I’m an Irish writer, based in Dublin, and I’ve also lived in France, Japan, the US, Singapore, Australia, England, Scotland, and New Zealand. I have an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in English Literature from Victoria University of Wellington. My debut novel, The Fractured Life of Jimmy Dice, published by Tinder Press, was one of the Irish Independent Review’s ‘Books of the Year’ and a finalist for The Lascaux Prize.
Writing residencies are a gift – being awarded one boosts a writer’s confidence and signals that they’re ‘on the right track’, and they provide precious solitude for working and contemplation, and the promise of interesting new experiences – but the Vilnius UNESCO City of Literature Residency is a particularly special one. Marija Mažulė and Rūta Elijošaitytė-Kaikarė are warmly welcoming and incredibly supportive, throwing me an ‘Irish Party’ at the Literary House and arranging for the translation into Lithuanian and publication of an extract of my debut novel, The Fractured Life of Jimmy Dice.
And Vilnius is gorgeous. It’s a great city to get lost in, by accident or by choice, and, with its wealth of regal churches and striking monuments, it would be a challenge to walk along Old Town’s winding streets for more than a minute or two without stumbling across something extraordinary. With apologies to Dublin, where I live and which I love, when the sun is shining in Vilnius the sky appears a shade bluer than what I’m used to. My residency ran from mid-October to mid-November, and I won’t forget the sight of the sun setting over Old Town through a canopy of red, brown, and gold leaves from the Hill of Three Crosses, or the hundreds, if not thousands, of candles marking the graves of Rasos Cemetery after nightfall on Vėlinės. Vilnius is a true writer’s city, with its blossoming literary scene, the character of its bars and cafés, and with the sense of a tumultuous history ingrained in its walls, in its cobblestones, in the air. Everywhere I walked, and I walked a lot, I had a feeling that there are so many stories here, and it’s an environment that helped me immensely with the stories I’m trying to tell, shifting my perspective by a few degrees and fuelling my imagination for the novel I’m currently writing, moving it in the direction it needs to go, and also planting seeds for future work, the form of which I can’t yet predict. While I was in Vilnius I felt inspired and, thanks to the memories I’ve taken home with me, I continue to feel that way. This residency is a gift that keeps on giving.