New fiction by:
Suad Aldarra, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Jan Carson, Elaine Feeney, Oona Frawley, Sinéad Gleeson, Anna Jean Hughes, Caleb Klaces, Naomi Krüger, Henrietta McKervey, Paul McVeigh, Mary Morrissy, Nuala O'Connor, and Chris Wright
To live with dementia is to develop extraordinary and various new ways of being – linguistically, cognitively and practically. The storyteller operates similarly, using words and ideas creatively to reveal a slightly different perspective of the world.
In this anthology of fourteen new short stories, commissioned by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea, some of the best contemporary writers from Ireland and the UK powerfully and poignantly explore the depths and breadth of the real dementia experience, traversing age, ethnicity, class and gender, sex and consent. Each writer’s story is drawn from their own personal experience of dementia and told with outrageous and dark humour, empathy and startling insight. Here are heroes and villains, tricksters and saints, mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, characters whose past has overshadowed their present and characters who are making a huge impact on the world they currently find themselves in. They might have dementia, but dementia is only a small part of who they are. They will challenge, frustrate, inspire and humble you.
Above all, these brilliant pieces of short fiction disrupt the perceived notions of what dementia is and, in their diversity, honesty and authenticity begin to normalise an illness that affects so many and break down the stigma endured by those living with it every day.
Find out more about the AHRC-funded research project based at Queen's University Belfast, from which this anthology has emerged: www.blogs.qub.ac.uk/dementiafiction/
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts development officer currently based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was a recipient of the Arts Council NI's Artist's Career Enhancement Bursary in 2014 and programmes the popular Literary Lunchtime series of readings at the Ulster Hall. Jan has had two short plays produced by Belfast-based theatre companies and writes reviews and articles for Culture NI. Jan's first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears was published in June 2014. Her short stories have been published in Literary Journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Honest Ulsterman, Storm Cellar, the Bohemyth, the Incubator and Gone Lawn.
