Yesterday’s tarot card urged me to rest but after sleeping for sixteen hours on Tuesday, I think I’m good. I returned from Dublin on Monday night and started sorting my many receipts. Then I emailed the National Library of Ireland and asked for a copy of The Dublin Mercury from August 1768 so I could see the original advertisement I learned about earlier this month. It’s unsettling to see a child listed for sale in between banal notices about “exotic” trees and shrubs and some jilted husband refusing to pay for his wife’s expenses. One trafficker was clearly based in Dublin but the other seems to be from the north (I think the town is Carrickmacross). My mind is a bit too open right now after making so many discoveries during my trip. But I’m trying to stay focused; tonight I found three potential Black Irish illustrators online and am ready to start revising my selkie story. I’m developing outlines for the Samhain picture book and now have a fairly complete cast for the novel about this girl trafficked from North or South Carolina.

You can find photos from my trip on Instagram; as usual, I packed in quite a bit over a few short days. What I need to do now is update my notes and set a writing agenda so I don’t lose momentum. It was pretty wet, windy, and cold in Ireland, but I managed to do a lot of dreaming as I wandered around various historic sites in Tipperary and Wicklow. My guide Maggie suggested Powerscourt as a quick day trip and I found a lot of inspiration there as I walked through the extensive gardens. The house looked quite a bit like Pollok House in Glasgow but this time-travel novel will be entirely different. I’ve named my girl Glory and she is enslaved by an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family who have a townhouse in Dublin and an estate in the country. Right now I’m patterning Glory after Phillis Wheatley…but we’ll see how far I get writing neoclassical verse, lol. I’ve given her allies and enemies…she gets to ride the giant stag I saw on display at Trinity College last fall…I thought of an ending yesterday but don’t know if it works. Will hammer out an outline and just try to make a start!

On my last day in Dublin I got to meet some bright, diverse students at a primary school not far from my hotel. There are 34 languages spoken by the students, and I was greeted and thanked in at least half of them. JetBlue is having a seat sale and it’s very tempting to go back for the summer festival of Bealtaine but I think I better watch my pennies, stay home and write, and return to Ireland for Samhain at the end of October. I should have my next genealogical report next month and that will help me plan a trip to Northern Ireland to see where my Scottish ancestors settled.

Time to prep for today’s virtual book talk on Mother of the Sea! That novelette is a good reminder that self-publishing is always worthwhile even if it’s not lucrative. I never imagined it would be selected for the ALA’s Great Stories Club, but nothing wonderful can happen if you don’t give your work a chance to live in the world…