I have an essay in Over the Water: Essays on Islands which is published this week by Daunt Books. My piece features real, imagined and islands from art but also examines how no piece of writing is an island; in that everything we write is not singular and detached. Ideas constantly insinuate themselves into other work, which has happened a lot in my own writing in recent years. The island in Hagstone is completely invented. It can’t be found on a map, but is a 12-hour ferry trip from the mainland. It has no co-ordinates, but draws heavily on the landscaped and topography of Galway’s Aran Islands, Clare Island in Mayo, Arranmore in Donegal, Inisbofin and islands I’ve been to in other countries. Islands, for me, have always been something of an obsession. Islands are a place in the mind, a floating piece of grit on the retina, a shape seen in its entirety. Their isolation and apart-ness - especially for a writ…
