J.M. Lane: That is why I write. To turn absence into presence. To give weight to what otherwise might vanish.
I was born in Ennis in 1984, the same month my mother lost her father. She was not at his funeral. Not because she did not want to be there, but because she was pregnant with me. Old superstition said that if a pregnant woman entered the graveyard, the other side might take the unborn child. So she stayed outside the wall, close enough to hear the prayers, far enough to keep me safe.
That story has always stayed with me. It was not about neglect or distance, but about protection and love. Yet it was also about absence. The empty space that lingers when someone cannot be where their heart longs to be. I think that is where my writing began. With absence, and the need to fill it. With silence, and the need to give it a voice.
Absence has many shapes. It can be the silence of a parent at a graveyard wall. It can be the breath you hold when bad news comes. It can be the chair at the table left empty by someone you love. I have known absence in all these forms. Childhood trauma, the weight of responsibilities I never expected, the fear of cancer. Yet alongside those absences there was always presence: the love of my wife, the laughter of my children, the comfort of dogs underfoot, and the children I fostered who brought their own stories into mine.
Stories became the bridge between absence and presence. They gave me a way to make sense of what was missing. They carried voices that could not always be spoken aloud. They gave shape to scars and reminded me that even in silence there is life. That is why I write. To turn absence into presence. To give weight to what otherwise might vanish.
To write them is to honour them
The Raven Chronicles grew out of this truth. At its heart is Setanta, a boy of two worlds. Half human, half fae. Son of legends he never asked to inherit. His father is Cú Chulainn, the Hound of Ulster. His mother is the Morrígan, goddess of battle and fate. But Setanta is not a myth to me. He is a boy trying to hold his family together. A boy carrying burdens far too heavy for his young shoulders.
In him, I see myself. In him, I see my children. In him, I see every child who has felt torn between what they are and what the world expects of them. That is why my stories are not written as escape. They are written as reflection.
Ireland’s myths are full of absence and presence. The banshee is the cry of grief where someone is gone. The hungry grass is famine still whispering through the earth. An Fear Gorta, the walking hunger, is despair given form. These myths are not only old tales. They are truths we still carry.
As a foster father, I have seen how absence shapes a child. The absence of safety. The absence of certainty. The absence of being seen. I have also seen how quickly a child’s eyes light up when a story tells them they matter. A story can whisper: you are not invisible. A story can shout: you are stronger than you know. That is why I write for them. So that even in absence, they can find presence.
Cancer made this sharper. When you are told your time may be short, you realise every page is borrowed. Writing became not just something I loved but something I had to do. I wanted my children to always know me. Not just as the man in uniform, but as the man who dreamed, who fought, who loved them fiercely. The Raven Chronicles is for them, and for every child who has felt the emptiness of absence.
And Ireland itself is in every word. The tombs of Carrowmore, the waters of Cong, the haunted woods and hollowed fields. These are not backdrops. They are presences. They breathe, they carry memory. To write them is to honour them, and to honour the absences they hold.
So why do I write? I write because of absence. Because a young woman once stood outside a graveyard wall, kept back by tradition, carrying me inside her. Because in that moment absence became presence. She chose me over ritual, life over death.
Every story I tell grows from that choice. Every page is a way of stepping back to that wall, hearing the prayers, feeling the distance, and answering it with words.
That is why I write.
(c) J.M. Lane
About Setanta and The Lady by the Water by J.M. Lane:
A mythic coming-of-age novella rooted in Irish folklore and shadowed grief.
If you loved Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls this one’s for you
Setanta knows only this: his mother vanished, his father is a ghost of a man, and something ancient is following them. From haunted towns to forgotten hills, they chase the Lady by the Water, a banshee whose song marks the doomed. But when a cursed hound spares Setanta’s life, everything he thought he knew begins to unravel.
Trained in silence. Forged by loss. Marked by a name older than Ireland.
As his scar deepens and the veil between worlds thins, Setanta discovers a truth stranger than any bedtime tale: he’s not just a boy. He’s a weapon. And the monsters remember his name.
Perfect for fans of Patrick Ness, Susan Cooper, or folkloric dark fantasy, this lyrical Irish novella blends myth, memory, and the weight of blood into a powerful modern legend.
Order your copy of Setanta and The Lady by the Water by J.M. Lane online here.
Read more Writing & Me articles on Writing.ie here.
