Mary O’Donoghue, "Safety Advice for Staying Indoors” Common magazine (Fall, 2021)

Mary O’Donoghue speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Safety Advice for Staying Indoors,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Mary talks about crafting a story that explores two points of view within the same Irish family, both stuck inside during a strong storm, both coping with loss. She also discusses her work translating Irish-language poets, her interest in stories that require the reader to connect their own dots, and what it’s like to edit fiction for AGNI while writing her own short stories, too.

Mary O’Donoghue is a writer from the west of Ireland living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, Guernica, Kenyon Review, The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, and elsewhere. She is fiction editor at AGNI. Read her story in The Common at thecommononline.org/safety-advice-for-staying-indoors.

The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.

Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She holds an MA in literature from Queen Mary University of London, and a BA from Smith College. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily.

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