In a publishing world often focused on trends, Mary O’Donnell stands out with the refreshing voice of authenticity and credibility. The celebrated Irish poet, novelist and short story writer speaks not from any literary ivory tower, but from years of steady cultivation of her craft and a keen observation of the human condition.

“I come from two worlds, geographically,” O’Donnell begins, reflecting on her roots in north County Monaghan, close to the Northern Irish border. “Although Monaghan is in the Republic of Ireland, the influence of the North was quite strong along the border area.”

It’s here that her early perceptions of identity and belonging were shaped. “We were exposed to the BBC and British television when the rest of Ireland had one basic TV station in the 1960s. I didn’t realize quite how much that influenced me until much later.”

From an early age, O’Donnell found herself drawn to words. “I always wrote — a lot of scribbling and dabbling.” Raised in bucolic surroundings and with an early love of poets like Wordsworth and Keats, her creative spark was fanned by a nurturing mother who prompted her to send off a childhood poem to publisher Paul Hamlyn. “He replied and said that they didn’t have ‘a niche’ for me just then, but that I should keep writing. How nice of him that was!”

Though she describes herself as an “arty” child, O’Donnell was steered into strictly academic classes by the no-nonsense nuns of her school. That same early encouragement and discipline would serve her well later, not just as a writer, but as a teacher, too. “I am a good and encouraging teacher, especially with people who doubt themselves,” she says. “I was full of doubts for a lot of my life, so I know what it’s like.”

Those doubts, paradoxically, became creative fuel. “Today I write for the same reasons I always have – because I need to.”

For O’Donnell, writing is a channel through which personal pain can be transformed. “The inner life is important. For many artists, the withdrawing to create something is like a funnel for pain into which the general messiness of our world can be poured.”

Her latest short story collection, Walking Ghosts, bears this mark of emotional truth.

“Motivation for some of the stories has come from knocking up against difficulty.”

Whether portraying lonely people or broken relationships, she says, “there’s an underpinning of loss in some of them. Perhaps, in each character I unconsciously pour parts of myself that aren’t always expressed.”

The collection is the result of years of steady crafting. “I’m a slow burner,” O’Donnell reveals. “The current collection of 17 stories is selected from pieces written over the past 12 years.”

As a poet and novelist, time for short stories often got “squeezed aside,” but she relished returning to the form, reflecting on the evolution from her first collection, Strong Pagans, in 1990. “It reflects the Ireland of social and personal repression. As a young woman and a feminist, I was in a constant rage about the absence of certain private freedoms.”

O’Donnell’s creative process balances such social perspectives with careful refinement. “I usually start a new story in a burst, write a hurried first draft, and then put it aside.” Then comes the building of structure and meaning: “A bare skeleton is good. The challenge is to check where the heart of the story will be placed, where the blood system will run, what will keep it running.”

Literary influences still echo in her work. “Flannery O’Connor’s short fiction has always influenced me,” she says. For her, the essence of a good story lies in “revelation, illumination and perhaps various forms of justice.”

O’Donnell finds that today’s Ireland is an inspiring place to live and write. “Ireland always needed cracking open from its older form of homogeneity and strict Catholicism,” she says. “The arts are well supported.” Still, she worries about the undervaluing of the humanities. “If you don’t read, how can you know anything about anything?”

For her, reading is about the expansion of mind, heart and self-awareness. Tireless and ever-vibrant, O’Donnell is set to release her 10th poetry collection, Tenderness, with Wake Forest University Press. Her agent is also working on the release of her next novel.

“It’s an exciting time,” she says. “I’m no longer a young woman, so it pleases me to discover my life force still burns. I hope I recognize the moment when I have no more to say.”

Fortunately, that moment hasn’t arrived yet, and Irish literature is better for it.

@maryodonnell03