STORY DISCUSSION: Author MARY O’DONNELL discusses the changing themes in seasonal stories:’The difference between the then of O. Henry, and the now of contemporary writers, is that we write in a highly nuanced moral atmosphere, so nuanced that the building of ‘uplifting’ lessons into our stories is often avoided…’
STORY DISCUSSION: Author MARY O’DONNELL discusses the nature of speculative, futuristic fiction: ‘Writing short stories set in the future carries the exact same responsibility as writing short stories set in the present or past. The only difference is that one must convince the prospective reader that the world into which they’ve been invited has some relevance and possibility for them, that it catches a trigger-point of their imagination and allows them to consider such scenarios in all seriousness…’
STORY: We are delighted to bring you ‘An Armenian in Dublin’, a short story from Irish author Mary O’Donnell: ‘Galo and me have made our way home from the town’s newest watering hole, the Bogota Bar, which describes itself in the local paper as “a meeting point for all things Latino —music, dance & the best of vino!” Someone had hung castanets on the walls, along with pictures of flamenco dancers, and posters of bulls…’
Author MARY O’DONNELL guides us through an excision of the exclamation mark in fiction: ‘So, how to perform what I call an Exclamectomy? For most of us, it’s actually a question of becoming more aware of the sound of things, and of the voice in which a phrase is uttered…’
