I have a Barbie doll. It (not ‘she’ or ‘they’) has sat proudly for years on a shelf in my study to remind me of a piece of work I am proud of. Some years ago, before the Equality Commission was formed out of previous rights organisations, I wrote a story about the ill-treatment of members of the Belfast Butterfly Club.
What happened to Catholic sectarianism? If you read the novels of Brian Moore, written in the 1960s, a common theme you’ll find is the prissy bigotry of chauvinistic and hypocritical Catholics who look down on Protestants.
Some years ago I was hosting a discussion before an audience with a major broadcast celebrity. Having worked many years in broadcasting, I am not dazzled by people with famous names.
Ten years ago I was based at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University. I was writer in residence and this felt a slightly odd placing for me as someone who had published three poems in his whole life, two in Ulster Scots, and all these in Fortnight, a magazine I edited myself.