‘Rejection, back when I’d just started sending out stories, felt crushing. It sat upon me like a physical thing, squat and heavy.’
Danielle McLaughlin Essay 28th July 2022
'I got through it, not by talking, or thinking my way out, but by feeling. At one point over that painful weekend, my gut in knots, I realised: if I can feel this, I can get through anything.'
'I received detailed rejections last year from editors who had requested over ten pages of my work. I have rewritten a specific story for a journal on the editor’s advice and it was still not accepted. None of this means I am a failure, or a bad writer.'
'There were times when I loved a book and felt in my bones that I could publish it well, only to bring it to a meeting and find that my colleagues didn’t feel the same.'
‘Writers have an advantage in this process: vulnerable as we are to the judgment of the world, we are also instinctively aware of the strength of an inner place, from which our best work always comes.’
‘I am the person and writer I am because I failed at a previous incarnation of life. Like most actors, I accumulated countless rejections and humiliations, surpassing in number my accomplishments.’
A series of short essays reflecting on the experience of rejection. Contributors: Danielle McLaughlin, Jill Crawford, Neil Hegarty, Angelique Tran Van Sang, Anna Walsh, Mia Gallagher, with an introduction by Thomas Morris.
‘Over Zoom one night, a therapist tucks her dark hair behind her ears and introduces herself as Maeve. They are about the same age, in their late thirties. She doesn’t ask about Orla’s childhood, or root around for scars. She says, Tell me what’s happening.’
Roisín O’Donnell Fiction 17th June 2022
O'Hanlon's winning story, 'Diana in a lonely place' was published in our Summer 2021 issue.
The Stinging Fly News 18th May 2022
"It hurts to struggle, to reach for things that you might not yet be able to meet... When will I be enough? All I can do is keep writing, keep meeting my ideas and my words with an openness that I encourage in others and struggle to find in myself."
Olivia Fitzsimons Essay 4th May 2022
‘I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t call my friends. Everyone has had a time like this—when they look in the mirror and, sure enough, an unknown animal stares back.’
Nicole Flattery Fiction 7th April 2022
Sean O'Reilly on the reissue of Thomas Kinsella's ‘Butcher's Dozen’ to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday: “a timely reminder that the past has to be fought for and poetry is not beyond lending a hand.”
Sean O'Reilly Criticism Essay 25th January 2022
As a new year begins, we asked some of our editors, writers and contributors to write about something that has made a significant impact on them over the past while.
The Stinging Fly Blog Post 5th January 2022
"His mother had a choice between keeping the monkey or having the baby. She told the story often, in company, with a roll of her eyes and a helpless grin, as if this was the sore spot, the branching crossroads where her life had gone wrong. "
Sheila Armstrong Fiction 4th November 2021
'You talk and talk until you run out of breath and still when you get home there are things you wish you had said. Just once I would like to wake before myself and see what I am with my eyes closed.'
John Christopher Fiction 6th October 2021
‘Your mother’s on the radio,’ she said, ‘being racist.’ This had surprised me; the radio bit. My mother had an aversion to talk radio.
Danielle McLaughlin Fiction 1st September 2021
"They wore travel outfits, comfy and subtle. Tiny shorts and big hoodies in creamy colours. Shorts said: actual holiday. Hoodies said: chill, not like the other young ones going away, flashing bikinis at baggage claim."
Katie Curran Fiction 12th August 2021
'Sometimes I long for home, but not home as it is now, home back then. Back when it was nice. When the sun was always out, and we could play all day out of doors. Before I had to be a woman.'
Niamh Prior Fiction 7th July 2021
A story from Philip Ó Ceallaigh's upcoming collection.
Philip Ó Ceallaigh Fiction 5th May 2021
"She felt both important and embarrassed, now, in the street. The afternoon was ageing amiably. The all-year plastic Santa bracketed to a chimney on Attracta Road was dusty in soft sun."
Niamh Campbell Fiction 7th April 2021
“Out of everything I watched, only one show truly captured my imagination and that was the BBC police drama Line of Duty.”
Nicole Flattery Essay 6th March 2021
'Gloria! he said, not loud enough. Gloria! he shouted again. It sounded ridiculous, like some kind of dreadful Van Morrison tribute act. Gloria!'
Wendy Erskine Fiction 3rd March 2021
"What do you think of, I said to my husband that evening, when you think of Monica Lewinsky?"
Lucy Caldwell Fiction 3rd February 2021
Louise Nealon invites us all to join her in raising a glass to the queen of Irish literature.
Louise Nealon Essay 15th December 2020
Michelle Coyne's anaesthetised protagonist falls into dangerous, freeing obsession on an Icelandic holiday.
Michelle Coyne Fiction 4th December 2020
A despairing brother is roused by Mattie Brennan's unforgettable Mannions on a hard-drinking train journey from Galway to Dublin.
Mattie Brennan Fiction 3rd December 2020
A fugitive returns to his belligerent, brilliant uncle in Ciarán Folan's story of hard men, lost talent, and twisted alliances.
Ciarán Folan Fiction 2nd December 2020
Everything changes for a young dealer tasked with selling diesel-laced hash in Aoibheann McCann's tough and grungy Galway.
Aoibheann McCann Fiction 1st December 2020
David Tierney imagines a ravaged Galway, where a farmer returns to her land to find defiance and hope and an unexpected adversary.
David Tierney Fiction 30th November 2020
A new short story from the author of 'Darker With the Lights On'.
David Hayden Fiction 6th October 2020
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