Well, after a questionable year, this was very nice news.

I may not have made any end of year book lists, not that I had a book out, but somehow not making an end of year list when one doesn't have a book out is all the more jarring. Neither did I have it in me to submit anything to anywhere.

BUT I've been named one of the top Voquent voices in the world, as voted by them and their clients. And, I was the only Irish voice to make the list - both in Europe and globally! It's very nice indeed, and lovely to feel like all the hard work of this year, which required a rapid rethink of how I work, a rush build of a home studio in the first global lockdown when equipment suppliers had shut up shop and postal services were considerably delayed, followed by a crash course in sound engineering, paid off. 

My work day looks very different now to the way it did this time last year - and I am actually pretty happy about that. Having a home studio has opened me up to opportunities and avenues of work I wouldn't have known of were I still following the old model of only waiting for my agent to call. I still wait for my agent to call, of course - and I love my agent - but the truth is that the world has changed, and if I were to wait by the phone for news indefinitely, I'd starve. The new way is one of multiplicity, and greater personal agency, and I am here for it.

The Voquent Year in Review is a fascinating read, delving into the lives of voiceovers all across the world, what they worked on, what they hope to work on next and how they go about their days. We're global now, baby! 

If ever there was a year that taught us that, it was this one.
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Read more here!

Over the last year of lockdown in some form or another, I've been spending a lot of time in my studio recording things - either for other people or myself. 
As well as narrating my own writings and becoming the AI voice of Microsoft, I also wore a few different hats when it came to the type of voiceover work I put my voice to. 
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​Exhibit A:
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In this project for new tech device Scandit, I not only brought up the cheese, I left it sitting out in the sun for a bit. At the end of recording this (video above a short snippet of longer work), my smile was plastered to my face and I had jaw ache. Thankfully, the wind didn't change, so I was able to move onto to something like this:
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The opposite to cheese, and yet possibly a wonderful pairing, this is more of a silky and decadent rich red wine, which I might be able to term my usual: a soft, sensual and whispery read that has become my trademark sound over the years. Based on this article I wrote for Voquent about the vocal vibe, I suppose you could call this my 'unique signature.' And honestly, these are my favourite ones to do.

So, just in case I was putting out the signals that I was a bit of a one trick pony, I wanted to tell the world* that I can do at least two things. Not just wine, but cheese too. Two things that are better together.

Also, if you haven't had a chance to hear the audiobook versions of my short stories, here's one for you. Compost, it's called, first published by The Irish Times in 2018.
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Maybe I can do as many as three impossible things? But only once I've had a good breakfast.


*my own website blog

This short story, the second in my series of audio versions, was inspired by the ruins of Kilmacurragh House, which was devastated by a fire in the 1970s. It has long been one of my favourite places to explore on an unoccupied afternoon, any time of the year. This story is set on February the 1st, on the pagan feast of Imbolc sacred to the Goddess and Saint Brigid, marking the turn to the brighter half of the year. Imbolc is when you can feel Spring being called back.

Though the ruined house and beautifully kept botanic gardens are now an OPW run public space visited by thousands every year, this story imagines how the home could be regenerated by combining the public and private worlds.

This story was published by The Corridor magazine in association with the Irish Writers Centre and The Arts Council of Ireland in March 2019.

You can buy a copy of The Corridor magazine here.

Compost is a short story I wrote for the Irish Writers Centre and Arts Council Northern Ireland XBorders:Accord writing project in 2018. It was later published by The Irish Times in May 2018.

It is a mournfully sensual piece that is teetering dangerously close to nature writing, on that crumbling line I often straddle between writing literary fiction and a full blown Gardener's World episode transcription. Basically, if you like flowers and failed romance, this is for you.

I am slowly turning my stories and books into audio form; this is the first.

If you're more of a purist however, and have never quite got into the audiobook thing, the published story can be read here.

And if you're down for this audio thing, there's more to come soon.

Over the past few months of Lockdown I've been spending a lot of time in my home studio, The Barfly (so called as my partner built it for me by dismantling an old wooden bar). Apart from the work I've been recording for my clients in Ireland and abroad, I've been thinking of creative ways I can use it for personal projects, doing some of the things I've longed to do for years but have never quite gotten around to.

So, I'm in the process of recording the audio version of my first novel, The Glass Door, as well as my short stories, among them Compost and The Letter.

But before I begin releasing my books and stories, I thought that what might be most helpful for people just now would be something soothing and escapist. With so much chaos in the air between the pandemic and, now, the campaigns for racial justice across the world, we need it. Necessary as this chaos and protesting is, it is enormously taxing on our nervous systems to be exposed, through traditional and social media - as well as by simply feeling the air around us - to consistent messages of violence, pain, suffering, injustice, cruelty and oppression, and all of us need to take breaks from it to be able to continue to fight, campaign, educate, or vision the brighter, equitable future that will benefit us all, everywhere.

So I have created The Happy Place - a collection of meditative escapes to soothe troubled minds in trying times. Escaping to these 'mind palaces' is a technique I have often used over the years whenever I have felt as though I'm gasping and barely keeping afloat, and I thought they might help others in similar states. They are nature-focused, sensual, escapist and calming, because these are the tools that work for me. I have tried to create soundscapes and imagery with my words, voice and the supporting music and sounds that create beauty and harmony for the listener, and I hope I have managed to achieve this. I am currently selling them on my Etsy shop for the price of a fancy coffee, and 10% of every sale will go towards MASI, the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland. 

For more, visit My Happy Place. And I hope you are all taking care of yourselves out there.

I wrote a series of articles for Writing.ie called 'Rules for Writers.' (Spoiler alert, there are none.) It draws upon every small thought I have ever had about myself on the writing path, and every thought I imagine others might have had. Though by no means would I call it an extensive list of self-loathing thoughts, it still gave me enough material for three separate articles.

"You have a book in you. You know it. You need to get it out, somehow. Not just anywhere mind; neither the gutter nor the pub will do. You need to get it onto a page, or series of pages, preferably. Maybe you’ve started. You might have even finished (for the eleventh time).
            But then, it hits you: you’re not a writer. You can’t be. You’re not Edna O’Brien, or Hemingway, or Dickens, real writers who have written real books notorious enough to be banned, or have whole sections in academic libraries dedicated to them, or whose works have been turned into films and television shows over and over again. Sure no-one, apart from that one person, and your cat, has even read a word of what you’ve written. So how on earth can you even begin to think you can call yourself a writer?"

If you've ever struggled with your writing, or wondered why the hell you do it at all, or felt overwhelmed by feelings of abject failure and helplessness, you might find something of use in 'Rules for Writers.' I even throw a bit of practical advice in there, too.

​You can read the article series HERE.

Tesco gave the floating, amorphous Women's Museum of Ireland a home in their stores nationwide for International Women's Day, and asked me to be one of their virtual tour guides. I was delighted to be able to help to shine a light on one of their chosen inspirational women of  Irish history - the pirate queen of Ireland, Grace O'Malley.

                                                                     This sexy artistic reimagining of the OG G is from ancient-origins.net

You can listen to me telling her story here, along with the five other stories of brilliant historical Irish women who have either been largely forgotten, or are less lauded by their male counterparts. Among them are a social activist, a mountaineer, a computer programmer, a leader in global fashion, and the first woman ever to work on the stock exchange floor.

I don't say this often (ever), but, bualadh bos Tesco.

Last night was the launch of issue 6 of The Corridor, an interdisciplinary, discursive arts project about the Dublin to Belfast corridor, and the political, social and cultural consequences of borders explored through public talks, screenings and art.  It was in the ever-hospitable Irish Writers Centre, through which a beautiful spring day gorgeously faded into night, and was introduced by the inspiring Brian Keenan, who knows a thing or two about border states, and their consequences for human psychology.
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'The artist,' Keenan said, 'is a trespasser, a border breaker, an invader. The only border the artist follows is the map of their imagination.'

There were moving readings from Adam Trodd and Marie Gethins, whose story, 'Crushed,' lands on the powerful image of a father urging his child longing to bring their Italian heritage to an American school project to do anything but:

"He lifted my wrist and spun the globe. Countries melded into a blue-green splash. He patted my hand.
​'It's easier this way, you'll see.'"

There were also many interesting, diverse, and often personal readings from the XBorders:Transition group, now in its third incarnation. It was fascinating to see how it moved and evolved from Accord (the group I was part of in 2018) to an adjacent, but related, theme on the ever-expanding topic of 'borders.'

You can buy a copy of The Corridor here.

This weekend Chloe Brennan kindly interviewed me for the Sunday Independent Living. If you got the paper, lovely. If you missed it, you can read it here.

2018 has for the most part been a trying year, yes, personally, but also collectively, globally. It's had a physical, pressing darkness. But there have been spots of light. Brief, fragile, but there. It was the year I finally published, after a seven year struggle, my debut novel The Glass Door. It entered the books world tiptoeing and silent, and has made only the breath of an impact (if even), but it is out there. Every time a neighbour who ordinarily would slip wordlessly inside their front door stops me on the street to tell me they loved it, or a complete stranger from the internet gets in touch to tell me how much it meant to them, my heart does a little leap. Equally, when friends and friends of friends and family of friends and family etended extended extended get in touch to say they are reading it, or write a nice review online, a small, unwavering glow. The few bookshops who have taken it. To know that, even if this is as far as it goes, it had finally done what I wanted it, for so many years, to do.




​Here are some of the places where The Glass Door has made its very humble impact:

​Interviewed by Sophie Grenham for The Gloss Magazine's Writer's Block here
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Writer's Rooms for writing.ie here

Reviewed by poet Scott Manley Hadley for Open Pen here

An article I wrote about the process of The Glass Door for writing.ie here

An interview about The Glass Door's seven year journey to publication for the Independent here

An interview with Sean Preston for Minor Literatures here

I'll add more as they come. And who knows, perhaps 2019 will be its year. It has never been a particularly speedy character.

 You can buy The Glass Door here.