LUCY GOSS

Writing & Literature

2023

My novel follows a young Irish photographer, torn between pursuing a creative practice and earning enough money to live and support her family. The voice is shaped by her aesthetic sensibility, her interest in observing, and the story explores themes of guilt, displacement and conflict. It illustrates situations many Irish people are faced with such as homelessness and the rising of cost of living. I also write poetry and am interested in the common obstacles young Irish face from the demands and expectations of social media to climate catastrophe and over-pressured and failing health services. As part of the 2023 Scrimshaw editorial team that produced a journal of writing and visual art, I am interested in multiple art practices and am inspired by everyday struggles that people face.

Excerpt from novel in progress

It’s raining heavily now, water pounding on the steel roof, but it still can’t get in. The sound of windshield wipers always transports me home. There’s something about that monotonous rubber squeaking back and forth. And the contrasting smell of rainwater combined with the heat from the engine blowing out onto my face. It familiarises me, even in a place that feels far away from home.

I look up and see a sign for the turn off; we are getting closer now. The muscles in my chest start to tense. I look at her, and I can tell she feels the same. She hasn’t said anything, but the silence hangs over us in the car. I lean back and eventually find other sounds. The whoosh two cars make as they pass each other, a different family in each one. I watch them as they drive closer to home, and we move further away. Their boots are filled with sports gear and school bags, and ours is full of boxes; stuffed with the last remaining items that needed to be moved from the house.