It was nice to spot the View Source anthology compiled by Solas Nua getting a mention in the Irish Times Magazine yesterday (Saturday, 10th April), including a mention of myself.

For St. Patrick’s Day this year, the arts organisation Solas Nua, based in Washington D.C. have published View Source online, a collection of contemporary writing from Ireland, as suggested by some of the leading Irish literary journals.

My short story, Butterfly, has been included, as nominated by gorse.

The story will also appear in the next print issue of gorse.

Thanks must go to gorse, for nominating my piece, Fallow Media, for curating the collection, and Tom Roseingrave, who provides the narration, and background sounds

I hope you enjoy it.

https://viewsource.solasnua.org/

Congratulations to both Miriam Stoney and Kristian Vistrup Madsen, the joint winners of the Broken Dimanche Writing Prize 2020.

The shortlisted submissions, including my own entry, have been assembled into a sampler which can be downloaded FOR FREE via the link below

https://www.brokendimanche.eu/

I hope you enjoy the work, and the sample from my own work This, and thanks again to Broken Dimanche for shortlisting me.

I’m delighted to have made the shortlist for the Büro BDP Writing Prize 2020.

The prize is run by Broken Dimanche, an independent English-language publisher based in Berlin.

I’m not sure when the prize will be announced, and considering the Covid-19 situation both in Ireland and Germany, I suspect any plans the publisher may have had when they invited submissions will have changed radically in the intervening months.

Still, it’s great to be nominated for such a prize.

Huge thanks to The Aleph Publishing, who have managed to survive the pandemic and publish my short story ‘Triptych‘ which won The Aleph Writing Prize 2019.

Looking at the pictures sent to me by the publishers it really looks like they’ve done an amazing job putting the story together and I for one can’t wait to get my hands on it.

The story is available in a very limited edition, so anyone wishing to get their hands on a copy of the first piece of work by me to appear on its own, you should follow the link here:

http://thealeph.limitedrun.com/products/676263-triptych-by-colm-oshea

Thanks once again are due to The Aleph, it’s something I’m really proud of and I’m so happy to see how beautiful it all looks.

Episode 3 of Keywords, featuring my piece of short fiction ‘C’ is broadcast again tonight at 10:00pm on RTE Radio 1.

The picture below is taken from the Sunday Times Culture supplement of 12th July where Keywords was the Pick of the Day

If you’re at a loose end for something to do of a Friday night (and at the moment who isn’t!), you could do worse than give it a listen.

Thanks.

https://www.rte.ie/radio1/

I first came across Juxta Press when I purchased a copy of ‘Fish Out Of Water’ by Claire-Louise Bennett, and apart from the quality of the writing I really enjoyed the quality of the physical book they produced. While it is a short work, as an object the book shows just how much work and care they put into everything they do.

Browsing their website I noted they were accepting submissions for their Positions collection, short fiction presented online with accompanying artworks.

I was really happy to see them accept, and publish, my own short story ‘Come You Masters’, which you can read here;

Come You Masters

I hope you enjoy it.

The story is based around the contemplation of Goya’s Disasters of War series of prints, and if one single image sums the story up it may well be this

I’m not sure how long RTE leave radio shows up online.

But just in case the edition of Keywords featuring my piece has been shared on SoundCloud by the producers

Enjoy….

The third episodes of Keywords, on RTE Radio 1 Extra, was broadcast last Sunday evening, and included a recording of me reading my short piece. You can listen here;

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1extra/11190346

I do hope you enjoy it, and you enjoy the readings from all the other contributors too

We’re in a strange space at the moment, aren’t we?

I don’t know about you but I’ve really struggled to get any work done. I’m technically working from home, but as I miss that sense of separating my working day from my writing space at home it’s become harder to get anything done, or certainly anything I’m happy with.

A new show has recently started on RTE Radio 1 Extra, called Keywords with each week’s show based around a particular keyword (clue’s in the name I suppose…)

I’m thrilled that a piece I wrote has been selected for broadcast on this Sunday’s show, to go out live at 8pm this Sunday.

I’ll include a link to the show itself closer to the time and one to catch up on it later should you have anything more pressing to do on a Sunday evening in the middle of a global pandemic-induced shutdown…..