Literary Journal Spotlight #1: Scrimshaw

Scrimshaw’s Gemmaclaire Haverty interviews the writer and editor Dr Keith Hopper ahead of the journal’s fifth volume, scheduled for release in April 2026. 

If you haven’t already come across the Scrimshaw Journal of New Writing and Visual Art, it was established in 2021 to celebrate the creative work of Atlantic Technological University’s (ATU) staff, students, and alumni. Run by students and supported by the University and Students’ Union, the journal represents the diversity and vibrancy of talent, not just in the arts, but across all disciplines. This reach is part of the reason why the Irish Independent described the journal as ‘something truly special’ in 2023. This year, Scrimshaw is accepting poetry, fiction, non-fiction, visual arts, and digital forms, including music and video, through QR codes that people can scan with their phones. For the very first time the team are delighted to be accepting contributions in both English and Irish.

When I meet Keith, I start by asking him where the unusual name Scrimshaw originated from. He explains that scrimshaw is the craft of decorating bones and ivory objects like whales’ teeth or walrus’ tusks. ‘The designs, executed by whale fishermen, were carved with either a jackknife or a sail needle and then emphasised with black pigments’.  He calls this a strangely apt metaphor: scrimshaw was their creative outlet, and the same can be said for contributors to the journal.

I ask him about the importance of publications like Scrimshaw for emerging artists. He describes it as ‘absolutely invaluable… in the end, nothing beats the thrill of seeing your name in print’, and like most writers, he remembers his first time with fondness: ‘I was an MA student at the University of Galway. There was a writing competition in a local film bulletin, which I won for a review of Kathryn Bigelow’s wonderful action movie, Point Break. There was no prize as such, but on the head of that review I became a film critic for a local arts and culture magazine. I’ve written a great deal since then, but I can remember that moment vividly.’

He further illustrates the power of being published and tells me about Jessamine O’Connor, a former Writing & Literature student and an editor of Scrimshaw’s inaugural volume. At the time, she was working on a novel, and an extract from it titled ‘May Day’ was included in the first edition. She has since completed her novel Somewhere, which is due for publication in Spring 2026 by Lilliput Press. Several of Jessamine’s poems were published in later volumes of Scrimshaw and are soon to be published in her next collection. She is one of the many success stories associated with both the journal and the Writing & Literature Programme.

Knowing it can feel intimidating to send work out into the world, I’m curious to know whether he has any advice for someone considering submitting and he says, ‘just do it!’. He thinks of rejection as a badge of honour and lists Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1891), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), and James Joyce’s Dubliners (1914) as notable examples of highly regarded literary works that were initially rejected. He continues, ‘persistence is key when you are a writer; rejection is just a part of it’. For those for whom the fear lies in having their work read or shared with others, his advice is that ‘a text only comes to life through some active process of reading. Writing is meant to be read – embrace the prospect’. With that final line, Keith perfectly encapsulates what Scrimshaw is trying to achieve: to help writers and artists shine, giving them the confidence to share their creativity with the world.

 

Extract from Scrimshaw: excerpt from ‘Whaling Log’ by Alice Lyons

Violet light at dawn
violet-coloured air in the fo’c’sle.
My dear slumbering bearded bunkmates!
Warm breath unspooling from their meaty lungs
to twirl and pirouette in that pervading light.
My own tarry hands on Mother’s homespun blanket
glowed bluish and were unfamiliar to me
as distant as the oil streets of New Bedford–
would I ever see my home and loved ones again?
Strange infinite time of the sea!
Waters gently lap-lapping the ship’s timbers
her reassuring roll and creak through the main
every sail standing out full from yard and leeches.
Our ship’s smooth advance to Odessa
across the Black Sea.

*

Why the hell do people write poetry anyway?
I mean what with the hunks of blubber
needing boiled, the pile of unopened books in the fo’c’sle
do we have the necessary credentials, even?

 

Contributors

Dr Keith Hopper teaches at ATU and is co-chair of the Writing & Literature Programme. He is the author of Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-modernist (revised edition, 2009); general editor of the twelve-volume Ireland into Film series (2001–2007); and co-editor of Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays (2011) and The Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien (2013). He also co-edited a series of four books by and about Dermot Healy (2015–2016). Keith is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and is currently editing a book on Sligo and the Sense of Place (forthcoming, 2026).

Gemmaclaire Haverty is the PR and Social Media lead for Scrimshaw. She is in her final year of the ATU Writing & Literature Programme. She is a writer and a poet. Her work has featured in The Irish Times.

Alice Lyons is the author of OONA (Lilliput Press) and three collections of poems and teaches at ATU Sligo.

 

About the Journal

Scrimshaw Journal of New Writing and Visual Art Volume Five is due for publication in late April 2026.

If you would like to find out more about Scrimshaw, please visit the website or email the team at editorial@scrimshaw.ie.