Blog | Page 3 of 12 | Pen Hanley

Irish secrets: Trespasses and Truth Be Told

Feb 16, 2023

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by

Pen

in Irish Troubles, Northern Ireland, value of the arts, YA Irish fiction

The intensity of the forbidden Sleeping with the enemy. The intensity of the forbidden. Always a topic to set the mind questioning and the heart racing. The protagonist of Louise Kennedy’s Belfast novel Trespasses, Cushla Lavery (whose given name derives from the Irish phrase A chuisle mo chroi – the pulse of my heart) is 24 and in love with Michael Agnew. Cushla is a Catholic primary school teacher who helps out in the family pub some nights. Not only is the age gap there with the middle-aged Michael, he’s Protestant, and married as well. The novel’s gritty detail and…
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In Heinrich Böll’s cottage

Jan 10, 2023

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by

Pen

in Bookshops, Cook books, creativity, rural Ireland, writers’ residencies

In Heinrich Böll’s cottage on my Achill Island writer’s residency I wrote nearly 20,000 words. I was grateful for the newly installed under-floor heating as I touch-typed, gazing through the window at the rain and hail. In breaks between various types of precipitation I could look out at sudden sunlight spilling silver over the distant grey sea and a vast rainbow arcing from cliff-side to ocean. The black-faced sheep ambled past my window on their thin little black legs and robins, wrens and blackbirds hopped about. One Sunday it was sunny all day and my fifteen minute walk down the…
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Wide windows and a wet, wet spring – Creativity flowering in Braidwood

Nov 16, 2022

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by

Pen

in art, arts and health, Australian novels, creative cross-fertilisation, creative synergy, creativity, gardening, Inequality, media negativity, optimism, Simplifying, sustainable living

Why garden? Why write? … ‘Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.’ American writer Edith Wharton said that and I think of it often since moving to the country. These days, still in La Nina, our well overflowing and the creek rushing and rising as rain continues to fall, drinking the day can take on a literal sense! The garden is jungly and a deep, glossy green, with everything flowering in this wet, wet spring. Some plants flourish but it’s hard to keep others alive if they don’t like their feet wet, yet must stand in waterlogged soil.…
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Looking forward to hypothermia: another Irish winter

Oct 8, 2022

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by

Pen

in Eleanor Dark Foundation, Perseverance in writing, rural Ireland, writers’ habits

Eight winters I am about to fly into my eighth winter in a row, in less than three years. I’m a summer person. I’m a water baby, someone who loves swimming in rivers and the sea, in council pools and country dams, someone who loves walking warmed by the sunshine and cycling under balmy blue skies. How has it come to this, staring apprehensively into a near-future of an eighth-in-a-row cold, rainy, grey winter? While not a technically accurate fact, every cell of my body feels as if I have endured seven winters in a row. Not even counting the…
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Remedies for a crushed soul: Chris Cleave’s novels and some uplifting non-fiction

Jun 21, 2022

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by

Pen

in Common Good

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven ‘Reading too much non-fiction crushes the soul.’ I heard someone say that. But so much brilliant non-fiction keeps being published that there’s barely time to read anything else! One fiction book I’m glad I did make time for is Chris Cleave’s latest novel: Everyone Brave Is Forgiven (Simon & Schuster, 2016). Like his other novels, this one glows with wit and love; all three of his are gripping. (The other two are: Little Bee, 2010, and Gold, 2013.) I wrote about Little Bee in my June 2016 blog – https://bit.ly/3bbOcZQ Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is alive…
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Lost Focus – Johann Hari’s feasible solutions to our burning problems

Apr 13, 2022

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by

Pen

in capitalism, Democracy, depression, digital technology, dreams, Leisure, Living creatively, media negativity, mental illness, stress management, writers’ health

Tsunamis of information are drowning us We’ve lost our ability to focus. Tsunamis of information are coming at us, drenching us every minute of every waking hour. We can’t keep up with it, mentally or emotionally. What we sacrifice when we try is depth. Not to mention sanity, peace of mind and our democracy. In other words, the stakes could not be higher. Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus (Bloomsbury, 2021) is an important book, beautifully written, which outlines practical solutions for the problems that unregulated social media has unleashed. While researching this book, Hari interviewed 250 relevant experts worldwide. One of…
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Catrina Davies. Homesick: Why I live in a shed

Feb 27, 2022

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by

Pen

in capitalism, Catrina Davies, Common Good, Democracy, Inequality – Australia, sustainable living

Did you know that the average life expectancy of a homeless woman in Britain is forty three? The author of this profound and lyrical book considers herself lucky because she is not one of them, or not yet, because she’s free, not one of the 28 million refugees and asylum seekers ‘hoping for sanctuary in hostile countries like mine’ and she isn’t one of the ’65 million forced out of their home by war or famine or persecution.’ (p. 30) …if food prices had risen as fast as house prices in the last two decades, a chicken would cost £51…
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Solving problems and uplifting the heart – Mary Quant and Sand Talk

Jan 31, 2022

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by

Pen

in Indigenous knowledge, slow blogging

Slow blogging and fast tango Have I put new meaning into the concept of Slow Blogging? It’s been quite a gap. In it I finished another novel and settled into a new house in a new town – a small town bristling with fascinating, friendly people and plenty of things to do (between bouts of Covid lockdowns). I can even dance tango, to some extent. (Between lockdowns and no partner-swapping, given that it’s palm pressed to palm and us breathing in each other’s faces.) Haven’t written a blog for so long because they take a day or two to write,…
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A hopeful path forward in a fractured world – Sarah Wilson’s new book

Jan 17, 2021

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by

Pen

in capitalism, Democracy, health, Living creatively, optimism, politics, sarah wilson, Simplifying, sustainable living, value of the arts

An adventurous heart Sarah Wilson’s This One Wild and Precious Life navigates through the problems facing us all right now: coronavirus, climate change, racial inequalities, political and economic polarisation, as well as loneliness, in an accessible, thought-provoking way. The author spent three years pondering these issues and she takes us on her travels over that time, inward and outward, as she questions and explores and tries to find a way towards some coherent answers. It all started from her observation that at the moment we are fundamentally disconnected. ‘Without meaningful connection – to others, to life, to ourselves – we…
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Turning our lives upside-down

Nov 7, 2020

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by

Pen

in Uncategorized

A hand-built house It’s a big decision and I was going to be sensible about it. We were in Braidwood because I thought that booking a cheap backstreet Air BnB there for a couple of nights would give us the chance to see if the small country town suited us. I planned to stay in different Air BnBs there over a few months, just to see about the possibility. It’s a lot like a place I love in County Kerry: Cahersiveen, three miles from my writer’s residency of February to March this year. Both towns have hills and a river,…
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