By Ursula Duddy
Two Derry writers have been awarded support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to work on their upcoming projects.
Felicity McCall and Freya McClements have both received a General Arts Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's (ACNI) ‘Support for the Individual Artist Programme’.
The women are both members of The Literary Ladies alongside Julieann Campbell and Lynne Edgar, four writers and friends who run and promote literary events, book launches and provide project facilitation in the Derry area.
The Arts Council awards will support McCall in finishing her ‘imagined memoir based on genealogical research and lone motherhood two and three generations back, and its implications’.
Meanwhile McClements' award will aid the completion of her second collection of short stories, provisionally entitled 'On The Threshold', loosely based around the theme of borders, building on a new short story she completed as part of the XBorders project at the Irish Writers Centre this year.
Radio 4
McClements is a writer, journalist and broadcaster, whose first short story collection The Dangerous Edge of Things was published by Guildhall Press in 2012.
She is a former staff journalist with the BBC Radio Foyle and now writes for the Irish Times and continues to make documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Ulster.
She won this year’s Saboteur Award for Best Reviewer in the UK/Ireland for her literary reviews in the Irish Times. She is also a part-time journalism lecturer in the North West Regional College in Derry. She provides creative writing facilitation, editing, event management and PR and marketing services for the arts sector as one of the Literary Ladies.
McCall
McCall was a BBC staff journalist for 20 years but since 2000 has been a full-time writer, occasional broadcaster, arts facilitator, producer and actor.
Her 20 published titles include fiction, non-fiction, young adult fiction, plays and graphic novels, and she has contributed to three anthologies. The co-founder of two, and director of three, theatre companies, she has had a dozen plays staged professionally and four screenplay credits.
A Grievance Officer with the National Union of Journalists, she is currently the first female jobshare Cathaoirleach of the Irish Executive of the National Union of Journalists. The former Ireland officer of the lobby group, Portia, she continues to work with miscarriage of justice cases.
Speaking to the Derry News, McCall said: “I’m delighted to receive the award for the endorsement as much as the financial support and it’s given me an impetus and badly needed deadline of a year.
“This is now my sixth Arts Council award. I’m delighted also to have been at the Dublin Book Festival on Saturday where the Literary Ladies appeared in ‘Stand in Awe of Mna’ where we talked about the practicalities of making a living as a writer, the challenges facing women writers in particular, and how we've been able to successfully combine friendship and our own writing with a professional arts business.
“My play, An Evening with Bette Midler, is also touring again from with the wonderful Orla Mullan and will be at The Playhouse on Friday, November 18, and Saturday, November 19.”
'Delighted'
McClements echoed Felicity’s sentiments and welcomed the award to support her continuing work.
"I'm absolutely delighted to have received the support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in writing my second collection of short stories,” she said.
"Based loosely around the theme of borders and provisionally entitled, ‘On The Threshold’, the ideas for these new stories have grown directly from a new story I wrote as part of the XBorders project with the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin.
"As a theme it's obviously very topical, but there are a lot more to borders than just the potential Brexit ones, and I'm looking forward to being able to explore this creatively with the Arts Council's help.
"I also have to thank the Arts Council for their continued faith and support in me - my first collection of short stories, The Dangerous Edge of Things, was the result of a similar award from them which allowed me to take time away from my day job to focus on my creative writing”.
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