Lucy Caldwell on writing transcendent psychic moments and finding meaning in life

Oh wow! It was my pleasure to have a coffee with and speak to the writer Lucy Caldwell about her new short story collection, DEVOTIONS (published by Faber and Faber).

That's right, we were live and in person having a coffee talking about Lucy's new collection

I revelled in a theatre troupe performing a choose your own version of Hamlet; I had a wry smile watching Christopher Plummer ponder on whether he really did love Julie Andrews, and among the many other stories, continued to marvel at Lucy's capacity to meditate on death, existence, light and love.

Lucy is from Belfast. She lives in Kent, but we had our conversation in London.

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Chapters 2.00 - is 'master' the right word? 7.15 - Devotions forming a single whole 9.15 Lucy's relationship with her editor 12.50 - writing in real-time 16.50 - Choose your own adventure stories. 18.10 - Hamlet. 21.10 - Writing about love 26.05 - Devotions easter egg! 28.35 finding meaning in the here and the now. 32.20 - Patreon shoutouts! 33.50 - inspired by James Joyce 37.26 - writing great psychic movements. 42.00 - Special writing from Lucy. 46.45 - Finding meaning in the darkness 51.25 - Suffering as a portal.

Reference Points

Sebastian Barry

Elizabeth Bowen

Willa Cather

Anton Chekhov

Dante

Ram Dass

John Donne

T.S. Eliot

Anne Enright

Wendy Erskine

bell hooks

Kazuo Ishiguro

James Joyce

Claire Kilroy

Rosamond Lehman

Louis MacNeice

Alice Munro

Cardinal Newman

Edna O’Brien

Frank O’Hara

Rumi

Helen Simpson

John Updike

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Virginia Woolf

W.B. Yeats

Lucy’s Work

Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (edited by Lucy, Faber, 2021)

Multitudes (Faber, 2016)

Intimacies (Faber, 2021)

Leaves (Faber: 2007)

Where They Were Missed (Faber: 2005)

Plays

Hamlet

Music Ludwig van Beethoven

Van Morrison

Taylor Swift

Films

The Sound of Music (1965: Robert Wise)