Author Archives: Beth Wren
Review: Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín
Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America — to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood “just like Ireland” — she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister […]
Poem #35: Puzzle
We are all messes of ourselves, and yet somehow the pieces always make a puzzle.
Review: Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza’s impassioned advances and married Dr Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half-century, Flornetino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the […]
Poem #34: Mountains from Dust
I suppose we are all walking on a path of dust to the mountains.
Review: The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry
London 1893. When Cora Seaborne’s husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Accompanied by her son Francis – a curious, obsessive boy – she leaves town for Essex, where […]
The Diary of an Unpublished Author #9: Published at Last!
If you’ve been following my blog with any interest at all over the past few years, you might have noted that I have written a book. You might also have noted through The Diary of an Unpublished Author series, that I’ve had very little luck with literary agents and prospective publishers in publishing said book. After a […]
Travel Diaries: Canada Roadtrip – Banff
This is the last blog post in my Canadian Roadtrip series, and although it’s been over a month since we returned, I still miss the mountains, and my nostalgia has only been heightened by getting to look through all these beautiful photos all over again. From Jasper we set off along the famous Icefields Parkway […]
