Becoming Belle - An Interview with Nuala O' Connor

Firstly congratulations on such a compelling novel Nuala, its such a beautifully written story, and a fantastic read – I devoured it in one weekend!

Thanks a million, Niamh, that’s lovely to hear.

The character of Belle is based on a real person, someone you have known about for quite some time, and who is buried a ‘stone’s throw’ from where you live in Ballinasloe. You have already spoken about your research in previous interviews – so what I would love to know is, was it hard to chose which portion of Belles rich and various life to represent and what to leave out?

Nuala O' Connor

I think this is always the tangly bit for novelists – we do our research and end up with a pile of facts and then we have to finesse them into something readable and, hopefully compelling. And, basically, some of the facts of people’s lives don’t necessarily fit with the story we end up wanting to tell. So writing a novel becomes a series of questions about what caves (of the character’s life) we want to shine our torch into. I’m interested in people and their little madnesses and obsessions, so I wanted to see how Belle handled the various upheavals she found herself at the centre of (baby out of wedlock in 1888; a fraudster boyfriend; elopement with a viscount; his sudden disappearance etc.) I focussed on four consecutive years in Belle’s life and thought my way through the most relevant parts of them, as unearthed through research.

I adored the language of the novel, it evokes Belle’s world in an incredibly sensual and immediate manner. It’s a leap and a lifetime away from our contemporary hashtag /emoji/lol filled language – had you any particular rituals or techniques for immersing yourself in 1880s London when you sat down to write?

The only ritual I have is to read yesterday’s written work before I move onto today’s. That way I get myself back into the mood/tone/language of the piece before moving on. I wanted Becoming Belle to read like a Victorian novel, so I did a lot of research around that through reading contemporary social reports and newspapers, novels of the day etc. It’s important to me that the language sounds authentic so that the reader feels they’re immersed in the Victorian era.

Cigarette Cards Featuring Belle

I really enjoyed reading the Author’s Note where you fill us in on what happened to Belle and the other characters. It felt respectful to their real lived selves and was quite moving. If there’s a particular pleasure in weaving fiction and fact, what would you say might be the cautions – I am thinking of other writers who may be reading this – what would you say are the particular challenges that come with working in this genre?


I suppose I have contradictory thoughts about it. In one way I feel we as writers have a duty to be faithful to the lives and events of the real people we write about. In another way I feel we’re fiction writers, we should have freedom to invent where we feel that’s necessary. I come at my characters with love and respect. That doesn’t mean I present them as paragons, I want them to seem real: lacking, sweet, damaged, fun, blemished, honest and confused in the way that we all are. Belle can come over as selfish at times but who is not guilty of that on occasion? I think it’s important not to make demigods of real people – we all make mistakes, and do regrettable things, even our beloved factional characters.

Your short stories often involve real characters, and this is your second novel inspired by someone’s actual life (Miss Emily being the first) – do you feel you have found a groove, so to speak? Are you hooked? Can we expect more bio-fiction novels in the future?

Yes, I’m working on another bio-fictional novel now. It centres on a strong Irish woman who has been flicked to one side by history, but who I’m bringing centre stage. I love bio-fiction, but it can be a little restrictive, in that you have to hang your fiction on the archway of a real, lived life. Once my novel-in-progress is done, I may have a go at another contemporary novel. I miss the freedoms of unadulterated invention. That’s something to look forward to while I wade through the muddier bits of the novel-in-progress.

Best of luck with that novel in progress Nuala, and look forward to finding out who this strong Irish woman is!  Becoming Belle is available in all good book shops, and Amazon. For more about Nuala's writing,  and Belle (including a fascinating video of her collection of Belle ephemera) check out her Website 

Inside the Wolf

Come into the woods

Meet Red Riding Hood. Meet witches, ghosts, beasts, painters, muses and mermaids in a poetry collection about art, motherhood, and voice. 

Watch out for the wolf

My collection of poetry, is available from today from Amazon. Many thanks to John MacKenna, and Nuala O Connor, who took the time to read the book and say good things.....

‘In these clever, concise poems, Niamh Boyce resurrects the ancestors who gifted her a legacy of words and their ghostly presences shimmer through the work. Boyce has the artist’s peeled eye: she dissects fairy tales and reassembles them with colour, menace and wit. Her imagery is visceral, and she is as comfortable making the reader laugh as moving the heart. These are honest poems, open to beauty and to examining women’s complex negotiations with the world. *Inside the Wolf* is a diverse and vivid collection, a fierce celebration of words and women.’ 

Nuala O’Connor, author of ‘Miss Emily.’

‘From the moment when the skeletons are pulled from the closet to the moment when the forest is riddled with monsters, these poems are, as Niamh Boyce writes, "mothers calling their children for supper." They are spells woven, like the witch-spells about which she writes, to draw us in, to show us the possibilities and the darknesses of the human condition. But, most of all, it is the ghosts of people like Agnes Richter, Frida Kahlo, Katharina Detzel and Kitty who "tiptoe in like children who ought to be sleeping" who will long remain with me, their lives reimagined in these marvelous poems.’

John MacKenna, author of ‘Once We Sang Like Other Men.’

Available on Amazon - click Here

For an interview with multi-award winning writer Catherine Dunne discussing Inside the Wolf,  poetry, skeletons, ancestors, bones, art & witches - click Here

Author Interview - Miss Emily by Nuala O'Connor

Thanks to Nuala O'Connor for dropping over to talk about her latest novel, Miss Emily, which imagines a year in the life of Emily Dickinson & is a fantastic read - a literary page turner!

Welcome Nuala, this is a few questions in one! Emily Dickinson had a fierce attachment to home, as a place of refuge, and a place to write. She was on our syllabus in school (1980's) and much was made of her hermit like existence, her rejection of society - as if this were odd, almost laughable, behaviour - as if dedicating your life to poetry was only heroic if you were male. For me, she was heroic, and (till now) her home represented a necessary fortress, somewhere that functioned to protect the time, space and silence she needed to write. I had visualised it as quite a sterile place, so I was surprised and delighted with the warmth and complexity of the household you depict in Miss Emily. The descriptions of the daily routines, the baking, Ada touching the eggs with her tongue... are so alive - I really felt like I was there. Did you enjoy recreating this household? Was it a challenge? Did the book Ada consults The Frugal Housewife really exist? And, I know you visited Emily’s home, so I'm very curious to know, how did that feel? Did you sense her there?

I loved the whole business of recreating the Dickinson world in Emily’s house, The Homestead, and her brother Austin’s house, The Evergreens, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily’s letters have some domestic detail and I read widely around the subject, including The Frugal Housewife, which is a book Emily’s father gifted to his wife before their marriage. You can read it online, but I also bought a facsimile copy to get a real feel for how the Dickinson's and Ada would have consumed it.

The two houses are now the Emily Dickinson Museum and, when I had a first draft written, I went to Amherst and walked the rooms of both. As well as the town itself, and various libraries there and in Cambridge, to see Emily’s belongings: desk, white dress, lock of hair, jewellery, delft etc. The research was totally absorbing – I loved every minute of it, whether from books or on the spot.

I was very moved to be in Emily’s house – you get a real sense of her, particularly in her bedroom which is a gorgeously sparse, bright space.

I think this is a brave book. To fictionalise the year in the life of such a famous poet, someone so well known, and loved. The success with which you've conveyed Emily’s voice, that in itself is a huge accomplishment. Did it feel like a risk to tackle such a famous writer? Has anything surprised you about the response to Miss Emily?

It certainly felt audacious to tackle Emily and her world – she’s an American icon. But I did it with love and good intentions; she’s been a companion poet to me for a long time and I stayed as faithful to her life and personality as fiction allows. I was respectful.

I expected a backlash; Dickinson scholars are notoriously protective of Emily, which I understand; I feel that way myself. One Dickinson scholar refused to blurb the book because of ‘inaccuracies’ (which were very minor and, in fact, had nothing to do with Emily).

Last month I read at the Emily Dickinson International Society annual meeting in Amherst as part of my US book tour. People were incredibly warm about the book; only one person asked a snarky question at the Q&A. And I understood their POV, anyway.

No book escapes criticism and personal reaction from readers. There was a bit of a hoo-hah on Facebook about the UK cover (the headless woman trope) and the person who started it didn’t seem to realise they were friends with me. I joined the conversation! I’m as irritated by headless women on book covers as the next person, but I just loved the cover when Sandstone showed it to me.

What’s next for you, Nuala?

I hope to rest and breathe a bit soon, when the Miss Emily PR train slows down, though I find it hard to say no to gigs, for a variety of reasons.

I have the first draft of another Victorian novel written - this one set between London, Hong Kong, Australia and Ballinasloe in County Galway (where I live). I have to go back to it soon and knock it into good enough shape for my agent. In the meantime, I hope to write some short stories set firmly in the 21st century.

Miss Emily can be purchased on Amazon Uk  & Amazon USA 
and all good book shops.

About the author - 

Nuala O'Connor is a fiction writer and poet. Writing as Nuala Ní Chonchúir she has published two novels, four collections of short fiction, a chapbook of flash fiction and three full poetry collections - one in an anthology.  Nuala holds a BA in Irish from Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in Translation Studies (Irish/English) from Dublin City University. She has worked as an arts administrator in theatre and in a writers' centre; as a translator, as a bookseller and also in a university library.  She teaches occasional creative writing courses. For the last four years she has been fiction mentor to third year students on the BA in Writing at NUI Galway. She lives in County Galway with her husband and three children.