I’ve achieved some rather major literary goals this year, and last night I celebrated with two lovely women. There's me in the middle. (Those holes in my top are a design feature, not a result of drunken undressing in the dark. I wish.) On the right is Joanna, and to the left is Sara: the…
Music to Write By
If I'm lucky, every week I spend a number of happy hours by myself, writing. Music is often my only companion. If I'm really concentrating - trying to craft a particularly tricky sentence, or juggling a complicated plot sequence, I turn it off, but most of the time it is the perfect accompaniment. I'm like Pavlov's dogs: the minute…
You can take the girl out of Ireland…
I was born in Northern Ireland, and lived with my family in a little (as in: blink or you'll miss it) village called Altnamackin in County Armagh until we made the long and alienating journey to New Zealand in 1974. I was named after Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, who, legend has it, planted a…
The Belfast Question
This story is based on something that really happened to me to when I went back to Northern Ireland in my 20s. I was born there, and my family shifted to New Zealand when I was four. My father was a Presbyterian minister in Country Armagh (termed “Bandit Country” in 1975 by then Northern Ireland…
Patricia Bell, Author 