Author Archive: Aine Greaney
I’m an Irish writer (County Mayo) now living on Boston’s North Shore.
My second novel, Dance Lessons has been published by Syracuse University Press. Read more about the book or order your copy here.
As well as writing, I lead writing workshops at various schools, arts organizations, libraries and colleges in New England and beyond. For information on my programs and workshops, visit the Mass. Cultural Council artist profile.
As well as working, writing and teaching, I get out and about now and again. I belong to local and regional arts and writing organizations, including the New Hampshire Writers Project, the Cape Cod Writers Center, Irish Network Boston and the American Conference for Irish Studies.
I travel back to Ireland frequently.
Tips for Writing During Tough Times
These days, it seems as if thinking or speaking about anything else except our COVID-19 pandemic seems frivolous or selfish. I mean, why should any of us bother to create or write anything good when our inner and outer worlds have gone so bad? Self-Sabotaging Our Creative Selves In the face of crisis, many of us suspend […]
Collecting and Editing Our Short Works for a Book-Length Manuscript
Collecting and Editing Our Short Works for a Book-Length Manuscript When I decided to pitch and publish a book-length collection of personal essays, I thought that it would be an extended word processing project. I would go to my digital essay folder, download all my previously published essays—including the one published here in When Women Waken. Then, […]
Short Fiction: A New Year’s Friendship
Elaine Walsh Barrington revs up her white BMW and reverses the car out of the double garage behind the house. “I really don’t mind getting a taxi to the station again,” Lorna, her younger sister, says from the passenger seat. “You didn’t have to leave your New Years Day open house like this.” The clenched […]
How We Change As Writers
Last week I was trying to downsize one of my overflowing bookshelves when I came across a copy of my first novel, The Big House. The book was published in 2003 by Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, U.K. I held my first book in my hands and felt that nostalgia we feel when […]
Love Letter
Dear Writing, It’s Valentine’s Day. Or almost. So now it’s time to tell you what you’ve meant to me and how you’ve changed my heart and life. Good love letters reminisce and remind of those first sightings, those early flirtations and that heady free fall into real love. So here goes. I first spotted you […]
5 Ways to Spot and Avoid Sketchy Editors and Publications
I still remember that summer afternoon when my mother came upstairs to find me weeping into my pillow. I was 20 years old, and I had just discovered that my boyfriend had been cheating on me. Of course, I told my mother the edited, sanitized version of the story, omitting that part about walking into […]
The Scariest Moments in a Writer’s Life
Vampires? Witches? Ghouls? Yes, they’re Halloween scary (maybe), but they’ve got nothing on the spookiest moments from a writer’s life. All writers can list at least three things that can send us screeching and cowering under our bed covers. I’ll tell you mine (including my fright-busting fixes), if you tell us yours. 1. Eeeek! The […]
5 Ways to be a Smart, Gutsy Writer
I used to think that becoming a writer was like leafing through a travel brochure or scrolling through a vacation website to find that perfect, sunlit place (writing genre). Once I found the perfect spot, I would earmark that page and say, “Yeah, that’s where I’m headed.” Then, once I actually got there, I’d set […]
My Big Fake Immigrant Memoir
Let’s face it, the American immigration story has been done to death. It’s the “been-there-wrote-that” tale. So would someone please tell why I’m sitting here writing a book-length memoir about leaving my native Ireland, at age 24, to come alone to live in America? While I’m penning my woman’s immigrant story, the very same story is being played […]
Thanksgiving’s a Holiday Over Here
The American man’s voice sounded woken-up and irritated. “It’s Thanksgiving,” he said down that payphone. “So my roommates are off work and gone home. Like, Thanksgiving’s a holiday over here.” Oh, come on, I wanted to say. I mean, with nobody getting born or killed or risen from the dead, just how big could this ‘holiday’ of yours really […]
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