Lit Up Interviews: Meet Our Team

A Few Words With Dermott, Our Prompt Editor

Writer, poet, journalist, grandfather, observer of life’s absurdities.

Either Or (Please highlight or underline your choice)

1. Tea or coffee
2. Hot or cold
3. Movie or book
4. Coke or Pepsi
5. Toilet paper — over or under
6. Morning person or Night owl
7. Shower or bath
8. City or country
9. Social Media or book
10. Paperback or ebook

Would you rather (Please highlight or underline your choice)

1. Would you rather be in a room full of snakes or a room full of spiders?
2. Would you rather have an endless summer or an endless winter? neither, I prefer spring or autumn
3. Would you rather have constant nagging pain or a constant itch? It’s what I’m used to.
4. Would you rather only be able to have sex in a room full of bugs or no sex at all ever?
5. Would you rather always be an hour early or be constantly twenty minutes late?
6. Would you rather live in a haunted mansion or live in an un-haunted cottage?
7. Would you rather lose the ability to read or lose the ability to speak?
8. Would you rather have one real get out of jail free card or a key that opens any door?
9. Would you rather go back to age 5 with everything you know now or know now everything your future self will learn?

Under the Spotlight:

1. Where were you born? Ireland.
2. What was the happiest time of your life? Sharing my children’s early lives.
3. What do you value most and why? Honesty because it’s the hardest to achieve.
4. Now let’s remember the good old pro-Covid days: What were some memorable trips or outings? Cycling alone through the mountains of Galway and Mayo on the west coast of Ireland.
5. How long does it take you to write a book/story/poem? How long is a piece of string?
6. What is your work schedule like when you’re writing? Often chaotic. No matter how well-meaning my intentions might be, if I hit a thread and it's going well, I’ll live at my desk and work through the night.
7. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? Everything must be in order; dishes washed, clothes laundered, room spotless.
8. Where do you get your information or ideas for your books? Newspapers are always a good source, conversations with neighbours and strangers.
9. When did you write for the first time and how old were you? 1965, 9.
10. What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Walk, cook, cycle, eat, drink.
11. What literary pilgrimages have you gone on? I used to walk from Joyce’s Tower in Sandycove to the city on Bloomsday. I’d bring a book and a packed lunch.
12. Does writing energise or exhaust you? Both.
13. Do you believe in writer’s block? Yes.
14. Have you ever gotten a reader’s block? No-one’s ever offered one.
15. What do you think makes a good story? Living, breathing, smelling, scheming, fearing, sweating, laughing characters.
16. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Forgetting that telling a story is an aural experience, writing a story involves more senses.
17. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? I spent £5 on my first typewriter when I was 11. I had to save my pocket-money to afford it.
18. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? In my first English class in middle school, we were asked to write a description of the person sitting beside you. Mine was read out to the class. They applauded. I was chuffed and embarrassed.
19. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Three.
20. How do you select the names of your characters? Walk in their shoes for a while, hang out with them. They’ll give you their names.
21. How do you come up with the titles to your books? As a former journalist, I have a headline writer’s tendency to use title composition as a chance to hint, invite, entice and encourage a reader while at the same time maintaining an element of mystery.
22. Who is your favourite author and why? James Lee Burke because he tells living, breathing, human stories.