My interview has been wiped away by time (that’s OK), but I liked the little paragraph I wrote ten years ago on Bloomsday, so I decided to reblog it now. Today I was able to retweet a photo of James Joyce and Nora on their wedding day in 1931 (15 years after they met, with two children under their belt) and point out that Nora was wearing a cloche hat!
My friend Liz Adams, an artist who was born in England but is part Irish, and a resident of New Jersey for many years, wrote an interesting post on her blog Field and Fen about the significance of the day. She’s reading Ulysses on her Kindle. Apparently, it’s an annual ritual for her. She tells me she’s getting very close to the end… and thus has a treat ahead of her!
Being interviewed is a scary thing. The folks at 1st Author Interviews made it totally easy for me to answer some questions about my writing process and my recently published novel The Leaving. I think they did a great job. Take a look:
To all fans of Irish writing and Joyce… Happy Bloomsday. I still remember reading Ulysses for the first time, sitting in tall grass in a hot back yard in Sacramento, playing hooky from random classes at Sacramento City College during a long summer before returning to start college in Ireland. When I finally got to rereading Ulysses in college a couple years later, it wasn’t as much fun, even though our class did have Prof. David Norris, a flamboyant gay man and enthusiastic Joycean, interpreting it for us. The first time really swept me away.
Gabriella West 