Caroline O'Donoghue: It is the dread that I remember most as a teenager

"We were not in control of our lives and so we were brutal to ourselves and to each other to feel like we had a handle on things. It’s a feeling you forget, gradually, as you become an adult and start to choose your own destiny."

Caroline O'Donoghue

I’ve just arrived back to London after a busy ten days back home – three days in Dublin, seven in Cork. It was busy because I haven’t seen most of my family for almost two years, and it was busy because it was also a work trip. I visited secondary schools as part of the One County One Book initiative that I’ve been doing with Cork County Libraries. 

You probably don’t need to be in the publishing industry to know that when even one library gets behind your book, it’s cause for celebration. To have a whole web of libraries buy copies for Cork schools is a bottle-of-champagne-at-the-Grand-Prix-finish-line scenario. So I packed my suitcase, and I got ready to talk to the young people of Cork.