A budding author from Salthill has had one of her short stories printed in a national publication – at the ripe old age of twelve.

This is not Lola-Mae McCormack’s first literary feat. But it is the first time she has been published.

She was just eleven when she wrote ‘The Last Pingin’ for the Children’s Books Ireland competition. Winners were included in a compilation of short stories called ‘Bedtime Stories – Incredible Irish Tales from the Past’.

It tells the story of a young girl who is anxious about bringing her jar of old Irish pennies to be changed into new decimal money. She has saved the coins every day by collecting eggs on a farm.

The author of the compilation, Leah James, wrote a glowing commendation to Lola-Mae: “You have a wonderful gift as a writer. Your story captures a moment in Irish history beautifully. I really loved reading your story”.

In 2019 she won her first national short story competition run by RTÉ. The year after she won a short story competition to have her story animated and also won a short story competition by RTÉ’s We Love Books. That story will soon be recorded for radio.

Lola-Mae first became interested in writing when her third class teacher in Scoil Iognáid, Cait O’Donnell, encouraged the class to enter the RTE short story competition.

“I wrote a horror story called ‘The Examiner’ based on a nightmare I’d had about a piano exam I was due to take and it won the competition,” she recalls.

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