#hazel-behan

#hazel-behan

I find England ugly...I hate England; the weather is like a jail sentence...the food in England is like a jail sentence.

"I wonder why I wanted to be famous," she muses now, as we sit across from each other in The Pavilion cafe in Cork.

Female friendships have become the bedrock of some great stories in film, TV, and literature, highlighting their enriching and indestructible nature.

From the outset, in the novel's prologue, Anna tells us she is determined to account for herself and her life. But we are to expect no ordinary narrative, concerned only with actual events, evidence-based or relying on historical data. No, Anna is interested in the climate of the psyche and the vibrations of the soul. Can it be that the very things we cannot quantify or rationalise are what make life meaningful?

I've been writing both poetry and short stories since I was a child, but I first began to think of myself as a writer when my 11th-grade English teacher encouraged me to lean in. I started to take my craft seriously in college, majoring in English with a focus on creative writing. By the time I graduated in the mid-1990s, I considered myself a poet.

When a woman directs boldly, it's trashy. When a man does, it's visionary

"I've become a mom and I'm in a wow moment of my life that I never expected, and it's such an honour to come home and share this with you," she said. Buckley gave a nod to her co-star Paul Mescal in her speech. "I know everyone is sick of me talking about how much I love him, but I love him, and to Kerry for reminding me of my own wildness," she said.

It is the summer of 2019, and Sophie Evans, the reckless protagonist of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett's unsettling second novel, has arrived on an idyllic island in the Cyclades with her university friends Helena, Iris and Alessia to celebrate Helena's forthcoming marriage. Helena doesn't want it called her hen Like we're dumpy little featherbrains going cluck, cluck, cluck, but all the same, the men including Sophie's curator boyfriend of six years, Greg will not arrive for another five days.

Seeing this remarkable movie reminded me that we cannot look away from real-life tragedies

Liadan Ní Chuinn was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement ended the Troubles, the decades of violence stemming from England's occupation of Ireland. Other recent fiction about the Troubles-the novels and Trespasses , the TV show Derry Girls (all excellent)-is set firmly in the last century, relegating the violence to history. Ní Chuinn's work does the opposite: Their new book of short stories, Every One Still Her e, is set in contemporary Northern Ireland.