I Must Be Off

Christopher Allen, curator of I Must Be Off!, a website dedicated to interviews with expats, kindly featured me here.

An excerpt:

“As a child I struggled with learning differences and for years attended what in Dublin we called “remedial classes” taught by an elderly nun, Sister Gerethie. Luckily, despite Sister Gerethie’s hunchback, walking cane, and black garb, she didn’t succumb to the stereotype and I remember her fondly. My challenges to read and write were never diagnosed, that I know of, and to this day I’m not sure if my difficulties were cognitive or emotional (I’m a survivor of childhood abuse). The memory of the struggle, though, remains like a bird on my shoulder that every now and again pecks at me. On one hand, I’m proud and frankly astonished that I’ve grown from that girl who jumbled text to, of all things, a writer, and on the other hand the insecurities around feeling stupid still burn and I worry that, as a writer, I couldn’t possibly be in the right place.”

Thanks, Chris, for including me.