The Stinging Fly literary magazine and press has a long-established reputation as a barometer of excellence in new Irish fiction. The re-issuing of Watermark, the first work released by its newly-founded publishing house in 2005, reflects this commitment to quality and innovation. Set in an unnamed Irish city in the near future, it is a work in which violence and sexuality simmer just beneath the surface. Veronica, its central character, lives an uncertain existence as she waits for her lover, Martin, to return and quench the sexual desires he has unleashed within her. Stylistically bold, O'Reilly plays with the reader's expectations of time and grammar and revels in the beauty of words and language untrammelled by literary convention. "I want a man to take me without poetry", Veronica pleads, but laments that until her poet returns, "I am a statue in a city of love". By exploring such paradoxes, O'Reilly – and the Stinging Fly – have left an indelible watermark on the contemporary literary scene.
