Writing, Sheffield and me
In 2023, the Writers Workshop welcomes a bunch of talented new associates who will be sharing their expertise with our members in forthcoming events.
Meet novelist, journalist and writing tutor Sally O’Reilly who, like our other associates, has a seriously impressive literary CV! We asked Sally to tell us a bit about herself and why she’s joined the Workshop’s growing community.
Hi, my name is Sally O’Reilly, and I’m delighted to join The Writers Workshop. I’m a relative newcomer to Sheffield and it’s brilliant to be part of a community of local writers. As well as getting my work out into the wider world, I am keen to meet fellow writers at different stages of their creative lives, whether they’re published, just starting out or anywhere in between.
Although I’ve been writing for 30 years and have published several books, I’m still learning my craft, and it’s great to share ideas, thoughts and inspirations with other people. Community is important to my writing because it’s is all about communication. Listening to each other and sharing work in progress is a great way of developing mutual understanding, and Sheffield is an area rich in history and stories.
I’m also looking for ways of connecting my writing to the fast-developing climate crisis. I believe that is all about community too when we think about how flooding, extreme weather or the loss of insects, birds and other wildlife affects us here, directly.
Writing has always been my passion and obsession. I was an avid reader as a child, and wrote my first ‘novel’ in an exercise book at the age of eleven. I’ve been writing ever since, one way or another, often balancing this with childcare and making a living. For years, I would write mainly at the weekends, with the week taken up with freelance journalism, the school run and all the rest of it. After taking a PhD in Creative Writing, I worked as a university lecturer, but found that this was even more time consuming than freelance journalism. Now my kids are grown up, I’ve left my teaching job in order to write full-time, which is a joy and a privilege.
My advice to anyone starting out or trying to develop their writing skills is to keep on going, no matter how little time you have right now, or how frustrated you are with what comes out at first. I love what I do, but it hasn’t always been easy, and the reason I’m able to focus on my writing now is that I chipped away at it over time, and found ways to keep the flame alive. For those coming to writing later in life, I’d say, ‘It’s never too late!’ You have a lifetime of experience to draw on, and your insights and observations will connect with those of other people.
There is so much emphasis given to publishing success in our culture, yet for many people the pleasure in writing is not in being published but in sharing with a writing circle and hearing what others have written too. And also, simply in seeing how a story can grow, if it’s nurtured and you give it space. We live in worrying and confusing times, and writing is a useful way to gain some kind of understanding. As the novelist E.M. Forster put it: ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I say?’