Gill O' Halloran, LISP 2025 Flash Fiction Finalist, 'A Lad Insane'

- Could you please tell us about yourself and your daily routine?

I’m a Londoner who loves art and culture, but being by the sea is my happy place. Time spent by the Thames and swimming in the city’s lidos persuades me not to move to the coast.

I was a palliative care social worker for a good part of my career, but having lost both parents by the time I was 21, I’ve always known that life is precious, and this informs my ‘grab the moment’ approach to a late landing in the flash fiction world! I’ve strong views about social justice and have run poetry workshops for excluded groups, as well as community classes. There’s a great book festival at Beckenham Place Park, and I’ll be running the flash fiction workshop there next year, having run the poetry workshop in 2024.

My days are quite different, but I have a weekly routine. I swim 2x per week outdoors, belong to a great choir, meet up with French-speaking friends, and enjoy my film studies classes. This, plus seeing my son and my friends, and getting out into nature, often to birdwatch or forage, all provide fulfilment, but writing is now my passion and part of my daily routine.

- When and how did you start writing?

I’ve written for as long as I can remember (with gaps). At first, it was short stories and poetry. My poetry book was placed in the 2009 Small-Press Poetry Awards’ top 20 individual collections, but then I had a fallow period for over a decade, before setting up an online writers’ group during Covid. This inspired me to complete an online flash fiction course with Mary-Jane Holmes, and since June 2024, I’ve been writing and submitting. I've had some successes alongside the inevitable rejections. Trash Cat Lit gave me my breakthrough by publishing my first story - it’s so affirming when someone believes in you! I now have stories in Bath and Oxford Flash Fiction Anthologies, have won the Propelling Pencil Competition, the Westword Prize, and Flash 500, and been shortlisted for Fish and Cambridge Prizes. I was thrilled to be published in the UK NFFD Anthology as the Editors’ Choice Award (alongside Rebecca Field) and very proud to make it into Smokelong Quarterly’s lit mag. It’s been a wonderful surprise that I can do this, though I still have much to learn.

- How frequently do you write? Do you have a writing routine? And what inspires you to write?

I write most days, often in the evening, but I try to devote at least one full day a week to new flashes and editing. I prefer to write outside the home to avoid distractions. I belong to SmokeLong Quarterly's online writing community, so I get a prompt to submit a draft each week. External accountability is helpful, as even though I’m passionate about writing, I'm not sure I’d be sufficiently self-motivated without that structure. I’m inspired by anything and everything – a painting, a memory, something in the news, an overheard dialogue, unresolved feelings. Sometimes I can’t wait to get home from a day out, however good it’s been, so that I can write. It’s a hunger.

- How does it feel to have your work acknowledged, whether through being a finalist in a

competition or having it published?

It’s a wonderful feeling – the best! Sticking my writing in a drawer wouldn’t do it for me. (Are there people who are happy with that?) I want to reach people and have an impact. But acceptance/rejection can be a dizzying rollercoaster, and I’m trying to get off it. Now, when I get rejected, I tell myself, ‘Nuisance, not disaster.’ But I don’t always listen!

- What's the most rewarding and challenging aspect of writing a story or poetry?

Sometimes the blank page stares back at me, sniggering at my blank mind. Sometimes, I go down rabbit holes of research mid-sentence. Sometimes I’m stuck and there’s no un-sticking, and it’s better to put the draft away for another day; other days, it’s all about pushing on through the rubbish until you find a glint of buried treasure.

The most rewarding is when you crack something and you know the words are working their magic. Maybe capturing a complex concept in a few sparse or poetic words. I love the challenge of a limited word count; it’s like solving a maths puzzle. And I’m happy when a weighty theme becomes beautiful through lyricism - it’s a sort of transcendence.

- How did you come up with the idea for your LISP-selected story? Is there a story behind your story? And, how long have you been working on it? 

It began with a SmokeLong prompt that included moving into the surreal. It took shape quite easily (they don’t always), although of course there were edits. I’ve always been a fan of David Bowie, but I was curious about Terry, the creative older brother who inspired him. Terry was eventually hospitalised for schizophrenia, but he managed to slip away and kill himself. Who knows what mental torment he was trying to escape? Such tragedies are still happening today, due to underfunding, understaffing, and bad attitudes, but ignorance about mental illness fuels stigma, so no one cares enough, other than the families whose lives are devastated. Only today I read a similar story in the news.

I wanted to pay tribute to Terry’s gifts and strengths because, like anyone with this diagnosis, he was clearly so much more than his illness. And I feel sure Bowie was affected by his brother’s death and had regrets, so I wanted to offer a dreamlike form of closure for him.

- Please share a few tips on writing poetry/stories. 

Although I don’t always stick to my own tips…lock away your inner critic until you’re ready to edit. What’s the worst that can happen? You write something dreadful – no one dies! Look for where the action is, take that paragraph out and stick it at the beginning. Highlight all the dull, overworked words and replace them. Delete unnecessary adjectives. Delete adjectives. Write the weird and find a way to make it universal.

(Sometimes I fall at the universal part!)

- What is the best aspect and the most challenging aspect of competitions? 

The wait is tough! You almost need to forget about it. And it stings when you’re particularly attached to a piece, but it gets nowhere.

Being placed, or winning, is obviously the best buzz. But maybe the real joy is getting your fiction out into the world. You’re sharing a part of yourself, a part that sometimes feels deeply personal, but it may make your reader laugh, or cry, or shudder, or identify with a universal emotion or experience. Or maybe just say (as I often do), ‘ Wow, I wish I’d written that.’

- Finally, would you recommend that the writers consider submitting to LISP?

Of course! It’s an honour to be a finalist, and having an interview published when you’re not famous is a rare bonus. I’m happy to join the LISP movement of writers.