Deirdre Purcell is many things. Acclaimed novelist, broadcaster, former actor, and also an extremely considerate spouse.
The Meath-based writer explains that when the muse strikes her, she takes notes. If it happens to be the middle of the night, her sleeping husband next to her, well…
“Unfortunately my husband wakes extremely easily so what I do is I have a stack of bits of cardboard and a pencil so I can write what occurs to me in the middle of the might quietly without turning on the light,” she says with a laugh.
Now 14 novels into her writing career, Deirdre is something of a renaissance woman. She wanted to be a jockey growing up but instead acted with the Abbey Theatre, was a news anchor at RTE, a print journalist and then novelist, as well as adapting her own ‘Falling For A Dancer’ for the small screen.
It’s been a full life so far and there’s no sign of anything slowing down. It’s Halloween when we speak over the phone, and while I have to fend off trick or treaters coming to the door, her doorbell doesn’t ring. It’s in keeping with her relaxed demeanour. She sounds remarkably unhurried.
Not long before we spoke another author, John Banville, had sparked no little opprobrium with his comment that no writer was a good father. I wondered whether such a description was applied in equal measure to writers who happen to be women.
Read the full article in the January/February Issue of SeniorTimes out in all newsagents now and on subscription
