Deirdre Sullivan on finding a YA voice

Offering insight into various creative processes and advice towards aspiring and emerging writers, here’s a quick-fire interview with short story writer and YA novelist Deirdre Sullivan.

Deirdre Sullivan is an award-winning writer from Galway. Her most recent book for young adults, Savage Her Reply is a dark retelling of The Children of Lir. Her debut for adults, a collection of short fiction, I Want To Know That I Will Be Okay was published by Banshee Press in May 2021. Her play, Wake, was produced by NoRopes Theatre Company in February 2019, in The Town Hall Theatre, Galway.

Sinéad: Can you tell us a bit about how you got into creative writing?

Deirdre: I’ve always loved stories, and made them up, for as long as I can remember. I didn’t think I was entitled to call myself a writer for the longest time, and was always a little ashamed of my notebooks, only sharing them with my closest friend. When I got the final year in college, I decided to join the writers society, because I’d always felt too intimidated to go, and this was kind of the last chance, and that was when I started reading and sharing my work, which gave me the confidence to take it a bit more seriously. When I went back to study teaching, there was a course called ‘Teacher as Writer of Fiction’ with Siobhán Parkinson, and she really believed in my voice, and ultimately offered me the chance to submit my first book to Little Island. 

Sinéad: Did you always know you wanted to write for teen and YA audiences?

Deirdre: Yes. I started writing poetry, then flash fiction for college journals, and had some plays staged when I was in college, but when it came to novels, the voice I slot into most easily is that of a young adult. It’s a really intense and formative time for many people, and that transition between childhood and adulthood, has always felt really inspiring to me. I’m currently working on some books for much younger readers however, and finding that really fulfilling.

Sinéad: I find a lot of publishers try to advise that fiction for younger readers should be sanitised, however you don’t shy away from writing about teen desire and incorporating some gore (Perfectly Preventable Deaths in my mind right now). Do you have any advice for people trying to follow the “rules” of writing for a younger audience?

Deirdre: Just write what you want to write, young readers can take it. Many of them live it. I don’t really think there are any hard and fast rules, though I tend to always end on a little glimmer of hope in my YA novels, however small. My books are wavy and lyrical and not to everyone’s taste, and that’s okay. Not every story is for every person. But the magic of finding a book that feels like it was written for you, that you can dive into. That some people feel that way about my work is a privilege I don’t take lightly. 

Sinéad: You published your first collection of work for an adult audience in 2021. How did you find navigating the difference in markets and styles?

Deirdre: I was very lucky, in that Banshee approached me after publishing several of my short stories, with the idea of a collection. The editing process was really supportive, and there was a really positive balance of making new work and revisiting old. Writing that book was such a gift to me during the early days of Covid. I’ve been very lucky in my career to be lifted up by other writers or people in the book world. I didn’t really think about navigating the difference at all, really, the protagonists of my short fiction are often also between identities, worlds or on the threshold of something, some of them are older, and have concerns around marriage, pregnancy, etc, but that’s all identity, how you see yourself, how the world sees you, all of that. With short fiction, I feel you can be a lot more specific and contained, you have to do as much, or more, with less. And that is a great challenge and lesson for me, because I love to use lots and lots or words and think in strings and circles. 

Sinéad: Can you talk us through your general writing process?

Deirdre: At the moment, to be honest, I don’t have one. Balancing everything life has thrown at me over the past two years has been enough. I work full time, and find spaces where I can, but I’m still working towards finding where they are and what they look like. Reading does form a huge part of it though, when I have an idea or want to start something new, I read and read around it until I feel I’m full enough to begin, with short fiction and novels. With picture books, or poetry, they come in strings of images and feelings at unexpected times, and then kind of flow out of me. When I finish a draft I always leave it for a few weeks before going back to it, and it’s the same with edits. You don’t get stuck in right away, if you can at all, build some thinking time in to let things mull. 

Sinéad: Do you engage with literary journals and, if so, how have they helped you in your writing career?

Deirdre: I do engage with literary journals! The support they have offered in terms of editorial feedback, confidence in my voice, and allowing me the freedom to take small escapes from bigger projects (which is often what my short fiction begins as) and develop them and share them is incredible. They’re also a wonderful way of connecting with and discovering other writers who are making exciting or different work. Journals are the backbone of Irish Writing in many ways, and I’m hugely grateful to anyone who has accepted my work, or taken the time to write a thoughtful and considerate rejection. 

Sinéad: Do you have any advice for aspiring or emerging writers?

Deirdre: Read a lot, try to make time for writing where you can. I used to write for at least fifteen minutes a day, I would set a timer. That worked for me for ages. Connect with your community, because they will keep you going. And you don’t need a piece of paper or a book on a shelf to call yourself a writer. If you write, you are one already, it’s not something for gatekeepers to decide.