Daragh Fleming (The Power of Poetry, Emotional Connection and Basketball) - Episode 1150

Daragh Fleming is an early career writer from Ireland who uses wit and an introspective lens to delve into the subleties of the human experience. He is an author, writer, poet, performer and award-winning mental health blogger from Cork, Ireland. He holds an MA in Linguistics, a BA in Applied Psychology, and a passion for mental health.

Daragh’s debut in non-fiction – Lonely Boy – a collection of essays on mental health arrived on November 24th 2022 and has been well-received. Daragh hit the ground running with two collections of short stories published by Riversong Books back to back in 2019 and 2020. He has also been published in a number of literary journals, such as Southword, Stand, Crannóg, Paris Lit Up, Atrium, Eat The Storms, Beir Bua, The Ogham Stone, Gutter Magazine, An Áituil, Cork Words 3, and many more.

Daragh’s second poetry chapbook arrived in July of 2022 with Dark Thirty Poetry. Entitled: Poems That Were Written On Trains But Weren’t Written About Trains. His debut collection, Enigmatic, was published Octover of 2023 with Sunday Morning at the River.

In 2021, Daragh won the Cork Arts ‘From The Well’ Short Story Competition with this story, Evening Walk, due to be published as part of an anthology in the autumn. He has been Highly Commended for both the Patrick Kavanagh Award and the Fool For Poetry Prize. He was also shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize. He won the Duncairn Flash Competition in 2024.

Daragh works as the Communications Lead for A Lust For Life, an Irish mental health charity. He is an ambassador for See Change Ireland, a charity that works to break down mental health stigma. He is also an ambassador from Movember Ireland.

Daragh also does a lot of public speaking across Ireland at festivals, schools, universities and workplaces. He has given a TEDx Talk on how we can use creativity to nourish our mental health. He has spoken at UCC, Amazon, Healthy Ireland, the West Cork Literary Festival, Kaleidoscope Festival and many more. His Tedx Talk was nominated and shortlisted for two Mental Health Media Awards in 2024.

Thoughts Too Big has been nominated for several awards, including two nominations in the Mental Health Blog Awards. Thoughts Too Big won the award for Blogger of the Year in the Mental Health Blog Awards 2022. Daragh’s latest book, a collection of essays called A BRIEF INHALATION was released this year through Broken Sleep Books.

Daragh has a passion for normalising the chat around mental health, and it the owner and founder of Thoughts Too Big, a blog and enterprise that focuses on overcoming daily mental health issues.