Creative Inspiration in Writing and Visual Art

Writing and visual art are often seen as separate disciplines, one rooted in words, the other in image. Yet in practice, they are closely connected forms of expression that translate ideas into something tangible.

In this conversation, Emer Martin, Helen O’Toole and Catherine Callanan share and discuss their distinct creative voices and inspirations. They explore the influence of their shared Irish heritage, with its landscape, language and complicated history, and the path to the realization of their completed works in the form of a novel, painting and sculpture. Moderated by Fidelma McGinn.

Emer Martin is a California based Irish writer, artist, filmmaker and educator who spent formative years in Paris, London, the Middle East and New York.

Her debut novel, Breakfast in Babylon (1995), won the 1996 Book of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week. Her second novel, More Bread or I’ll Appear, was published in 1999, followed by Baby Zero…