Longford date for Sinéad Gleeson

Next week literary artists from across the globe coalesce in Granard for the second iteration of the town's Booktown Festival.
Among the authors participating in the debates, discussions and workshops will be Sinéad Gleeson.
Sinéad is a writer, editor and broadcaster. Her memoir Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at 2019 Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer.
It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Michel Déon Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and has been translated into several languages.

She edited a number of anthologies of fiction and non-fiction, co-editing an anthology of womens’ writing on music with Kim Gordon, This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music, that featured writers including Anne Enright, Rachel Kushner, Maggie Nelson, Margo Jefferson and Ottessa Moshfegh.
Her first full-length novel is Hagstone, which has been described as “beautifully written, prescient and eerily haunting”.
Just days before it arrives on the shelves of book stores around Ireland she spoke to the Longford Leader about her ambition for the work.

“Hopefully it'll find its readers,” Sinéad said, “You have to trust the book. It's always an exciting and slightly terrifying time, but I'm glad it's finally getting out into the world.”
The highly anticipated debut novel takes in the darker side of human nature, the mysteries of faith and the power of the natural world.
Although this is Sinéad's first crack at full form fiction she has extensive publishing experience: “A novel is a very different beast.
“Constellations was a collection of essays. With essays you can work on one, then jump over and work on another. You need a lot of fuel in the tank for a novel.

“You've got to stay on them. They're very immersive. They are a lot of work, and it took an awful long time,” she says.
The gestation period of Hagstone has been extensive: “I started this book before most of the anthologies, and before Constellations, so it's about 12 years in the making. It's been a long, long road and a long process.”
Early reviews of the book have been overwhelmingly positive. Reviewers have employed favourable comparisons to authors like Mike McCormack, Margaret Atwood, Sarah Moss, Iris Murdoch and Shirley Jackson.
Hagstone takes place on the mysterious Inions, a commune of women who have travelled there from all over the world, consider it a place of refuge and safety, of solace in nature.

“I never say it's Ireland, but it's very heavily influenced by the likes of the Aran Islands,” Sinead says of the book's setting, “It's a 12 hour ferry ride away. One of the main plot drivers in the book is that this island is very hard to get away from. Lots of the characters who are there, feel like they can never leave.”
The challenge was to create a magical world with a feeling of reality: “There's a group of women called the Ineans, which obviously means the daughters, who have cut themselves off from the world.

“Nobody knows much about them. The main character is asked to work with them on an art project,” she explained.
“The book deals with the idea of utopia and if they work,” the author says, explaining similarity she as with the Hagstone protagonist, “I haven't lived in a commune on an island.
“I made Nell a very specific kind of figure in that she's a single woman. She gets involved with lots of men on the island.
“She doesn't want to get married or have children, because she's afraid that will stop her from making her art.
“She's a very singular, driven, focused kind of person. Maybe I have that in common with her, but I certainly don't live alone. I have a very different life to her,” Sinéad says.

For her Booktown turn the author will be in conversation with Shaunagh Connaire. Emmy nominated journalist and Longford native Connaire is another driven, focused female: “I can't wait. When John suggested her as a moderator,
“I thought she seemed like the best person. Somebody who's obviously a moderator, a strong-willed, smart woman, but also somebody who gets the visual intersection between books and what we see on screen. I think she'll be great.”
Sinéad is looking forward to the visit: “I love that part of the world. My parents used to have a house in Leitrim, and I'd often go down via Longford and stay there.
There's a lot of literary connections to Longford. From the Maria Edgeworth Festival, and Booktown there is a lot going on. I love that part of the world. I'm really excited to come down.”

Granard Booktown runs from Friday, April 19 to Sunday, April 21. Sinéad Gleeson will be in conversation with Shaunagh Connaire at 8:00pm on Friday, April 19 at the Sacred Heart School Hall in Granard.