I never anticipated that the “Wait” in the title of my blog would take on such a literal meaning. It’s been ages since I posted.

What have I been doing? I’m happy to report that I’ve been writing, a lot. Progress on my short story collection is going well: I now have three completed stories.

Since I last posted, I attended a lecture given by Claire Keegan in Cork, aid of the Munster Literature Centre. I’d never heard Claire speak before. Her points about writing were brutal and straightforward: Get out of your own way, let the story speak for itself. Writers hear this advice regularly, but somehow, coming from Claire, it had a major impact. When writing, I now regularly refer to the notes I took at Claire’s lecture and try to implement some of her techniques and approaches.

Getting back to the long hiatus in this blog: Hopefully it’s been worth it for another reason. One of my stories was shortlisted for the 2011/2012 Fish Short Story Prize. The awards were announced today. The judge was David Mitchell of Cloud Atlas fame (shortlisted for the 2004 Booker prize). The shortlist consisted of 145 stories, whittled down from 1900 entries. I am very pleased with that result.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!