That actually-

... write without being a man.

There's no way of doing it, this relationship with m- motherhood or writing.

They never cohere.

It's like she can't conceive of, of producing art except through the poses of maleness.

And I think Marie Calloway is, in many ways, almost a [swallows]...

It's the, it's the a, it's the Rectum Grave level feminine redundancy of kind of how female subjectivity is produced under capitalism.

Right

Why was that?

It was always my plan, and I went to college to study English, and I was gonna use that as a...

I suppose it was my favorite subject.

I loved to read and write.

I only ever wanted to be a writer.

But I got very sidetracked by academic research, and I just enjoyed that so much.

I think it absorbed all my energies.

That was a lot of change

I have anything more to say.

This story is very mind-matching.

The concept is fun and

original, but the real strength is in the writer's emotional commitment to it and how much detail and texture is put into the sense of place and space and emotion and atmosphere, even in a story which is about very high concepts.

So in this story, a character meets his superego in it after a head injury and is hurtled through space and time, perhaps.

There are also many moments of excellent style.

A character doesn't just say something but, and I'm quoting now, manages to eventually decide.

And her comments for all of you were, I think you were thrilled, weren't you, with Niamh's comments about your work? Her comments on your work? Niamh, do you want to add anything to what you said already today?

And I'm curious, um, how you've seen the response to this change, uh, covering it from a, from a political angle.

Yeah, it's been, everyone has widely welcomed it.

You know, there has been absolutely, as, as you would expect, you know, there's been no pushback at all.

Employers are, are very welcome, and, and it was brought forward, uh, by the Department for the Economy.

So that's Minister, uh, Caireen Archibald, and she framed it as a matter of care and compassion for families.

I think quite a lot of people who haven't experienced or been affected by miscarriage couldn't believe that it wasn't already a law.

It just seems one of those things that is nearly common sense.

And, and why do you think Northern Ireland was the first then?