After long listing last year, this year, my story In the orbit of Pluto won third place in the annual Short Story competition. Here’s the comments of judge Sheila Burgher

Another terrifying and truly shocking story, I was literally gripping the sides of my chair while I read this and willing this story to end differently to the way it did. Set in contemporary Dublin, the story focuses on a gangland killing and the terrible consequences of that act. From the outset, I knew this one wasn’t going to end well but I kept hoping I was wrong. Despite this, the ending truly did shock me and I salute whoever wrote this brilliantly crafted story. Rich in the Dublin dialect, the tragic lives revealed in this story lingered long after I’d finished.

Read the story plus the winner here: http://www.flash500.com/index_files/ssr17.htm

After long listing last year, this year, my story In the orbit of Pluto won third place in the annual Short Story competition. Here’s the comments of judge Sheila Burgher

Another terrifying and truly shocking story, I was literally gripping the sides of my chair while I read this and willing this story to end differently to the way it did. Set in contemporary Dublin, the story focuses on a gangland killing and the terrible consequences of that act. From the outset, I knew this one wasn’t going to end well but I kept hoping I was wrong. Despite this, the ending truly did shock me and I salute whoever wrote this brilliantly crafted story. Rich in the Dublin dialect, the tragic lives revealed in this story lingered long after I’d finished.

Read the story plus the winner here: http://www.flash500.com/index_files/ssr17.htm

 

I was delighted my story When I Lay My Burden Down was selected for the latest edition of the online journal of writing The Incubator. A fabulous magazine, just finished reading it. I feel in very talented company. Well worth taking the time to browse.

 

 

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/featherweight-a-short-story-by-eileen-lynch-1.2769603

Dark story by Eileen Lynch in the Hennessey New Irish Writing feature of the Irish times. A school girl is having a dangerous affair with a much older man, mirrored in the menace of a tree full of crows in the garden.

Many thanks to the good folks on the Incubator Journal who will be publishing my story “When I Lay My Burden Down” in their September issue.

My story Death is the sound of distant thunder, strongly based on the third chapter of my novel, has won first prize in the monthly Writers’ Forum magazine competition and will appear in issue 168.

I was delighted with this, first big win since my story in New Irish Writing late 2013, and also because it reflects well on the novel.

 

After a long break mostly writing my novel, I have two short listings.

Death is the sound of distant thunder, a war/love story set in the same world as my novel is shortlisted with the Writer’s Forum Magazine, and I’m also on the shortlist for the People’s College competition:

http://www.peoplescollege.ie/news/2015/04/28/peoples-college-short-story-competition/

Happy days!

Click here for a dynamic version of this synopsis (Scroll down once the image appears)

Click here to read three chapters

 

What would you do if you loved somebody so much that you were driven to destroy them? Two generations of the Slane family must answer this question, tossed about on the turmoil of one war after another, pursued by the dark power of the Lightning Bird. Jimmy and Maureen fight with the British Army in the Boer war, but evil follows them home from the killing fields of Ladysmith.

Their son Alex fights the same demon, first in the Royal Hibernian Military School, where he kills another boy, but persuades his friend Finn to take the blame, and later he is mobilised with the British army during the Easter Rising. Finn, meanwhile, fights with the IRB in the GPO along with Alex’s cousin Caer, who has sworn her love to him. Finn is wounded and, when they try to escape, they are nearly killed. Alex rescues them but is labeled a traitor as a result.

The three hide out in bleak west of Ireland, but Alex’s demon draws him into involvement with the IRA, and later, in the heat of the violence, he has an affair with Caer, leaving her pregnant. As the war of independence drowns them in bloodletting, they are forced to come to a realisation of themselves and each other. The ultimate revelation that Alex’s true mother was a Boer woman who died in a concentration camp drives him to discover things about himself and Caer that finally lead him to sacrifice himself to save his lover and child.

I had the pleasure of attending award winning author MJ Hyland’s fiction workshop in the Irish Writers’ Centre at the weekend. She’s a fascinating speaker, the day passed in a flash, even with the water protesters screaming outside.

She went through some great exercises on developing your style through studying other authors as well as knowing yourself. Came away with some interesting thoughts around the characters in my novel and a very long reading list. Two things to particularly recommend: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews and the fiction podcasts on the New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/podcasts, great authors read other stories previously published and explain what’s great about it.

Worth missing the greatest day in the history of six nations rugby? Well, I still have that to watch on the recorder.