Am I an award-winning writer?

Well a few months ago I wondered here if I should call myself a writer at all. Then I found out that I was an award-winning writer: I won the 2025 Cúirt New Writing Fiction Prize.

www.cuirt.ie

When I first began writing short stories just four years ago I devoured many collections in order to understand the form and appreciate its subtleties. One of the collections I most enjoyed was Dance Move by the outstanding Belfast writer Wendy Erskine, so I was completely gobsmacked when in her capacity as the prize's judge she wrote this about my winning story Deconstruction:

Complex relationship with a lightness of touch, I loved this story with its brilliantly judged dialogue. Who knew that an IKEA furniture forum could be mined for such gold?

I was floating on air after reading that and receiving her congratulations on BlueSky.

So there I was in Galway last week, reading my story at the Cúirt festival in the company of six brilliant writers. 

I'm still floating on air.

Published!

It doesn't mean much in the world of literature, but it means a lot to me: two of my pieces, Memento Mori and Homing, have been published in the online magazine Sky Island Journal. 

I've been writing fiction and poetry for two and a half years now, and this is motivation for me to keep on writing and to submit more of my pieces for publication. It feels good.

Lake Trousers, innit?

Our chalet is in the township of Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton, close to the river Missisquoi, on the shores of Lake Trousers.

Yep, Lake bloody Trousers!

I imagine how it was named by an intrepid English explorer and his lackey.

Explorer: I've discovered and named so many majestic mountains, rivers, and inland seas, I would like to grant you the privilege of naming this delightful little lake.

Lackey: Me, m'Lord?

Explorer: You, sirrah! Behold this vista. What does it bring to mind?

Lackey: Well, I dunno really. Looks a bit like a pair of trousers, innit.

Explorer: A pair of trousers?

Lackey: Yeh, that's it. I'll call it Lake Trousers then.

Explorer: Are you quite sure, my good man? It doesn't bring to mind the rich bounties of the green and golden summer of this new world? The sweeping wings of a Loon as it thrills through the clear water in pursuit of its prey? Or perhaps, with a little more imagination, the open jaws of a ravenous wolf racing across the windswept ice in the frozen depths of winter?

Lackey: No

Explorer: (sighing) Alright so, Lake Trousers it shall be. Let posterity forgive me.

Lackey: Yay!

Talk to the hand

'Is that an Android or an iPhone?'

He was scruffy, short and gap-toothed, walking toward me across the pedestrian crossing, ignoring the forbidding red hand above me. I was waiting to cross, idly looking at my phone.

'Doesn't matter anyway,' he continued without waiting for a reply. 'They're all the same.' He stopped in front of me, standing on the road as the traffic roared past less than a meter behind him.

'Right,' I managed to say, displaying all the fluency I'd developed in two years of creative writing classes.

'What really matters is the number,' he said.

'Oh?'

'Do you know how to use your camera,' he asked.

'Eh…'

'Come on, are you telling me you don't know how to use your camera?'

'Oh, sure I do, yes.'

'Well take a photo of this.'

He held up his phone. There was a scrap of paper taped to its back with a phone number on it, written in black marker in a shaky hand. 'This is the number you want,' he said with a note of pride.

I felt many pairs of eyes on my back, the crowd of pedestrians behind me waiting for my response. I hesitated. The red hand became a white man and we all spilled on to the road in a rush to cross, flowing around the man as a stream does around a rock, overwhelming it. I heard him sigh loudly then saw him no more.

I should have taken his number. 

A performance of Ravel's piano concerto in G major

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was at Montreal's Maison Symphonique to see this concerto performed by Hélène Grimaud and the Orchestre Métropolitain with Nézet-Séguin conducting. It was a powerful performance, amplified by how long it had been since any of us had experienced a live performance.

The second movement has been spinning around in my head ever since. I used my memory of the concert in a piece of creative non-fiction, where the narrator is uncovering his feelings about the death of someone to whom he used to be close. It finishes like this:

   She raises her hands above the piano keys and pauses. Time congeals and stops. Then, at the perfect moment that only she has foreseen, she slowly lowers her hands and begins to play, delicately unwinding that long lyrical melody I know so well. Time is liquefied, flowing, meandering back on itself in a long loop. We hear her breathing in the quiet passages of music. It’s only when you’re as close as I am that you appreciate how much physical effort it takes her to play as emotionally as this. I wait for her breath at the end of each phrase, like you do when you’re at the bedside of a dying person, waiting to hear if there will ever be another breath. And then those discordant notes that initially sound so wrong, but as the harmonics linger you realise that they’re so right. My heart is sore. We’ve arrived at a truce, but peace is still a long way off.

    The end of the second movement, a long-drawn-out note, and then there is silence. The air is charged, radioactive, and no one in the hall stirs for a long time. There is not a cough, no sound of a breath, as we await the final movement.

Postscript, September 2025:

A later version of my piece was published in the September 2025 issue of the Canadian magazine Blank Spaces. You can find information and links to all of my writing at www.LaurenceWrites.com. 

Apple picking

Yesterday we went apple picking. Little now-taller-than-me Philou came too, but none of his older brothers did. We filled our bucket with cortland, spartan and redcort, plump and juicy and crisp, my son reaching higher and higher for the best apples.  On the other side of the orchard a crowd of families sought the immediate sweetness of honeycrisp, but those trees had already been picked almost bare. The sun angled across the rows of trees, surprising us with its post-equinox strength, reddening the pale Irish skin of Philou and me.

Saturday at Verger Labonté

Today I made an apple pie, cooling it in the fresh breeze passing through the house. It tasted of late season, of another summer passing, of children who will soon no longer be children. It was comforting and sweet with a hint of tartness.

Sunday on Côte-Saint-Antoine

Tomorrow and the day after I'll remember the Saturday in autumn when we went apple picking.

 

The Coal Hole

The coal hole was the dark closet under the stairs of my childhood home in Crumlin. I would crawl in between the winter coats to sit down beside the hoover, staying still in the close darkness for hours with only the sound of my own breathing for company. 

There was no longer any coal there - there may never have been any - but there was certainly a faint yet sharp odour of gas from the metre. But mostly it smelled of my Dad's old coats, a comforting smell, the smell of him, of home. The ancient crombie overcoat which, though well-worn through many years, he still considered to be his best coat. A view most emphatically not shared by my mother. Various anoraks which he'd forgotten he had. And most impressively to my young eyes, his brown leather motorbike jacket, thick and heavy, and with it his old helmet and goggles.

My Dad's old motorbike had long gone by this stage. It wasn't very practical as transportation for a family of four. After a decade standing unused and forlorn in the garden, green, grimy, and rusting, he sold the old Sunbeam S7 to a passing dealer who restored it to the point that we saw it on display with other vintage motorbikes in the St. Patrick's Day parade. But my Dad always and forever considered himself a biker, as evidenced by his ownership of that jacket, even if he no longer possessed a bike. 

In my teen years I was often annoyed at Dad, for lots of trivial teenage reasons. Later, when I got over myself and wanted to talk to him, my Dad proved difficult to connect with. He adopted a persona for each situation, and with me he was always the parent. It was hard to get through to the real him, whoever that was, and I never really succeeded.

I've heard it said that it's in the effort to not be like our parents that we become most like them. As a teenager I resolved that I would be a biker, that I'd have the coolest and most uncompromising sports motorcycle, and that's exactly how it worked out. I had several bikes, each as red and deafening as a fire-engine and just as alarming to my wife. And of course, I had matching one-piece leathers and helmet. But the truth is, my bikes weren't very practical as transportation for a family of five. Eventually my Honda VFR750F stood covered in the shed for a decade before I finally sold it - and then only because the shed was being rebuilt and I had nowhere to store it. For I still considered myself a biker, and the bike represented that. Now it's gone. But I still have the red leathers and helmet, stored carefully in the space we call the cedar closet, a space I've seen my youngest son snuggle into on top of the bags of duvets and pillows.

What do we leave behind us when we die? Memories in the minds of those who knew us, a few material things we possessed that invoke those memories. Mannerisms and phrases, maybe even a predisposition to certain choices that we unwittingly pass on to our children. Things that we ourselves inherited.

I wonder what my children will remember of me.

 

Parenting milestones

I used to hold my children's hands when they crossed the road. It was a brief stage in our lives together, dad and child. Only a short time they could go to the park without me. Now it's been a long time since I held their hands in mine. 

I used to read them bedtime stories, sometimes the same story on a hundred nights, until they could read for themselves. I still know every word of "The Gruffalo" off by heart, but they only dimly remember it, if at all.

These were parenting milestones: my children developing their own skills, becoming independent. At the time, these milestones passed by without me noticing. I don't remember the very last time I held T's hand to cross the road, or the last night I read P a bedtime story. If I had known in the precise moment, that it was the last time, I would have been blinking away tears. It was definitely better for my mental health that I only saw the milestone afterwards when looking back. 

Today I signed T up for another summer of soccer, just like I've done every year in the past decade. But I didn't sign L up, as he's over 18 now. Last Autumn, as his team progressed through the championship, I knew that when the season ended I would no longer be bringing him to matches around Montreal, watching him play, cheering him on, shouting at the referee that he'd been fouled. His final underage game was on a Sunday morning in September, and in the warm Autumn sunshine I had a lump in my throat and blinked away a few tears as we celebrated winning the Montreal U18A regional championship. His last game of underage soccer, my last day as his biggest fan. The milestone was right there, looming over me.

I love being a Dad but some moments are bittersweet.

This morning L said he might want to be a referee this Summer. Maybe I'll follow him around, if he'll let me, show my appreciation for the referee when he makes the right call for offside. The referee's biggest fan. 

P.S. And then the pandemic happened and some milestones were missed, never to be seen again.

Mr O'Reilly

Mr. O'Reilly was old. I was 10, and for as long as I could remember he'd always been the same: black bushy hair and eyebrows and moustache, a well worn black suit and waistcoat, his pipe with which he constantly fiddled as he leaned on the garden gate outside his terraced house, watching the traffic on our busy road. He smelled of tobacco. From four houses away I could smell it, not unpleasant in itself, but for me a warning: Mr O'Reilly is out.

For he had a gruff manner, as though continually affronted by what he saw from his observation post at the end of his little overgrown garden. And he'd a loud and gravelly voice to complement his imposing dark figure and mannerisms. On my daily errand to buy the final edition of the Evening Herald, I had to pass him. Each time the blood would be pounding in my ears. Could I sneak by quickly without him talking to me?

'The state of that car it should be put off the feckin road!'

Oh no. Should I pretend I hadn't heard him, or just smile back, or what? Oh God!

'What?', he'd bark.

"You're right Mr O'Reilly", I'd stammer.

'Huh', he'd retort, severely unimpressed with my limp response.

I'd continue on up the road, turning right to cross at the traffic lights, taking Sally's bridge over the Grand Canal and on down to Kelly's newsagent, all the while fretting over my return journey and how to avoid Mr. O'Reilly.

But there was no avoiding Mr. O'Reilly.

'The Guards should do something about it but they're feckin useless.'

Oh no. He'd mentioned the Guards. What should I reply? Didn't Mam say one of his sons was arrested by the Guards? Is that the fella that was always coming home roaring drunk from the pub, or one of the other rough looking ones?

'What did ye say?' he'd shout.

'Eh, you're right Mr. O'Reilly', I'd offer.

'Huh'.

I tried various tactics. Instead of walking past him up to the traffic lights I'd cross the road outside my house; I'd often be standing at the edge of the road for an eternity, waiting for a gap in the traffic, feeling his eyes boring into my back. I'd take our little dog with me, so that I could take her off the leash at the traffic lights on the way back and race with her past Mr O'Reilly before he could say anything; he'd watch me the whole way, as I kept my eyes facing forward to avoid his gaze. He knew what I was doing.

I don't know when he stopped being there. I remember one evening much later, back for a visit after a couple of years abroad, I passed him at his gate without either of us speaking. He looked frail, probably didn't recognise me.

He's not there anymore. It's not the same place without him. 

Mr O'Reilly was here

Ireland is boilin'

This week in Ireland we have the hottest weather in 42 years. The roads are melting (literally) and we're running out of water (literally). In short, as the woman at the checkout in Supervalu said to me, it's boilin' outside (metaphorically). The TV news shows pictures of beaches filled with Irish sunbathers turning the colour of, yes, boiled lobsters.

But when Mam and I went for a walk in Newcastle Co. Wicklow we found the beach deserted, with a deliciously cool breeze coming off the Irish sea.

We walked a few 100 metres beside the railway lane and passed this forlorn abandoned cottage, slumped in the heat, under dazzling blue skies stretching westwards to the Wicklow mountains

I rather like this heated up Ireland, especially because I know it'll be cold and wet again soon enough.

"Dad, you're like a kid in a toy shop!"

And he was right, my middle son, I was indeed like a kid in a toy shop. We were at the Canadian Grand Prix, walking around the track towards the exit after the second Formula 1 practice as my son had had enough for the day, but I'd stopped to watch the Formula Ford 1600's, my face pressed up against the fencing to get a better view of those spindly little cars. Forty-five (and more) years ago in Dublin the simple FF 1600 class was the showpiece of the Phoenix Park motor races - we could only dream of seeing F1 cars. Then it was my own Dad who was the kid in the toy shop and who couldn't leave until the last race was won - by which time I'd be bursting to take a pee and would have to run for a slash behind a tree. Bit of a Dublin tradition that, luckily there are a lot of trees in the Phoenix Park and hopefully by now some toilets too!

Things are a bit more sophisticated in Montreal in 2018: decent though expensive food, clean toilets (sinks! soap!), and the F1 cars are spectacular. I also played with the shutter speed of my camera in a reasonably successful attempt to get blur-free picture of the cars as they ripped past us.

Memories are made of days like these.

Old(er) dog, new tricks

Habits are a blocker to learning; the mindlessness of habit reduces conscious engagement with your surroundings, so you miss opportunities to be surprised and challenged, and to be truly 'alive'.

This is the principal thing I remember from Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life which is a great read for a winter's weekend. (By contrast, Proust's great work kept me occupied for 3 years, one volume for each winter and summer holiday...)

How to apply this wisdom? Well I've decided to leave the company where I've been working contentedly for seven years because it's become a comfortable habit for me. In my new job I'll be challenged and will feel a bit insecure - I expect to learn a lot!

And in a move of greater significance for the world and for public safety, I'm also trying to break a habit that I've formed in a half-century of car travel, by adopting a better way of opening car doors.

It's called the 'Dutch reach' and I learned about it in a letter to The Guardian

The Netherlands has found a solution to the problem of car doors and cyclists (Transport secretary knocks man off his bike, 16 December). Dutch motorists are trained to open the car door with their opposite hand. This forces the body to swivel, and your eyes to look backward, thus spotting a passing cyclist. Drivers must demonstrate this to pass the driving test. It is referred to sometimes as the “Dutch reach”. In the Netherlands it is simply called how you open your car door. 

Henry Stewart, London

It's a technique to avoid this:

 

I've been doing it for a week and I have to stop and remind myself every time I get out of the car. I've asked my kids to police me, which of course they're only too happy to do! Opening the car door is now a learning experience for me - and the world is a tiny bit safer for cyclists.

Grosse Ile: lessons in migration

The view east from Grosse Ile out towards the gulf of St. Lawrence

Last weekend we went to Grosse Ile, an island in the beautiful Isle-aux-Grues archipeligo that lies east of Quebec City in the St. Lawrence river. The island was formerly used as a quarantine station for immigrants to Eastern Canada, and Grosse Ile is a name that still resonates for many Irish people.

Towards the western end of the island there is a small field marked with a few white crosses.

The Irish cemetery, Grosse Ile

Here lie the remains of more than 5000 Irish men, women and children who arrived at this island during the summer and autumn of 1847. They came in search of a new life in North America, fleeing the famine in Ireland, crossing the Atlantic in terrible conditions in a voyage that took seven weeks or more crowded in to the rough hold of a cargo ship. Many died during the sea crossing, others arrived suffering from diseases (typhus mainly) and died on Grosse Ile.

At the western tip of the island there is a memorial to these unfortunate people in the form of a celtic cross.

The inscription on the cross is in Irish and says that they died fleeing “foreign tyranny” and an “artificial famine”.

In the visitor centre we learn that there were many Irish children on the island who were orphaned and that they were adopted by French-Canadian families. Consequently many Quebecers have some Irish ancestry, and you will often meet Francophones with Irish surnames.

As we visit the island the news is filled with stories of other unfortunate migrants. So far this year almost 2000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean, on the treacherous voyage to Europe in search of a better life. Last week, more than 70 people were found dead in the back of truck in Austria, as they tried to reach Germany.

For me, this refugee crisis of 2015 resonates with the Irish tragedy of 1847. History has not been kind to the people and politicians of the 1840's who did little while the Irish starved, drowned and died of diseases. I suspect that history will not be kind to us in this generation either unless we respond to this crisis. People are dying in their thousands while we mess around with Eurozone immigration policies and Greek banking problems. This is the European disaster of our generation - it is the single most important thing for us to deal with now. Where is the leadership from Ireland and from Canada to resolve this crisis which we can understand only too well?

Sorrowful remembrance of the dead is worth little unless it makes us resolve to save those still living.

Adventures in Advertising

April 30th.

I'm having a joyless lunch at Subway. The sullen teenager behind the counter has built the sandwich according to my precise specifications, but I know from experience that no matter the combination of bread, filling and condiments, the end result always tastes like a bland Subway sandwich. So I've not come for the sandwich but for the Superhero toy that goes with it. Yesterday my 7-year-old son cried hot, ang‎ry tears for the lack of this toy; his best friend has lots of them because the lucky boy eats at Subway everyday, or so I understand through sobs. 

Later after work I arrive at his school with a smile and present my son with the Avengers puzzle. Of course ‎it's the wrong toy. There are more hot, angry tears while I contemplate another Subway lunch.  Consuming processed meats is a factor in high cholesterol and colon cancer but perhaps that's a small price to pay for a 7-year-old's smile and a big hug. Thanks Subway!

May 2nd

My 14-year-old son's soccer team has been invited to play a pre-season game against a strong girls' team: 14-year-old boys against 16-year-old girls.  The game is sponsored by Coca Cola, "a celebration of the upcoming women's world cup in Canada". It quickly becomes apparent that a Coca Cola celebration means making a commercial. The boys stand around while the girls repeat their entrance on to the pitch at least three times (I lose count) until it is done to the satisfaction of the director. When the game finally kicks off, play is somewhat disrupted by the film crew camped out in the centre circle. At 2-0 to the boys, the action is suspended to stage a goal by the girls - boys and girls are visibly embarrassed.

At the end of the "game" the players are given soccer kits, iTunes vouchers and a meal at a local restaurant. 

"Ils ont profité de nous" says my son when we get home. Yes they did, but I think he learned something too. Thanks Coca Cola!

June 22nd

OMG it's even worse than I feared, “even better than the real thing” as Bono warned - the Coke advertisement shows an event the occurred in the mind of the director only and certainly not on the soccer pitch. It's actually pretty impressive, in a dishonest manipulative way. 

The complete ad is still available on the Coca Cola Facebook page

Big Bang Masterchef!

Our two older boys have just returned from their annual fortnight in the wilderness of Camp Nominingue. They're more tanned, more self-reliant and more helpful around the house than when they left - though we know from experience that none of this will last! Nominingue is brilliant, a hugely positive experience for them. They love it.

Each year I have a theme for my emails to them at camp, to add variety to the updates on how their soccer teams are doing without them and the latest Arsenal transfer news. Last year there was my infamous series of lame Knock Knock jokes. This year I combined their favourite TV programmes into a script for a new show: Big Bang Masterchef on beIN Sports!

(None of the following will make sense, even if you're familiar with The Big Bang Theory, Master Chef, and the football talk shows on beIN sports. My goal is making a connection with the boys, not making sense!)

Episode 1

In the first episode, Penny is trying to heat milk for hot chocolate but she burns it. Gordon says not to worry, because she’s cute, and anyway he really wanted crème brulée so "well done Penny!".

Sheldon comes up with new tactics for the team, based on a dodecahedron formation in midfield instead of a diamond, with the number 10 role filled by a physicist playing in the black hole behind the striker. The shouty guy from Newcastle says that’s ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT.

Howard says no no that’s just RIDICULOUS, you have to apply quantum theory not relativistic mechanics because the potatoes aren’t perfect spheres like a brazuca. He gets so annoyed he throws a big mucky spud at this week’s special guest, potatoe's Wayne Rooney, who hits it first time on the volley into the top left corner of the oven. GOAL!

Episode 2

Today it’s the dreaded pressure test! What can our chefs make in 20 minutes with some eggs, biscuits and ice-cream?

Well, Penny has made a Baked Alaska! But the ice-cream has melted, the eggs are scrambled, the biscuits have crumbled, and it's all dripping on the floor in a messy puddle. Gordon says not to worry, she’s still cute, and anyway he really wanted a milkshake so "well done Penny!".

Sheldon is going for a real pressure test: he puts the ingredients in a pressure cooker heated in a fusion oven to 2 million degrees so as to simulate the extreme pressure conditions at the beginning of the universe, crushing the organic ingredients to a tiny point. The shouty guy from Newcastle says he’s no idea what the hell Sheldon is doing but it’s ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.

Suddenly, this week’s special guest Arjen Robben slips on Penny’s mess. He does a triple somersault with a twist landing on his backside and screams that Leonard tripped him. PENALTY! says Gordon. He shows Leonard a red card and tells him to take off his apron. Holy Dutch crap on a Bayern cracker says Raj, that's definitely not cricket. But Howard has no problem with the pressure.  He steps confidently up to the penalty spot and blasts his biscuits to the top right corner of the fridge. GOOAALL!!

Episode 3

Today it's the season finale of Big Bang Masterchef on beIN Sports!

We're down to our last 2 chefs, who'll each create a stunning meal that displays all of their talents and everything they've learned this past fortnight. Of course Raj is one of the finalists, but poor Leonard is suspended after his red card in the previous episode. His place is taken by...Penny!

Raj creates a fabulous meal of wonderfully aromatic dishes: onion bhaji with a coriander and lime dip, chicken tikka masala with basmati rice, and sweet mango lassi with almonds. Penny really goes for it too: KD macaroni and cheese followed by a perfectly-unwrapped Snickers bar.

Gordon says Raj's meal is too spicy and complicated while Penny, who's still cute by the way, has cooked the macaroni to al dente perfection so "well done Penny!".

The shouty guy from Newcastle says this is BLOOMING RIDICULOUS and Gordon just doesn't recognise GENIUS when he sees it. Well thank you, says Sheldon. No No No I'm talking about MESSI shouts Shouty.

This week's special guest, Iker Cassillas, stands up to present the trophy to Penny. But he's not sure if he should go over to meet her or wait for her to come over to him. He takes 2 steps forwards, hesitates, takes a step backwards, takes another forwards, trips over his feet and drops the trophy. He watches helplessly as it rolls across the floor and is picked up by Howard. YES! says Howard believing he has won and raising it high above his head in celebration. GOOOAAALLL!!!