I was invited down to UCC's MA in Creative Writing to talk about Writing for the Digital Media (16th Feb)...
I've never done this before - it's still one of my newest and most exciting areas of work. And who was inviting me? Mary Morrissey, a wonderful writer I last met 30 years ago on Arlen House's - remember that women's publisher? - inaugural Women's Writing Workshops. Eavan Boland ran it, we even had a session with Seamus Heaney. He liked four lines in the middle of a 40 line poem; so, as I translated it, he liked 10 percent of my work!
Bonus prize - I got to hear Zadie Smith and Nick Laird (both very witty, funny and unpretentious performers and people!) reading at the Uni and then to join them for a wonderful meal - there was even chocolate and chilli soup!
In frustration, in early January, I put out a notice that I had two one woman one-act plays and got a rake of interest from fantastic actors, a couple of producers... Then I remembered I actually had a third - which then got interest as well, while the fourth one that Aoife Moore performed in Smock in 2013 suddenly led me to think "Festival of One-Act One-Woman Plays"! -- while two contacts led to two other plays being dusted off....
In the heel of the hunt, from one little Facebook message, I had six plays that people wanted to produce, one of which has a team around it and is applying for the Fringe Festival.
I also got invited to talk at the KeyFrame Festival run by Colaiste Dhulaigh's animation department and to design a couple of courses for Galway.
And all this came on top of the chaos that is my normal working life -- I'm guessing this is Karma - showing me that I work best when I am furiously juggling a dozen projects.
Now to go work on some dialogue for elves, some gameplay that will help children learn facial expressions, design a few new courses and some audition-workshops and make a very large cafetiere of very strong coffee!
