🎙 INTERVIEW: Hearing the Archive Speak: Craft and Obsession with Doireann Ní Ghríofa

​** This is a LIVE interview with Doireann Ní Ghríofa about the craft of writing and reality of building a creative career.**

​How do you turn archival fragments into living, breathing narrative?

​Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish writer devoted to exploring how the past makes itself felt within the present. Her landmark book A Ghost in the Throat won the James Tait Black Prize, was named Irish Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of seven acclaimed poetry collections, each deepening her exploration of birth, death, desire, domesticity, and the porous border between history and lived experience.

​Her new book, Said the Dead, returns to this charged territory. In Cork, a derelict Victorian mental hospital is being converted into apartments. A passerby pauses. Had she been born in another decade, she too might have lived within those walls. Drawn by a sign—FOR SALE—she begins to follow a trail of archival remnants and forgotten women’s voices.

​Join us for a conversation with Doireann Ní Ghríofa about hybridity, historical excavation, and writing her new book Said the Dead.

​We’ll also explore:

• ​Distilling hundreds of hours of archival research into narrative form

• ​Writing polyphony: allowing multiple voices to coexist without collapsing into chaos

• ​Blending poetry, history, memoir, and ghost story

• ​Crafting intensity without sensationalism

• ​The physical and emotional demands of research-led writing

• ​How domestic life and artistic practice inform one another

• ​Sustaining long-term creative inquiry into a single thematic obsession

• ​Writing toward danger, tenderness, and truth
  

​About Doireann Ní Ghríofa

​Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish ​writer devoted to exploring how the past makes itself felt within the present. ‘​​A Ghost in the Throat’ finds an 18th century poet haunting a young mother, leading her through visions of blood, milk, lust, and murder. Written on the roof of a multi-storey car park in Ireland, it went on to be described as “powerful” (New York Times), “captivatingly original” (The Guardian), and a “masterpiece” (Sunday Business Post). ​'A Ghost in the Throat’  won the James Tait Black Prize and was voted overall Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, while the US edition was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It is to appear in 20 further languages worldwide. 

​Doireann is also the author of seven critically-acclaimed books of poetry, each a deepening exploration of birth, death, desire, and domesticity. Awards for her writing include a Lannan Literary Fellowship (USA), the Ostana Prize (Italy), a Seamus Heaney Fellowship, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature​, among others. 

​She is currently working on her next book, distilling hundreds of hours of archival research towards a polyphonic history of a single institution. 

​Your London Writers' Salon Hosts:

​Parul Bavishi and Matt Trinetti are the co-founders of the London Writers' Salon, creators of the webby-nominated Writers' Hour daily writing sessions, and hosts of the London Writers' Salon podcast.

​Parul Bavishi has been an editor for over a decade. In addition to running LWS she helps thriller, YA and non-fiction writers level up their craft and get published. She writes and edits for the Story Grid. She has worked as an editor and literary scout at Random House, Quercus & Eccles Fisher. She analyses TV hit shows (Killing Eve, Ozark, Game of Thrones) on the Story Grid Showrunners Podcast.

​Matt Trinetti is a writer, publisher, TEDx speaker, and facilitator. In addition to running LWS, Matt designs programs to help unfulfilled professionals pursue creative work, start businesses, and reinvent their careers. Matt's work has appeared in Quartz, Observer, Creative Mornings, and on his blog GiveLiveExplore.

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