'We asked listeners to be honest, creative, funny, engaging and evocative in their writing ... to try to make us laugh, cry and think. We never imagined we would get the quantity and quality of entries that we did for A Page from My Life.' - Ray D'Arcy
A couple of months in to lockdown, The Ray D'Arcy Show invited RTE Radio 1 listeners to send in 'A Page From My Life': 500 words from anyone, anywhere on the island, and beyond. The response was overwhelming. Ray and his team were inundated with over 2,500 entries.
It's said that everyone has a novel in them - perhaps. But everyone, surely, has one fantastic story to tell.
It might be a day in your life that stands out, or the hilarious story you're asked to tell at parties. It might be heart-breaking, like the tragedy your family never talks about; or the tale that's never been told at all. Others are storytellers of a different kind: writers itching to release their characters into the world, and to let readers into the worlds they've created. All of them share a talent for crafting stories that stay with the reader long after the final page is turned.
The four judges, bestselling authors Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), Donal Ryan (The Spinning Heart), Emilie Pine (Notes to Self) and Emer McLysaght (What a Complete Aisling), here introduce our favourite 150 of the super-short stories on themes of childhood and family, the remarkable everyday, love and loss, and, of course, humour.