This article is from page 3 of the 2006-03-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
CLARE writer Mary O’Donoghue has been shortlisted for the prestigious Francis MacManus Short Story for Radio Award, on RTÉ Radio One. The Boston-based author hails from Tubber and received the nomination for her radio play ‘Bumpwoman’.
She is one of 20 writers shortlisted for the prestigious award which carries with it a prize fund of €6,000 and is in its 20th year. In ‘Bumpwoman’, O’Donoghue takes an unusual slant on the notion of pregnancy.
“It deals with maternity but with a twist,” said Ms O’Donoghue. “It is a contemporary Irish work and its main protagonist is a woman. It is a light-hearted story and takes an unusual slant on the experience surrounding expectancy.”
While ‘Bumpwoman’ is set in rural Ireland, it is not based in Clare. Indeed, Mary admits that very little of her work is autobiographical and she prefers to look elsewhere when looking for inspiration.
“None of my stories are autobiographical. Many of them are rural, but they could be set anywhere in Ireland. In fact, I try to write as far away from my own experiences as possible,” said Mary.
“The tendency now is to read a lot of fiction as if it is autobiographical and, to be honest, I don’t find myself that interesting. In fact, in a lot of my writing, the main protagonist is a man.”
Mary attended NUI, Galway where she achieved a BA and Masters in Irish Studies. She later settled in Galway where she racked up a string of achievements in a very short space of time.
In 1998, she was awarded the Brendán Ui hEithir Bursary and in 2000 she was awarded the Sean Dunne Young Writer Award for her poetry and also won the Salmon Publication Prize, which led to the publication of her critically-acclaimed debut poetry collection ‘Tulle’ in 2001.
Also in 2001, she crossed over from poetry to fiction and won the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune First Fiction Award as well as the overall New Irish Writing Award for her short story ‘The Byre’.
That same year, Mary moved to Boston where she took up a teaching role in Babson College. Since then, she has continued to write and be published in various anthologies and journals across America.
In recent years, she has read all over America, including an appearance at the inaugural Boston Voices series in 2005 where she read with the likes of Dennis Lehane and Sue Miller.
In 2003, she received the Tyrone Guthrie/Virginia Centre for Creative Arts Fellowship.
While living in the US, Mary maintains strong links with home. She participated in the Cuirt International Festival in Galway and worked closely with Irish language poet Louis De Paor in translating his work.
The winners of this year’s Francis MacManus Award will be announced by RTÉ next Monday.