Lia Mills (libranwriter.com) article on why there are so many Irish writers. She blames the weather. Read her blog and read her novel, Fallen, if you haven’t already. I defy you to find a better literary representation of 1914-16 in Dublin. I’m finding comfort in reading current Irish women writers at the moment. They help me locate myself on the fringes here on the wild, wet Atlantic way.

My self-image for as long as I can remember has been as a reader/writer and important to my survival. My literary efforts have mainly been a private affair. Non-fiction writing has been a necessary part of my commitment to causes and to work where I earned my living. Reading and writing are ways of connecting more than they are the product of commodities, bought and sold in the market, where books “have the shelf life of a banana” to quote one blogger/writer.

Are writers motivated by a desire to say what is left unsaid; to explore what is ignored and to spotlight the shadows? To write the books they want to read as the rain beats on the windows?