Elaine Feeney

Feeney grew up on a farm in Athenry, County Galway.{{Cite web|url=https://viaf.org/viaf/152865887/|title=152865887|website=viaf.org}} She attended Scoil Croi Naofa, Athenry, Presentation College Athenry, University College Galway (now National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)), University College Cork and University of Limerick. She lives in Athenry.

Feeney lectures at NUIG, where she is also Creative Director for the Tuam Oral History Project.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nuigalway.ie/about-us/news-and-events/news-archive/2019/january/nui-galway-launch-project-to-archive-personal-histories-of-the-tuam-mother-and-baby-home.html|title=January - NUI Galway|website=www.nuigalway.ie|access-date=2020-04-21}} Her festival performances include Cúirt International Literature Festival, The Ex-Border Festival in Italy, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Vilenica Festival and The Electric Picnic. Her magazine publications include The Poetry Review, The Paris Review, The Stinging Fly, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, The Manchester Review, Stonecutter Journal and Coppernickel.{{Cite web|url=https://www.rcwlitagency.com/authors/elaine-feeney/|title=elaine-feeney|website=RCW Literary Agency|language=en|access-date=2020-04-21}} Feeney's work has been collected by the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at University College Dublin. She is a regular leader of writing workshops, including for the Galway Feminist Collective and Cúirt International Literature Festival.{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/events/d41d8cd9/writing-for-change-creative-writing-workshops-w-elaine-feeney/113157202609002/|title=Writing for Change - creative writing workshops w/ Elaine Feeney|website=www.facebook.com|access-date=2020-04-21}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.cuirt.ie/cuirt-to-host-digital-festival-of-literature-press-release/|title=Cúirt to Host Digital Festival of Literature - Press Release|last=Centre|first=Arts|date=2020-04-07|website=Cúirt International Festival of Literature|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-04-21}} Her work has been broadcast by RTÉ and other broadcasters.[https://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/programmes/2013/0129/365195-arena-tuesday-29-january-2013/?clipid=987735 Arena Tuesday 29 January 2013] Feeney's political views have been sought by publications including the Irish Times.{{Cite web|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/irish-writers-on-election-2020-i-want-a-revolutionary-party-1.4156491|title=Irish writers on Election 2020: 'I want a revolutionary party'|website=The Irish Times|language=en|access-date=2020-04-21}} In response to a question about politics and her poetry, she told headstuff.org: "I think all humans are political, at least the political world would have you believe, or inflict this on you, and each of us in our own peculiar way eventually marches to this tune, whether it’s complicit, as agitator, or an escapist or whatever way you have actively chosen to live your life."{{Cite web|url=https://www.headstuff.org/culture/literature/elaine-feeney/|title=Elaine Feeney Should Come With A Trigger Warning|date=2015-10-15|website=HeadStuff|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-04-21}}

Feeney is the author of three poetry collections, a play text, and two novels. The novelist Mike McCormack has written that her poems have "a pounding physical presence yet they run away with the mind."{{Cite web|url=http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=427&a=187|title=salmonpoetry.com {{!}} Rise by Elaine Feeney|website=Salmon Poetry|access-date=2020-04-21}} A review of her most recent collection, Rise, in P. N. Review, states that its effect is "to explode the idea of canon with an intense exploration of personal life and its public manifestations".{{Cite web|url=https://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10078|title=PN Review Print and Online Poetry Magazine - Clap Hands and SingElaine Feeney, Rise (Salmon Poetry) €12;Joan McBreen, Map and Atlas (Salmon Poetry) €12;Kerrie O'Brien, Illuminate (Salmon Poetry) €12 Cian Murphy - PN Review 238|website=www.pnreview.co.uk|access-date=2020-04-21}} Speaking to The Poetry Review in 2017 Feeney described her approach to writing: "I rarely remember the actual physical act of writing a poem. Some take days, some years".{{Cite web|url=https://poetrysociety.org.uk/publications-section/the-poetry-review/behind-the-poem/your-head-will-be-well-elaine-feeney-and-the-inspiration-of-roethke-in-galway/|title="Your head will be well" – Elaine Feeney and the inspiration of Roethke in Galway – The Poetry Society|website=poetrysociety.org.uk|access-date=2020-04-21}} In 2020, before the launch of her debut novel, she told The Observer that she had "an anxiety around writing a novel that I didn't feel around writing poetry, weirdly ... Also I had my first son quite young – I was only 22 – and poetry was quicker." Elsewhere, she has said that "sometimes my work comes in madly chaotic spurts, uncomfortable intrusions, poem ideas often come at me, quite brutally out of nowhere, and I'll write them, and I may never be able to fully explain them, and sometimes they leaving me feeling really uncomfortable and awkward."

Feeney was the winner of the 2021 Dalkey Literary Awards "emerging writer" award.{{Cite web|title=Winner of the Emerging Writer 2021|url=https://www.zurich.ie/dalkey-literary-awards/2021/emerging-writer/winner|access-date=2021-06-22|website=www.zurich.ie|language=en}}

In April 2022, Harvill Secker bought Feeney's second novel, How to Build a Boat, in a 'major' two-novel deal from Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge and White.{{cite web | url=https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/harvill-secker-scoops-vibrant-feeney-novel-in-two-book-deal | title=Harvill Secker scoops vibrant Feeney novel in two-book deal|date=1 April 2022|website=The Bookseller|first=Katie|last=Fraser }} It was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize.{{Cite news |title=Irish writers, debuts – and groundbreaking sci-fi: the Booker longlist in depth |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/01/booker-prize-2023-irish-debuts-groundbreaking-sci-fi |last=Jordan |first=Justine |date=2023-08-01}}

• Where's Katie? (2010, Salmon Poetry){{Cite web|url=http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=204&a=187|title=salmonpoetry.com {{!}} Where's Katie? by Elaine Feeney|website=Salmon Poetry|access-date=2020-04-21}}
• The Radio Was Gospel (2013, Salmon Poetry){{Cite web|url=http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=312&a=187|title=salmonpoetry.com {{!}} The Radio was Gospel by Elaine Feeney|website=Salmon Poetry|access-date=2020-04-21}}
• Rise (2017, Salmon Poetry)

• As You Were (2020, Harvill Secker)
• How to Build a Boat (2023, Harvill Secker){{Cite web|url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/448213/how-to-build-a-boat-by-feeney-elaine/9781787303454|title=How to Build a Boat|first=Elaine|last=Feeney|date=20 April 2023|via=www.penguin.co.uk}}

• WRoNGHEADED (2016, Liz Roche Company){{Cite web|url=https://www.lizrochecompany.com/wrongheaded|title=Wrongheaded|website=lizrochecompany|language=en|access-date=2020-04-21}}

• A Little Unsteadily into Light (2022, New Island Books){{Cite web|url=https://www.newisland.ie/fiction/a-little-unsteadily|title=A Little Unsteadily Into Light|website=New Island Books|access-date=2023-01-28}}
• Same, Same (2023, The Paris Review, Issue 243){{Cite web|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7964/same-same-elaine-feeney|title=Same, Same|date=23 October 2023|volume=Spring 2023|issue=243|via=www.theparisreview.org}}
• The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories (2021, Head of Zeus){{Cite news |last=Farry |first=Eithne |date=2020-11-13 |title=The Art of the Glimpse edited by Sinead Gleeson review – 100 Irish short stories |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/13/the-art-of-the-glimpse-edited-by-sinead-gleeson-review-100-irish-short-stories |access-date=2023-06-05 |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite web |title=Sojourn, a short story by Elaine Feeney |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/sojourn-a-short-story-by-elaine-feeney-1.4355567 |access-date=2023-06-05 |website=The Irish Times |language=en}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFvZHr7nq_I "Rise", read by Elaine Feeney]

{{authority control}}

• [https://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=427&a=187 "Rise / Elaine Feeney"] at Salmon Poetry.
• [https://www.rcwlitagency.com/authors/elaine-feeney/ Elaine Feeney] at RCW Literary Agency.
• [https://www.ucc.ie/en/english/news/school-of-english-reading-series-featuring-liz-quirke-paul-casey-and-elaine-feeney.html "School of English Reading Series, featuring Liz Quirke, Paul Casey and Elaine Feeney"], English Department, Roinn an Bhéarla, University College Cork, 5 February 2019.

• [https://poetrysociety.org.uk/publications-section/the-poetry-review/behind-the-poem/your-head-will-be-well-elaine-feeney-and-the-inspiration-of-roethke-in-galway/ "“Your head will be well” – Elaine Feeney and the inspiration of Roethke in Galway"], The Poetry Society.
• [https://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/105471/nui-galway-to-launch-project-to-archive-personal-histories-of-tuam-mother-and-baby-home "NUI Galway to launch project to archive personal histories of Tuam Mother and Baby Home"], Galway Advertiser, 31 January 2019.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feeney, Elaine}}

Category:21st-century Irish novelists

Category:21st-century Irish poets

Category:Academics of the University of Galway

Category:Alumni of the University of Galway

Category:Irish women poets

Category:Living people

Category:People from Athenry

Category:Scholars and academics from County Galway

Category:Writers from County Galway

Category:1979 births