Ethel Rohan

since I’ve written here. I first started blogging four Januarys ago under the title Straight From the Heart in My Hip: Snapshots of a Writer’s Mind. My intention was to write straight and honest out of the swirl of my head. The plan was that there would also be photos, lots of photos.

The photo idea quickly fizzled out. I’m not great about taking photos, let alone posting them. The confessional impulse still remains. For me, my best posts have been those where I’ve laid myself bare. That’s the way the words here have wanted to come out. Ideally, I suppose, confessional writing hits on matters that resonate and have meaning for both you the reader and me the writer, that help us discover.

There are many reasons I haven’t posted in such a long time. In general, I haven’t had the urge. Then there’s the fact that personal blogging and its readership are dying. Really, who cares anymore? I’m also busy as a mother and busy elsewhere as a writer, so busy I sometimes wish my skeleton could step out of me and help too. Mostly, though, I’ve been hurt hard and the pain hangs over everything. I can’t write straight and honest without writing about that pain and that’s something I won’t do here.

I also don’t want to write straight from the heart in my hip because I’m afraid of what I might discover–truths I’m afraid I’ll find and big changes I might have to make, and I don’t want to have to face all that. I don’t like change and I don’t want to lose love, however imperfect it might be. That’s what I most wanted as a child: to feel safe and secure and loved. That’s what I still most want.

I reviewed Martha Long’s memoir Ma, He Sold Me for a Few Cigarettes for New York Journal of Books. The memoir has flaws, but it’s a devastating and worthwhile read. What struck me most as I read was how many times Martha Long as a young girl told herself with equal parts rage and hope that she would survive and go on to live a better life. I remember telling myself the same thing as a child: I knew with uncanny knowing that I could and would do better; that I was born for more.

My first real boyfriend, the one I stayed with for five years and almost got engaged to, he often played Bob Dylan, the times they are a-changin. Ironically, that song gave me the courage to leave him, that and The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York, Happy Christmas me arse I pray God it’s our last. That and that, and the uncanny knowingness that I was born for more all empowered me to leave him, to leave Ireland.

It’s a New Year. I’ve got a new book coming out. I know this year is going to be big. I still feel like I was born for more. I hope the more, though, is not where I’m afraid it is–I hope to get to more I don’t have to leave anyone behind again. Because I love you.

It’s that time of year when notable and award lists abound. Yeah, that isn’t what this post is about. Maybe someday … (Yes, this is a shameless nudge.)

In the same spirit, however, I announce myself Winner of the Shortest 25 Question Interview EVER.

You can read my brief 25 answers and watch my brief video reading here. I could not bring myself to do the latter, but perhaps you can.

Thanks to Evan Karp and Sarah Griffin (Twitter: @griffski) for making this happen.

published my op-ed essay on women’s rights and Ireland’s antiquated abortion laws, written in response to the terrible death of Dr. Savita Halappanavar in an Irish hospital.

I co-wrote a brief article on emigration for The Irish Times with fellow Dubliner and new emigrant to San Francisco, Sarah Griffin (photo via The Irish Times and taken by Ian Tuttle).

Excerpt:

Sarah voiced a reluctance to join the Irish community here, largely because she doesn’t want it to mirror everything she is missing about Ireland and to suck her right in. I understand her reluctance. While I believe the Irish community can be of vital support to new emigrants, there’s a danger of getting trapped inside the smallness of the familiar, allowing that sense of living in a strange place to remain forever. Emigrants have to let go of any sense of preciousness around having a single identity.

Finished Laura van den Berg’s chapbook, THERE WILL BE NO MORE GOOD NIGHTS WITHOUT GOOD NIGHTS, from Origami Zoo Press and highly recommend the read. The stories are so skillful and moving and imaginative. Really beautiful work. Readers, treat yourself. Teachers of short-short fiction, this tiny, powerful book is a must for your students. Skeptics of short-short stories, go read and get thee converted.

My review of Allen Learst’s debut story collection, Dancing at the Gold Monkey, winner of the Leapfrog Fiction Contest, 2011, is live at New York Journal of Books.

Excerpt:

Yet this isn’t a collection about promise and rebirth. Nor is this a collection about childlike anticipation or the gratification of the wonderful arrived. These 12 honest, brutal stories depict the ravages of war on the individual and ultimately on the collective whole and are more fitting to an opening line about gore and dismemberment and demons—images that go off throughout this book like grenades.

My interview with Louise Phillips, bestselling crime writer and author of the debut novel, Red Ribbons,  is live at PANK.

Go, read, enjoy. Thank you.

is the title of my short-short story published today at Hobart. Thank you, Aaron Burch.

Excerpt:

The monkey breeder takes her credit card details. Through the telephone there’s rain. Rain! From her window, the Beverley Hills shimmer and seem to melt. Perhaps the toll free number has taken her straight to the Plains of Africa and a monsoon. The breeder lists the available monkeys and she selects one of the Golden Lion Tamarins, a female, six weeks old. “A good choice,” the breeder tells her. “She’s a beautiful fiery orange.” He confirms the flight details and rings off. In just five days, she will hold her very own baby monkey.

Mark Rohan competed in two hand-cycling races at the 2012 London Paralympics and he won two Gold Medals. He completed his second race this past Friday in just under two hours and won by a two second lead.

Mark and his fellow Paralympians have not let tragedy and ‘lacks’ define them. Rather, Mark and his fellow Paralympians have redefined what it is to be disabled. They have let go of who they were or who they might have been and have embraced who they are. That is true grace.