Mary Morrissy

Morrissy was born in Dublin. A graduate of Rathmines College and Technological University Dublin, she has taught creative writing in Ireland and the United States of America, notably in University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, University of Iowa, and University College Cork.{{Cite web|last=Morrissy|first=Mary|date=2012-05-18| title= About |url=https://marymorrissy.com/about/|access-date=2021-02-17|website=mary morrissy|language=en}} Morrissy trained as a journalist and has worked as a reporter/feature writer/sub-editor on three of Ireland's national dailies. She is also a critic who has reviewed fiction for The Irish Times, The Sunday Business Post, and The Dublin Review of Books.

On the publication of her first collection of short stories, A Lazy Eye, (1993) Candice Rodd wrote in The Independent: "Morrissy is no glib psychoanalyst; more a cool but gifted pathologist under whose microscope tiny slivers of unremarkable human tissue are shown to be teeming with microbial life and mysterious, mutant energy."{{cite news| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/book-review-written-on-the-body-a-lazy-eye-mary-morrissy-cape-8-99-1497686.html| title = Written on the body: 'A Lazy Eye' - Mary Morrissy | author = Rodd, Candice| date = 23 October 1993| accessdate = 17 May 2021| work = The Independent}} The New York Times described this collection as an "elegantly written and grimly perceptive collection of stories".{{cite news| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/11/books/marked-women.html| title = Marked Women| author = McGrath, Patrick| date = 11 August 1996| accessdate = 19 May 2021| work = The New York Times}}

Morrissy was a fellow at the New York Public Library in 2005–6, where she researched the life of Sean O'Casey's Sister, Bella, which was subsequently published as The Rising of Bella Casey in 2013.{{cite web| url = https://www.nypl.org/node/209473| title = Fellows and Their Topics for the Year 2005-2006| date = 7 February 2005| accessdate = 24 April 2021| website = nypl.org}}{{cite news|first1=Christina Hunt|last1=Mahony|access-date=2021-05-20|title=Sister in the shadows|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/sister-in-the-shadows-1.1616768|newspaper=The Irish Times}} Alfred Hickling reviewed the novel in The Guardian: "Morrissy reconstructs Bella's story with a telling eye for incongruous detail. An upright piano abandoned in the street during the Easter rising opens a portal to more affluent times; while her fortitude against poverty and the influence of feckless and abusive men sets a template for the heroines of her younger brother's plays: 'Characters already born and ready-made, roaming their foetid rooms in search of a writer'."{{cite news| url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/04/rising-bella-casey-mary-morrissy-review| title = The Rising of Bella Casey by Mary Morrissy – review| author = Hickling, Alfred| date = 4 October 2013| accessdate = 17 May 2021| work = The Guardian}}

In 2008–9 Morrissy held the post of the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at George Washington University.{{cite web| url = https://english.columbian.gwu.edu/jenny-mckean-moore-professorship| title = The Jenny Mckean Moore Writer In Washington | date = 10 January 2017| accessdate = 24 April 2021| website = gwu.edu}}

In 2015, Morrissy was appointed as Lecturer in Creative Writing at University College Cork.{{cite web| url = http://creativewritingucc.com/www/people/mary-morrissy/| title = Mary Morrissy, University College Cork| date = 10 May 2015| accessdate = 24 April 2016| publisher = creative writing ucc}}

Morrissy published "an exploded novel"—a linked collection of short stories—in 2016.{{cite news|access-date=2022-02-01|title=Prosperity Drive by Mary Morrissy review: clear-eyed, compassionate, comic|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/prosperity-drive-by-mary-morrissy-review-clear-eyed-compassionate-comic-1.2532535|newspaper=The Irish Times|first=Éilís|last=Ní Dhuibhne|date=13 February 2016}} Reviewing the book in The Guardian, Claire Kilroy wrote: "Prosperity Drive is a book about sex and death. The protagonists – that 'roll call of the damaged and the lost' – encounter both but are unable to handle either. The compassion, immediacy, humour and delicacy with which Morrissy depicts their predicaments result in moments of profundity."{{cite news| url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/09/prosperity-drive-by-mary-morrissy| title = Prosperity Drive by Mary Morrissy review – a Dublin street of lost souls| author = Kilroy, Claire| date = 9 April 2016| accessdate = 17 May 2021| work = The Guardian}}

Morrissy published Penelope Unbound in 2023, a novel which imagined a different outcome to the life of James Joyce and his wife Nora Barnacle after their arrival in Trieste in 1904. Reviewing the book in The Guardian, John Banville wrote: "The result is a novel of great brilliance and inventiveness, a remarkably – and mysteriously – moving story of what might have been. It is a stylistic tour de force that Joyce himself would surely have admired: Nora’s voice is earthy, funny, by turns knockabout and melancholy, plain and lyrical, accepting and bitterly regretful."{{cite news| url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/03/penelope-unbound-by-mary-morrissy-review-masterly-alternative-life-of-nora-barnacle| title = Penelope Unbound by Mary Morrissy review – masterly alternative life of Nora Barnacle| author = John Banville| date = October 3, 2023| access-date = November 23, 2023|newspaper = The Guardian}}

Morrissy currently works as a writing coach, offering one-to-one creative mentoring, editing and appraisal services to writers.

• 1984: Hennessy Literary Award{{Cite news|last=The Irish Times|date=2015-01-24|title=New Irish Writing – Hennessy Literary Awards: Winners through the decades|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/hennessy-niw/new-irish-writing-hennessy-literary-awards-winners-through-the-decades-1.2076877|access-date=2021-02-17|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en}}
• 1995: Lannan Foundation Prize{{cite web|url = http://www.lannan.org/literary/detail/mary-morrissy/fiction-award/| title = Mary Morrissy, Lannan| date = 10 November 2001| accessdate = 22 April 2021| publisher = lannan.org}}
• 2015: Elected a member of Aosdána{{cite web| url = http://www.artscouncil.ie/News/Aosdana-elects-11-new-members-at-its-General-Assembly/| title = Aosdána elects 11 new members at its General Assembly| date = 6 March 2015| accessdate = 22 April 2021| publisher = artscouncil.ie}}

• Mother of Pearl, Jonathan Cape/Vintage/Scribner, 1996, {{ISBN|0-09-958251-1}}
• The Pretender, Jonathan Cape/Vintage, 2000, {{ISBN|0-09-928367-0}}{{cite web|author=Guardian Staff|access-date=2021-05-20|title=The girl who wasn't there|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/feb/12/fiction.reviews2|date=12 February 2000|website=The Guardian}}
• The Rising of Bella Casey, Brandon, 2013, {{ISBN|978-1847175762}}{{cite web|access-date=2021-05-20|title=Book review: The Rising of Bella Casey - Mary Morrissy|url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-review-the-rising-of-bella-casey-mary-morrissy-29777120.html|website=independent|date=24 November 2013 }}
• Penelope Unbound, Banshee Press, 2023, {{ISBN|978-1838312688}}

• A Lazy Eye, Jonathan Cape/Vintage/Scribner, 1993, {{ISBN|0-09-970141-3}}
• Prosperity Drive, Jonathan Cape, 2016, {{ISBN|978-0224102193}}{{cite journal|title=Reviewed: Prosperity Drive by Mary Morrissy|url=https://www.rte.ie/culture/reviews/2017/0227/855798-mary-morrissy-prosperity-drive/|date=1 March 2017|website=RTE}}

• New Irish Short Stories, ed. Joseph O'Connor, Faber & Faber, 2011, {{ISBN|0-571-25527-2}}
• Imagination in the Classroom: Teaching and Learning Creative Writing in Ireland, ed. Anne Fogarty, Four Courts, 2013, {{ISBN|978-1846824135}}
• Dubliners 100, ed. Thomas Morris, Tramp, 2014, {{ISBN|978-0992817015}}
• Surge, New Writing from Ireland, O'Brien, 2014, {{ISBN|978-1847176936}}
• All Over Ireland, ed. Deirdre Madden, Faber & Faber, 2015, {{ISBN|978-0571311033}}
• The Vibrant House: Irish Writing and Domestic Space, ed. Lucy McDiarmid, Four Courts, 2017, {{ISBN|978-1846826481}}
• The Danger and the Glory: Irish Authors on the Art of Writing, ed. Hedwig Schwall, Arlen House, 2019, {{ISBN|978-1851322060}}
• The Music of What Happens, ed. Tanya Ferrelly, New Island Books, 2020, {{ISBN|978-1848407763}}
• The Art of the Glimpse, ed. Sinéad Gleeson, Head of Zeus, 2020, {{ISBN|978-1788548809}}

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• [https://marymorrissy.com Mary Morrissy's blog]
• {{cite journal| url=http://www.dublinquarterly.com/11/int_mmorrissy.html| title=A Conversation with Mary Morrissy| journal=The Dublin Quarterly| date=19 September 2007| access-date=25 May 2009| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107200532/http://www.dublinquarterly.com/11/int_mmorrissy.html| archive-date=7 January 2009| url-status=dead}}

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Category:Aosdána members

Category:University of Iowa faculty

Category:University of Arkansas faculty

Category:Alumni of Dublin Institute of Technology

Category:Living people

Category:1957 births