The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland (Paperback edition)
The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland (Paperback edition)
Edited by Sinéad Gleeson
The Glass Shore, compiled by award-winning editor, broadcaster and critic Sinéad Gleeson, features work from twenty-four female luminaries from the north of Ireland.
Paperback | 362pp | ISBN: 9781848408401 | Release Date: 8 October 2021
The Irish Book Award-winning anthology of female writers now available in paperback for the first time.
Following the landmark 2015 publication of The Long Gaze Back, one question kept arising: where was the equivalent anthology for women writers from the north? The Glass Shore, compiled by award-winning editor Sinéad Gleeson, provides an intimate and illuminating insight into a previously underappreciated literary canon.
Twenty-five female luminaries — whose lives and works cover three centuries — capture experiences that are both vivid and varied, despite their shared geographical heritage. Unavoidably affected by a difficult political past, this challenging landscape is navigated by characters who are searingly honest, humorous and, at times, heartbreakingly poignant. The result is a collection that is enthralling, stirring and quietly disconcerting. Individually, these intriguing stories make an indelible impact and are cause for reflection and contemplation. Together, they transgress their social, political and gender constraints, instead collectively presenting a distinctive, resolute and impassioned voice worthy of recognition and admiration.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Rosa Mulholland, Erminda Rentoul Esler, Sarah Grand, Alice Milligan, Eithne Carbery, Margaret Barrington, Janet McNeill, Mary Beckett, Caroline Blackwood, Polly Devlin, Frances Molloy, Una Woods, Sheila Llewellyn, Linda Anderson, Anne Devlin, Evelyn Conlon, Mary O’Donnell, Annemarie Neary, Martina Devlin, Rosemary Jenkinson, Bernie McGill, Tara West, Jan Carson, Lucy Caldwell and Roisín O’Donnell.
Reviews:
“ As evidenced by this well chosen anthology, the tradition of women’s short story writing in the north of Ireland is in good hands.”
“The Long Gaze Back told us the first part of the story of Irish women writers - in The Glass Shore, that story has been given its complex, rich, joyful ending.”
“ One of the most multilayered and thought-provoking collections of stories I’ve read in a long while...The writers in The Glass Shore are not solely defined by either their personal geography or their gender, but their work asks profound questions about who we really are. Short stories, then, but big ideas.”
“The sheer volume of forgotten female authors from the North was precisely the impetus behind Gleeson curating this anthology...Gleeson’s first attempt to rise to such a challenge, The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, was published last year to much well-deserved acclaim. But even in the wake of its staggering achievement, it became clear there remained a need for something similar in terms of women who hailed specifically from the North...[A] delightfully varied, utterly necessary new book.”
“Read one at a time, and savour everything about this wonderful tome.”
“Literary treasure...These riveting stories conjure windows and mirrors on daily struggles, while exploring varieties of personalities, occupations, circumstances, habits and individual choices. Moreover, these tales will remind us all that human nature remains the same across the globe—regardless of the era, the location, or the culture.”
