'Now, I understand why people call this place magical'

For a while, it felt as if I was the only author in Ireland who hadn’t gone on an artist’s retreat to the famed Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan. 

“Off to Annaghmakerrig!” friends would write on Twitter, the responses characterised by their hints of barely concealed envy, photos of the Annaghmakerrig Lake and #WritingDeskWithAView flooding my Instagram feed soon after.

Feeling excluded, I immediately completed the application form, one so extensive that I began to worry, despite the four novels and all that, I might be ineligible to apply. But after promising my first-born child and ten pieces of silver as payment, I was in. Well, due to the enormous popularity of the centre, I was in ... in six months’ time, at the earliest.