Sixmilebridge author Tracy Fahey has won the 2024 Paul Cave Prize for Literature with her novella of ancient mythological women and contemporary ecological crises, What Happens At The End.
The awards judge, British literary agent Tim Saunders, praised the novella, saying ‘It is an absolute pleasure to read this beautifully crafted novella, which is a celebration of excellent descriptive writing and carefully considered vocabulary. Not once does it disappoint. Strong, endearing characters complement each other while thorough research or experience has played its part, too. Set in Ireland, the description of the landscape and the liberal sprinkling of humour further enhances this work. This novella really does set the standard for this award.’
‘It was a complete surprise, and an amazing end to my writing year,’ says Fahey, who got the news as she travelled home from the British Fantasy Awards in Chester, UK, where her recent novella, They Shut Me Up (2023, PS Publishing) had been nominated for an award. ‘It’s all the more exciting as What Happens At The End is unpublished, and part of a big project I’ve just completed—a book of linked stories on the mythological figure of the Hag, so it’s a real joy to see it recognised,’ says Fahey.
Fahey has been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards – she is a three-time finalist at the British Fantasy Awards (2017, 2021, 2024) and has been shortlisted for the London Independent Short Story Prize (2024) and the Leicester Short Story Prize (2021). Musician and writer, Lol Tolhurst of The Cure has praised her work, calling her ‘A modern-day gothic whose Kafkaesque otherworldly stories are beautifully disturbing.’
What Happens At The End, Fahey’s prize-winning novella, is narrated by a doctor who comes to live in a small Irish coastal village, where one of her patients defies categorization; an ancient woman, Máire Ní Mhurchú, who styles herself a bean feasa, a wise woman. Mingled with this story are warning echoes of ecological concerns; as the world of Máire Ní Mhurchú begins to teeter, so too does the landscape about her.
A lecturer at Limerick School of Art and Design, Fahey’s research and creative writing are focused on Irish folklore and its resonance in the contemporary present. She has presented on this topic at conferences in Ireland, the UK, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and New Zealand. Central to her work at present is the figure of the Cailleach or Hag. ‘I’ve been fascinated with her as a character since I first completed a 2021 residency in Cill Rialaig in Kerry, where she inhabits so many folk stories as a giant, a world-shaper, a wise woman,’ says Fahey. ‘That’s the mythological world that What Happens At The End is drawn from.’
So apart from pitching her latest collection to publishers, what can we look forward to next by Fahey? ‘Well, right now I’m finishing up a marvellous collaborative project with colleagues Fiona Quill, Joe Lane, and students from the Limerick School of Art and Design, where we’ve made a book of text and print responses to Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan that will be on display in the Hunt Museum, Limerick, in December. I’m also completing a commissioned short story, and an essay for an academic edited collection on the use of biofiction and autoethnography in my writing. And in the New Year I’ve been asked to submit a Gothic crime collection to a UK press. So, yes, there’s plenty more to come.’
The Paul Cave Prize for Literature is an annual competition run by literary agent Tim Saunders and created to honour veteran English publisher Paul Cave.
Tracy Fahey is an award-winning Irish writer based in Co. Clare. Her work deals principally with reimagined folklore and female Gothic. Fahey’s short fiction has appeared in more than 40 Irish, UK, US and Australian anthologies and has been reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. Her writing is supported by residencies in Ireland, Greece and Finland and funded by Grants Under The Arts and an Individual Arts Bursary. She was awarded Saari Fellow status for 2023 by the Kone Foundation for her writing.
Fahey holds a PhD in the Gothic, and lectures in Critical and Contextual Studies at Limerick School of Art and Design, TUS.