Humans of No. 19 – June Caldwell

June Caldwell was in the Centre this week so we took the opportunity to chat with her about the moral elements of writing. #humansofno19 #writersofinstagram #irishwriterscentre

June is our inaugural Online Writer-in-Residence so stay tuned for more from her. And, we’re thrilled to announce the exciting news that June has just signed with New Island for a short story collection, due 2017. Whoop!  

‘For years I thought I chose the wrong path because I was never happy with journalism, I hated it. Now I look back and I think that was really great grounding for my writing. To me creative writing is a moral form, it’s a way to look at the connection between human behaviour, events and how we perceive things. That’s what is so interesting about creative writing compared to journalism; you’re limited by what you can do in journalism, you’re only writing the facts but with creative writing you can take it a lot further. You can try and understand what the hell is going on in someone’s head and you can recreate the events around that, the drama which might give you a sense of horror, completion or whatever. My stories tend to have some kind of social element to them and they have a journalistic twist because the journalist in me is still so strong. I’ll take some of the facts, make them surreal in some way and play around with them. I think creative writing is way more powerful than journalism, I really do. You can find a new way to present the truth.’