past and talk about how they – and we – have changed in the intervening years.
Who or what made you a writer?
Anne of Green Gables is definitely one of the reasons. I loved this 117-year-old literary heroine like she was a real, live girl – a kindred spirit if you will. It was the first time I cried reading a book. When Matthew died, I felt his loss like it was mine. I realised then the power of words on a page and even though I wouldn’t start writing for 22 years, a seed was planted in my 12-year-old brain that day.
You’ve written 10 adult novels. Can you detect a common theme in them?
I would say female empowerment is a recurring theme. I love a bit of strident feminism.
Which one are you proudest of and why?
The Stories That Remain, a novella, inspired by the true story of Peggy Mangan, her faithful dog, Casper, and the last walk they took together. I wrote the book for Patricia Scanlan’s Open Door series which promotes reading for adults who have struggled with literacy.
Which projects are you working on?
A book of interconnected short stories, The Relief Road. It’s about the inhabitants of a seaside Dublin town over five days during a heatwave, when a group of Irish Travellers set up camp on the relief road around the town.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
I recently kayaked to Holy Island on Lough Derg to visit Edna O’Brien’s grave. There was nobody else there save for some indifferent sheep, grazing amongst the monastic ruins. I sat by her grave and thanked her for her bravery. For her insistence on being an intellectual, beautiful, sexual, outspoken woman in the Ireland of her youth, which was fraught with danger for such women. The price she paid for living on her own terms was exile. But still, it was here where she returned to in the end. Rest in Power, Edna O’Brien.
What is the best writing advice you have ever heard?
“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” (Samuel Beckett)
Who do you admire the most?
I am a great fan of Dr Rosaleen McDonagh, a Traveller and disability activist, feminist, playwright, academic. I love her memoir, Unsettled, a series of essays that offer startlingly clear snapshots of her lived experience, growing up on a halting site, living with cerebral palsy, being placed in residential care, defying expectations. “Writing is a gift that has saved me from myself,” she writes in the introduction. This slim volume is a gift to readers everywhere.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass/abolish?
Enshrine in our Constitution the right of all citizens to housing. We want our kids to have their own homes so we can barge in at all hours of the day and night, eat everything, drape 10 coats across the banisters, promise to walk their dog and then never do. That’s only fair. Isn’t it?
Which current book/film/podcast would you recommend?
Book: Dublin Written In Our Hearts, celebrating 20 years of One Dublin One Book. Edited by Declan Meade; Film: A Real Pain (written by Jesse Eisenberg); Podcast: The New Yorker Fiction. A writer reads a short story and then discusses it with Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Which public event affected you most?
In 1990, Nelson Mandela visited Ireland after serving 25 years in Robben Island. He arrived in Dublin the same day the Irish team returned from Italia ’90, after winning the World Cup! Mandela invited the Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid strikers – a group of 11 young, working-class people, nine women, two men – on to the stage at the Mansion House so he could thank them for their support throughout their three-year strike. He told them they had changed the world.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
Rotorua, New Zealand. Not because of how it smells – no offence, Rotorua, but you smell pretty bad. The rotten egg-ish smell of it all is hydrogen sulphide, produced by all the geothermal activity in the area. It’s a thermal wonderland, with bubbling mud pools, steaming lakes, erupting geysers. Even the backpackers’ hostel I stayed in way back in 1995 had its very own thermal pool.
Your most treasured possession?
My violin. It belonged to my grandfather, Michael Trainor, and was made in 1792. Pop, as I called him, worked in the local shoe factory in Baileborough, Co Cavan. He also kept cows, wrote for the local paper, and played in various bands. He could also play piano and the box accordion, but the violin was his favourite.
The most beautiful book you own?
Page after Page by Heather Sellers, a sort of self-help book for wannabe writers, which I bought when I began writing, at the tender age of 34. It’s a beautiful little hardback that fits easily into most handbags, so you don’t have to answer any awkward questions when you’re starting out. The book made it perfectly acceptable for me to harbour dreams of being a writer. It was like having a miniature mentor in your bag, one who thought you were doing grand.
What writers – living or dead – would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Elena Ferrante. Because then I’d be the only one who knows who she is. And I’d never tell. She’d appreciate my discretion and we’d become brilliant friends. Paula Meehan. I love how she reads her poems aloud, her shock of white hair and the fact that she’s from Dublin, so I feel like she’s “mine” in some small but significant way. Maeve Brennan. I’ve been playing catch-up with Maeve Brennan’s impressive body of work since I read her short story The Springs of Affection in Sinéad Gleeson’s anthology, The Long Gaze Back. Maeve would bring some New York style into my home, perching on the edge of the kitchen table in an elegant black suit with a cigarette at the end of a slim ivory holder. Alive to her keen observational skills and the ferocity of her intellect, I’d beg her not to write me into one of her stories. While secretly hoping that she might.
The best and worst things about where you live.
I live near the sea, which, as an all-year-round sea swimmer, is handy. The worst thing is the bus service. And the lack of cycle lanes. And, while I’m at it, can we get a few more trains, please?
What is your favourite quotation?
“That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.” (Edna O’Brien)
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Jo March from Little Women.
A book to make me laugh?
Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes. (Warning: This book will also make you cry.)
A book that might move me to tears?
Charlotte’s Web by EB White.
- Wanda Broom is published by Eriu
