About Me

If anyone needs a level of detail that isn't covered by the photo up on the right - and seriously, I think it says it all - here's a brief Summary Of Life To Date:

I'm thirty-one; I'm Irish; I lived in Dublin until I was twenty-four; I did my BA in English and philosophy (majoring in English) at Trinity College Dublin, and then existential panic set in.  I thought I ought to do something 'more practical' next, but having scant notions of what practicality entailed (and a fear of 'real jobs') I galloped into an MA in Film Production in the glorious Dublin Institute of Technology.  Myself and most of my classmates spent the year after the course queuing up in dole offices, our multiple degrees and lack of Life Skillz making the benefits officers tremble, and putting in pointless funding applications to the Film Council for scripts that probably didn't even make any sense, and generally bemoaning our lot over a pint (we tragically couldn't ever afford more than one drink).  Then, at twenty-four, I finally battered down the doors of a giant broadcasting corporation which shall remain nameless (ha!) here in (hint) Britain, and moved to Birmingham, where I stayed for the next five years working as a video editor.  Oh, the glamour.  I've seen John Craven come out of the loo, and, um, I once saw Johnathan Ross from very far away.  I've said too much.  After my half-a-decade in the Midlands, and about eight months into the life of this blog, I took redundancy from the poor old job, because, obviously, I was missing the good old days of one-pint-and-an-overdraft, and applied to do another MA, seeing as, in the words of my beloved Depeche Mode, I just can't get enough. I've now finished said course, and somehow managed not to aggravate all the teachers, as they've given me a distinction.  Woo!  During the course I worked on a novel (still in-progess) and just after classes finished I won the 2010 Bristol Short Story Prize. Success! I then got a temp job selling books for a respectable Manchester book-merchant, and followed it up with, wait for it, a temp job selling books for another respectable Manchester book-merchant. Shortly afterwards, I swung for the idle life, and in April 2011 I produced a brand-new human infant from my very own innards. Hello, Seren! At the moment I'm perfecting the art of balancing an open book on top of a feeding baby. Again, Skillz.

Oh yes, and I heartily recommend that everybody move to Manchester - it's ace.

[Oh, and PS: I don't really do guest posts on here, so probably don't bother asking, and though one of my incarnations is as a book reviewer, this isn't the place for it - if you want me to review something, do please contact Bookmunch instead, and then be aware that there's a team of volunteer reviewers there, of whom I'm only one, and your work might or might not get reviewed by any one of us.]