Clonsilla writer wins Hennessy Award

Clonsilla writer Valerie Sirr has walked off with the highly prestigious Hennessy XO New Irish Writer Award. The Waterford-born short story writer also won the Hennessy XO Literary Award for Emerging Fiction Writer at the event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin recently.

Now in their 37th year, the Hennessy XO Literary Awards is a unique award, providing the undiscovered writer and poet with an opportunity to break through the barriers to see their work published and their talents appear in print. Valerie Sirr now joins an illustrious band of Hennessy Award winners that includes Joseph O’Connor, Colum McCann, Frank McGuinness, Marina Carr, Phillip O’Ceallaigh, and Pat McCabe.

“It was a fabulous day, though a lot of it remains a blur,” says Valerie. Firstly Anne Enright was inducted into the hall of fame and then they got down to the three category awards – poetry, first fiction and emerging fiction.

“It was a great surprise to me when they announced my name in the emerging fiction category and I had to go up and receive the prize. But then, when they announced my name a second time for the overall prize, I was absolutely stunned. I was sitting next to Dermot Bolger and I remember asking him if I had to go up again!

“When I made my speech, all I could see were round tables everywhere and everybody’s face turned towards me. But the thing I remember clearest was that the serving staff had taken my lovely dessert away by the time I regained my table!”

Valerie won the award for her short story “Summer Rain” which appeared in the Sunday Tribune last year. The story focuses on a forty-something man who has recently been diagnosed with testicular cancer and is a veritable masterclass in the art of delving into the psyche of a character. “Firstly I thought it would be an interesting exercise to write from the point of view of a man for a change,” she explains. “It has been described by Douglas Kennedy, novelist, as a study of existential rage, a description I like a lot. Men tend to get very angry when they become ill as though it is a slur on their virility. They feel they should be invincible and cannot understand it when their bodies let them down.”

Born in Waterford in 1962, Valerie moved to Dublin at seven years of age. She is a graduate of University College, Dublin and has had a varied career in both Dublin and London working in a photographic laboratory, international banking, computer programming, property development, and as a psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry. She completed an M Phil in Creative Writing in its inaugural year at Trinity College Dublin and lives in Stonebridge in Clonsilla.

Although she is technically an “emerging” –i.e. as yet unpublished in book form – writer as far as the Hennessy Awards are concerned, her list of achievements stretches back over ten years. She won the 1996 William Allingham short-story award and the Maurice Walsh Memorial award in 1998. She won the Elizabeth Newsom award, the Norah Fahy Literary award, received a literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland and from Dublin County Council and has been nominated for a PJ O’Connor award. Her short stories have been widely published in literary journals, magazines and newspapers both in Ireland and Britain including The Sunday Tribune, The Stinging Fly and Cutting Teeth, and have been broadcast on RTE radio. This is her third time to be nominated for the Hennessy Awards.

Valerie is also a past member of the Dublin 15 Writers’ Group and contributed an overtly light-hearted piece on the dilemmas facing the modern woman scorned in “Life in the movies” to the group’s 2006 publication “Mongrel Scribe.”

“I suppose I try to be a ventriloquist and get into the minds of all my characters,” she says. “I think this is because of my interest in psychology. I do try to write a little every day and sometimes I can spend all day writing. However, I firmly believe that it is equally important to read as well. I believe your imagination is much thinner without exposure to other writers and influences.

“At the moment I am reading “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers and after that I intend to get further into Anton Chekhov (Russian writer). Everything Chekhov turns his hand to is just brilliant and I am looking forward to exploring more of his writings.”

Aside from winning awards and appearing in numerous publications, Valerie teaches Creative Writing at Crumlin College of Further Education and has been invited to run a series of evening Adult Education classes on literature appreciation at Hartstown Community School this September (“if there is sufficient interest,” she says modestly.) She also has plans to facilitate a Book Club there. “'I've chosen books that I'm passionate about myself and that should generate lively discussion,” she says. “The idea is that people read the books I suggest, with some background notes and website references etc, and then we'll have informal chats where people can share their opinions.”

And as far as the “emerging” writer is concerned?

“A publisher has been sitting on my collection of short stories for a few months now,” she smiles, “but since I won the Hennessy’s, I have been told that they will prioritise it for consideration. But as you know, nothing is ever definite in the world of publishing, so we will have to wait and see!”

Valerie Sirr’s award-winning story “Summer Rain” can be seen on the Sunday Tribune new writers’ pages at www.tribune.ie/2007/01/07/80806.html. She will also be giving a reading at Blanchardstown Library on Thursday 5th June at 7pm.

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