Photograph © Eamonn Doyle/Neutral Grey
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‘Thoughts sharpen themselves on the flints of one another and pierce me like a knife in my middle, sunk deep and twisted around.’
Photograph © Eamonn Doyle/Neutral Grey
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‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Donal Ryan is from Nenagh, County Tipperary. His work includes the novels The Thing About December and The Spinning Heart, which was awarded the 2013 Guardian First Book Award, and the story collection, A Slanting of the Sun. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Limerick, where he lives with his wife and two children.
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‘I’d had quite enough of everything. I vowed to no longer mistake obedience for love.’
Fiction by Catherine Lacey.
‘They couldn’t put their finger on exactly what it was they craved, but they knew it was very different to what they had.’
Fiction by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes.
‘People say it’s healthy for couples to fight, it means there’s still passion. I’ve always assumed that was bullshit, but now I’m not sure.’
Fiction by Brad Phillips.
‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’
Fiction by Sophie Collins.
‘Eight years in, Hal felt like another her, somehow.’
Fiction by Alexandra Tanner.
‘There are two options for the young writer and employment. There is the proper job, whatever it might be – law, advertising, medicine or the default choice for many, academia. Or there’s the menial, rent-paying job.’
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