Writing.ie is all about assisting new talent to improve and get their work published so we were delighted to hear about this initiative from the Two Roads group of NUI Maynooth. Moths against Glass is an anthology of work produced by students from Tipperary, Carlow, Kildare, Laois, Wicklow and Kilkenny who study, write and agonize once a month at NUIM’s Kilkenny Campus. Marie Hughes explains:
“For some of us, the story begins four years ago, for others, it’s three. Geography, gender, biscuit preferences and GAA loyalties could have stood in our path. But the lure of the pen, the Hogwarts-like surroundings and the laughter kept us trudging along. At first, the two roads – just like those Robert Frost came upon in The Road Not Taken – were out of sight.
We had signed up for the Creative Writing for Publication Certificate course at the NUIM Outreach Campus in Kilkenny. The young hurlers on the pitch at St Kieran’s College were visible from our window, as pens scratched, and boundaries were pushed. Guided by Suzanne Power and John MacKenna, we made our way through that first year, with support and unyielding encouragement from one another. Modules on the novel, life-writing, the short story and the publication industry were approached from all angles – with fear, with confidence, with an open-mind. All proved fruitful, and some of the stories created, or ideas spawned in this time, have developed over the years, and features of these appeared in future work.
Lessons learned, strengths identified, many soldiered on. Awarded our Certificate from NUIM, a strong cohort was eager to continue to work together, with the same tutors, and embark on the Two Roads. Had a form of madness taken root in the first year? Why did we want to sacrifice one weekend every month, pack our lunchboxes, our notebooks, and the sheaves of reading material provided by Suzanne, and hide from the friends we had already alienated a year ago with the words “I’m writing a thing, a piece. Like homework, for Maynooth”?
For some, these weekends in Kieran’s College are an escape, a chance to just be. Like scratching an itch you’ve been dying to get at. The camaraderie brought about the I- can- do- this feeling, and pulled us back from the abyss when it comes to editing, proof-reading, working on scripts together. We’re not garrisoned in a soundproofed room at the top of the Campus, we have fun. For example, we’ve blown bubbles, played our favourite music, decorated clothes pegs, have had wonderful guest speakers and singer-songwriters visit. We make the most of the Christmas spirit each year and there is a kindness among the entire group which compels us all to strive harder with our work.
Now on the second year of this Two Roads course, perhaps we should feel like seasoned journeymen of the pen/mechanical pencil/Word. But we are still exploring the genres that John and Suzanne introduce us to, and approaching some areas of writing as complete novices. For example, the New Year will bring us to an e-publishing project. Evolving in line with the publishing industry’s demands, the course is kept fresh and challenging, yet it still allows for each of us writers to be individually expressive.
Just as each of our voices are well known to each other now, we are still surprising ourselves and others by what can be achieved, either through a short exercise with a simple stimulus, or a more polished effort. Our foray into theatre earlier in 2012 was remarkable, in that everybody participated. Our production was called “Write So.” From script-writing, performing monologues or short sketches, or bravely reading material of a personal nature, the whole group was active. That was testament to our tutors’ ongoing support, and the group’s internal combustion engine of sheer willpower. It also took a good sprinkling of mischief-making.
As months pass, writers on the Two Roads are more daring, and they submit work for publication. Several members of our group have been successful. And in the future, who knows? With e-publishing and self-publishing presenting as real possibilities now, there is excitement and wonder. Plans may hatch. And with the appearance of Moths Against Glass, our appetites are whetted!
The anthology celebrates how our group surmounted those stumbling-blocks of geography, gender, biscuit preferences and GAA loyalties. It showcases the short story. How many Mary Lavins and Raymond Carvers did we read back in our Certificate days, and marvel at the beauty of this revered artform? We now present our very own. Poetry pops up, wears its heart on its sleeve. Travelogues, dialogues, nicely accompanied with squidgy chocolate log. Memoir is tenderly patched together. Novel extracts remind us that characters are living with us. Really, there is no escape from writing. And that’s the way we on the Two Roads like it.”
Course tutor John MacKenna picks up the story, “Two Roads is what Frost had in mind when he wrote of divergence – that moment of choice in our lives when we opt to do one thing rather than another. And all of those on the Two Roads course at NUIM Kilkenny campus have committed two years of their lives to writing – novels; stories; poems; plays. But not just that, they’ve staged the plays and performed in them and now they’ve brought their prose and poetry together in a wonderful anthology, edited by Suzanne Power. They’ve taken the huge step of putting
their writing out there.The breadth of the work is phenomenal and for me it’s a particular pleasure, having soldiered with these writers over the past two years. A pleasure to read the finished work, a pleasure to see it between covers and most of all a pleasure to count them as comrades of the pen.”
Moths against Glass is described as ‘a pilgrim’s manual to the writer’s journey’. The works of fiction and non-fiction, of poetry and prose, are testament to the heightened powers of authors who have learned to be honest in and to their voices, and the influence of skilled and experienced mentors.
The students chose the image of moths against glass for their collection as they felt, as Marie reveals, that “this book represents the great light we work towards. The completions. The creative highs. Behind each piece there are long hours. There are impositions and there are absences from the world while we commit to a darkness full of lit characters in deep scenarios, either remembered or imagined and in many cases both.
That is the particular truth of work that has seen the dark of night before it has seen the light of day. There are pieces here that made their first appearance on stage – pieces of true theatre. Pieces that have grown out of trauma. Pieces that have come laughing to the page and will send you laughing from it – celebrations of the tragic farce that carries the name life.”
Writers included in the anthology are: Catherine Blake, Niamh Boyce, John Byrne, Michael Doran, Helena Duggan, Tom Hunt, Patricia Hogan, Marie Hughes, Irene Kane, Phyllis Mahfoud, Sylvia Martin, Celine Mescall, Scarlett O’Brien, Liz O’Rourke, Caroline Sutherland, Jennifer Wallace, Mary Walshe, and Caroline Waugh. Names to watch!
