Contributors to The Lonely Crowd choose the books they have most enjoyed this year. Part Two follows next week.
publishers of fiction, poetry & photography
From Fiction
As far as I’m concerned, this experiment is over & you can come home now… / Lauren Mackenzie
Lauren Mackenzie discusses ‘Free Love’, her short story in Issue Twelve. You can listen to Lauren read the story here. ‘Free Love’ is one story from an interconnected collection called That Sky That Sky which I am currently writing about a family set in Australia and Ireland over the last fifty years. The idea for…
Winter Readings: ‘Badlands’ by Fergus Cronin
Fergus Cronin reads the opening of ‘Badlands’ from Issue Twelve. The Lonely Crowd · Winter Readings: ‘Badlands’ by Fergus Cronin Read Fergus Cronin on ‘Badlands’ here. Fergus Cronin is a native of Dublin. He has had a variety of occupations ranging from water engineering to theatre. In 2004 he moved to north Connemara in Galway. …
Writing ‘Goosey’ / Cath Barton
‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’ is the oft-quoted opening line of L P Hartley’s novel The Go-Between. Before checking the quote I wrote it as ‘The past is another country’ and then found that I am far from being the first to make that mistake. Our memories are unreliable and apt to deceive us; indeed, they are remade every time we call them to mind, so multiplying the possibilities of distortion. In ‘Goosey’ I explore ways in which the past can hold us hostage and the means by which we can escape its tyranny. As befits the form of the short story, the dramas faced by my central character, Rodney, are small in scale, but none the less real or challenging: his mother has died and he has to sort through her affairs, including photographs of his life in the theatre, which evoke for him other loves and losses. ‘Goosey’ is the story of how he copes and finds ways to carry
Writing ‘Badlands’ / Fergus Cronin
Fergus Cronin discusses his short story ‘Badlands’, featured in Issue Twelve of The Lonely Crowd. It’s a dangerous time. Truth is shy. Hate slakes fear. Fixes are scarce. But poetry and fiction can do their thing: use their own ‘lies’ thoughtfully; untwist some of the awfulness; reclaim the meaning of words; mean to be…
Books of the Year 2020: Part Three
Contributors old and new to The Lonely Crowd choose the books that they have most enjoyed reading in 2020. Given the nature of the year, not all of these titles were published in 2020. Hisham Bustani Inua Ellams, The Actual It is surprising how much writing in general, and poetry in particular, have succumbed to…
Winter Readings: ‘Blackbird’ by Jaki McCarrick
Jaki McCarrick reads ‘Blackbird’ from Issue Eleven of The Lonely Crowd. Jaki McCarrick is an award-winning writer of plays, poetry and fiction. Her play LEOPOLDVILLE won the 2010 Papatango Prize for New Writing, and her most recent play, THE NATURALISTS, premiered in New York to rave reviews: “Best Bet” International Theatre, Theatre is Easy; “Impeccable,…
Winter Readings: ‘The Skink’ by Aoife Casby
‘Because Angela said to you often, ‘My Mam is dead,’ in a way that sounded like she wished your Dad was dead.’ Watch Aoife Casby read an extract from ‘The Skink’, her new short story in Five Years: Issue Twelve of The Lonely Crowd. Aoife Casby lives on the west coast of Ireland where she works as a writer, editor and visual artist.
Books of the Year 2020: Part Two
Contributors old and new to The Lonely Crowd choose the books that they have most enjoyed reading in 2020. Given the nature of the year, not all of these titles were published in 2020. Marc Hamer One of the books I have read this years that has stayed with me is Teaching a Stone to…
Books of the Year 2020: Part One
Contributors old and new to The Lonely Crowd choose the books that they have most enjoyed reading in 2020. Given the nature of the year, not all of these titles were published in 2020. Mary Morrissy History dominated my reading this year, perhaps because the present was so insupportable. Plague crept in, regardless, particularly in…
Books of the Year 2019 / Part Four
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Jaki McCarrick My reading in 2019 was disparate and strange. At night I mostly read fiction, some novels I had already read or missed classics or works published a few years previously. During the day, I read books I’d been asked to review, much…
Books of the Year 2019 / Part Three
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Lisa Harding When I was gifted the much-hyped bestseller Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, I was sceptical. The grandiose claims that this a ‘once-in-a generation book’, that it is a ‘masterpiece’,’ astonishing’, ‘compelling’, an ‘instant classic’ made me weary and wary, and yes, prone…
Books of the Year 2019 / Part Two
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Jo Mazelis Around January of this year I began writing and researching a novel set in London in the 1970s. My research was varied, covering everything from music, history, politics and subculture. One of the key books, A Hero For High Times by Ian…
Books of the Year 2019 / Part One
Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick the best books that they have read this year. Mary Morrissy Maybe because I’m far advanced into the writing of a novel, I’ve found myself reading a lot of non-fiction this year, and reluctant memoirists, in particular, it would seem. As a result, all of these writers seem to write slant about personal…