in Rural Ireland with Claire Keegan
This writer walked into a pub in rural Ireland with Claire Keegan. Before long, twenty more writers joined them. A man who was sitting at the bar said to another, “They must be lost!”
Last month, I traveled to Ireland to study with internationally-acclaimed author Claire Keegan (“Small Things Like These,” and “Foster,” among her stories). Keegan leads a writers’ retreat at a former convent in a rural town near the farm where she grew up. One of the first things she told us was: “Every interesting story begins with one person and one place.”
Writers from around the world attended Claire Keegan’s retreat. The grounds were lovely. A crow sat on top of the front fountain each morning. There were two big buildings–one is where the nuns lived and one is a former boarding school. Each day, the staff prepared three delicious meals for us. Our mornings were free to write. In the first few days, I wrote a short story about an elderly couple and their old dog. Then, from my desk, I heard people singing and the seeds of a novel began to grow.
In the afternoons and evenings, Claire Keegan lectured and we discussed writing and works by Leo Tolstoy, John McGahern, Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, and J.M. Synge, among others. I filled an entire notebook with her advice and notes from her lectures.
One evening we were joined by James Joyce scholar Declan Kiberd, who delivered a wonderful lecture on Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
I highly recommend this writing retreat. It was an extraordinary level of education and inspiration. If you’re a writer, the interesting stories can be yours, especially if you begin with yourself, in Ireland, with Claire Keegan.
