David Hayden

One of them was Frank Delaney's anthology that he did for the Folio Society and the other was the massive Colin Toy being one.

And then a few years after that, a friend emailed me saying, God, I just read this amazing anthology and the best thing in it that I read was by Maeve Brennan.

And that anthology was The Long Gaze Back.

And he said, I've got to read more.

I've got to read more.

And then we both kind of like went away and went, oh my God, I've not, I sort of didn't, I didn't get to grips with this writer.

So I went and I found the Counterpoint edition of The Springs of Affection and was just, you know, two stories in was just completely, I just couldn't believe that I hadn't,

immersed myself in this in this writer and then just read everything so yeah it's thanks to this anonymous friend and and Sinead you know got me to this place where um you know she's she's now a favorite writer Sinead similar question to you can you remember when you first where where you first encountered the stories in the springs of affection

You were saying about Linda Nochlin earlier and it made me think of the Joanna Russ's book, How to Suppress Women's Writing.

And everything that you need to know about why Maeve Brennan wasn't read until she was recovered is in Joanna Russ's book, How to Suppress Women's Writing.

Yeah, I was going to say Angela Burke does this kind of almost incidental flyover of the New Yorker culture, depression, alcoholism, suicide attempts, successful and unsuccessful.

And you just go, this is the horror workplace, you know, really quite a terrifying place to work.

But she also says that if there was laughter coming from the water cooler, chances are that it was coming from something that Mae Brennan was saying.

In fact, she was moved.

She was moved in the office because she was such a disruptive influence on people trying to write.

She was too amusing.

Who wouldn't want to be remembered like that?

You said you had nine pieces you wanted to read, David.

I was going to read a little bit.

There are some images and tropes that turn up again and again.