Arts Week with Judy Murphy

As a child, author Patricia Forde loved visiting her uncle’s farm just south of Gort, near Crusheen in County Clare.  She was deeply impressed by how kind he was to the livestock in his care.

“It came as awful shock when I learned that these lovely sheep and cattle, so well-minded, were all eventually going to be killed and eaten,” she says with a laugh.

Decades on, Patricia still recalls that lesson in reality – and it’s why she veers away from writing realistic books.

“I live in my head, and I’d find it hard to write totally realistic fiction, To do that, you have to be observant and tuned into the minute.”

The award-winning children’s author and Ireland’s newly-appointed Laureate na nÓg laughs again.

Patricia prefers writing “speculative fiction”, stories that offer her young readers that ‘what if’ moment. And her latest novel, The Girl Who Fell to Earth, published by Little Island, is full of such moments.

It follows a young teenager, Aria, who’s been raised on a distant planet, Terros, where life is pretty perfect. Its residents have learned to defeat diseases and are all about harmonious living. Faraway Earth is their laboratory and humans are their lab rats.  Aria learns from a young age that humans are destructive and stupid.  So, she’s shocked to discover she has human DNA.

Aria and her dad are dispatched to Earth to release a virus that will wipe out humanity. But having arrived, she quickly begins to question their task. When the mission goes wrong and forces from her past try to destroy her, Aria faces challenges that her idyllic life hasn’t prepared her for. She does this with help from her new, human friends.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.