Alison Wells   I was born and lived in England as a young child but grew up in Kerry. Now, the often frazzled mother of four children aged between 9 and 2, I blog about the challenge of finding creative head space and share writing tips in my blog Head above Water (http://www.alisonwells.wordpress.com).

Qualifying in Communication Studies and also Psychology, I worked for several years as a technical writer of computer based training courses but have been at home minding the children since my eldest was born.

I met Inkwell founder Vanessa O’ Loughlin through our involvement with the worthwhile parent and baby support network Cuidiu. She coaxed me into taking over from her as newsletter editor. She then moved on to other things including setting up INKwell. So in a way, you can say that I have contributed to Inkwell’s well deserved success. I have attended several courses and found them of very high quality and practically relevant.

I have always been writing. My first success was winning a Kerryman sponsored trophy for a secondary school short story competition. Most recently I have the tremendous honour of being published in the Sunday Tribune and consequently shortlisted for the Hennessy X.O Literary Awards for New Irish Writing for my short story Bog Body (link: http://www.tribune.ie/arts/books/article/2009/jun/28/rules-hennessey-irish-literary-awards/) to be announced April 2010. This is an exciting breakthrough which I hope will mark my transition from aspiring to full fledged member of the Irish literary community.

I have also been featured on RTE Radio 1’s popular Sunday Miscellany show with the non-fiction pieces Buntyland and The Flask. The Flask was selected to be included in the latest Sunday Miscellany compilation: Sunday Miscellany – A selection from 2006-2008, edited by Cliona Ni Anluain.

The Ireland’s Own has also published some of my stories over the years. I have the obligatory novel in drawer, one almost complete, one on the boil and am also having great fun with a domestic comic fantasy involving a Housewife Warrior Princess, a Universal Traveller in a biker jacket and kilt, sentimental whisks and killer freezers. I craft the occasional poem and when I write it’s usually from a pulse of sentiment or wonder. Over the past year in particular I have found my voice within short stories, they enable me to follow the pulse that is the essence of a poem but can be explored further through character and place. Here are some recent thoughts on what I hope I can achieve with my short stories.

‘That one moment, that butterfly wing, that blink, that swallow, that turn of the head, that fall of a petal, that lift of breeze catching the hair, that tipping point, that second that everything changes. That held breath. When I write I want you to hold your breath, jump into the story, drown in it, feel something, a flicker, some resonance that reverberates in the back of your brain now and maybe later unexpectedly, fusing your experience of life with mine and humankind in general.’

I am currently writing whenever possible, putting together a collection of short stories under the working title Skin of the Universe. It is my lofty hope that these stories will come to be read by a wider audience and that they will touch, resonate and thrill.