The first time I ever saw my name in print was when I was 15 years old and I wrote a letter to a football magazine. It was published on the Letters to the Editor page, smack bang in the middle, seven paragraphs, neatly laid out in print, with my byline at the bottom.
I stared at my name until it didn’t look like my name anymore. And this wave of warm excitement washed over me, followed by a second wave of icy fear. The thought that anyone could read what I’d written thrilled me and terrified me at the same time.
Writing is an act of daring. To stare at the blank page – that expectantly blinking cursor – while asking yourself, ‘what do I want to say?’ is the challenge for anyone who feels the urge to convert their thoughts into the written word. But to put that piece of writing out into the world – believing that what you have to say might be something that other people might want to read – takes real courage.
That’s why I’m excited for everyone who has authored a piece in this collection. For most, I presume, it will be their first time being published. And I hope they will experience something like I did back in 1986, standing in a newsagent’s in Ballybrack village, hands trembling, heart aflutter, feeling like the world had suddenly shifted on its axis.
I sat down to read this collection on a Saturday morning in April and I devoured every word in one greedy sitting. Then, in the afternoon, I sat down and read the entire thing again. There is so much originality in this collection of writing by young people choosing to tell their stories through fiction, non-fiction and flights of fancy; in English, in Irish and in the language of the street; in poetry, prose and even rap.
It’s such an eclectic mix of material – an ode to Smithfield, the epic sporting tale of The Tallafornian who took on a boxing kangaroo, a story about depression represented in the figure of a fox, reflections on the shadow cast by Covid, a heart-rending poem about the fickleness and fleetingness of childhood friendships and the hilarious story of Hairy Styles, the yak who dreams of being a pig. And that’s only skimming the surface.
Some of these pieces have been born from the imagination, some have been written from the heart and some have been torn from the gut. But what connects them all is the authenticity of the voices. The Fighting Words project sets out to help young people tell their stories from their own unique perspectives and express themselves in a way that feels real to them. What’s contained here is just a small sample of the extraordinary work they’ve produced.
The names in this collection were all new to me, as they will be to most readers. But what really excites me is the thought that it won’t be the last time I hear them. For some, and hopefully most, this will be the start of their writing lives. Their stories here really will be the seed of something bigger and even more wonderful.
And hopefully they will discover the same thing that I’ve discovered, even after a lifetime of writing, that the white-knuckle, sweat-inducing, butterflies-in-the-tummy feeling of seeing something you’ve written, in published form, with your name alongside it, out there for the whole world to read, never, ever goes away.
