Sinéad Gleeson giving her lecture with Department of Language and Literature Studies students. (All photos by Zymon Bumatay)
Sinéad Gleeson, whose “Constellations: Reflections from Life” won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer, spoke to Far Eastern University language and literature majors about the craft of writing, and the history and strength that sustain her creative process.
During her open reading, courtesy of the Embassy of Ireland in the Philippines, she emphasized the importance of bards in Irish culture, writing to find meaning, and finding ideas “everywhere we look.”
“Fiction is an act of imagination,” she said. The writer, therefore, must let the story breathe and swerve to usher in surprises.
Writers start by thinking about their reason for writing a piece. Then, they ask the one thing they cannot get away from because that is where the core of their piece is. As for fiction, Gleeson encouraged young writers to let go and experiment.
Students from the Department of Language and Literature Studies (DLL) spoke with her about their own works in progress.
Gleeson’s debut novel “Hagstone” was published last year.
She co-edited “This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music (2022)” with musician Kim Gordon.
The anthologies she has edited include “The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories (2020); “The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland” (2016); and “The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers (2015).
The event last Oct. 27 also gathered DLL faculty and guests from the Embassy of Ireland in the Philippines, led by Ambassador Emma Hickey, Consul Naomi McElroy, and public diplomacy officer Kimberly Yu.
