Siamsa Sraide Book Event

Will you please welcome Shell Crawley everyone.

Thanks.

So, Shell, you might start off by telling us first your connection with Swinford.

Swinford is your first home, Shell.

Absolutely.

So I'm a native of Park Road here in Swinford and I grew up here and lived here until I was about 20.

And then I moved away to the Midlands where I'm still based in Mullingar.

But it's always lovely to come home to see people.

And it's even sweeter to come home now that we have Sam.

Very good, of course.

And you're writing, I suppose, you're a journalist.

You started off as a journalist, so writing was always part of your life, Shell?

Absolutely.

I suppose writing is my first love.

I started off as a journalist.

Some people might remember reading some of the articles I would have written in different publications.

And then I became a primary school teacher.

I suppose it was economic reasons more than anything else.

It was around the time of the downturn.

And I love teaching as well.

I'm so lucky to have that that I absolutely adore as well.

But it's nice to have two kind of lives.

And I suppose I went back to writing just as a hobby and kind of developed then and into something a little bit more.

And when people start finding out that you're writing a little bit, it just kind of grows legs like they want, they want to hear it, they want to read it.

And your name kind of starts to get out there.