At the beginning of February, the author William Sutcliffe revealed on Twitter: “I have been a professional writer for more than twenty years. I have made my living from the resource of my imagination. Last night I had a dream about unloading the dishwasher.” This tweet inspired a newspaper article where various authors echoed Sutcliffe’s sentiments about the pandemic stifling their creative impetus.
For many Irish writers, however, the last year has proven to be a fruitful time. The annual RTÉ Short Story competition in honour of Francis MacManus, which is currently open for submissions, received an unprecedented 4,000 entries in 2020, twice as many as it had in 2019.