Ten Terrifying Questions with Caroline O’Donoghue!

by |February 4, 2021
Caroline O'Donoghue - All Our Hidden Gifts - Header Banner

Caroline O’Donoghue is a journalist and author. She has published two adult novels, Promising Young Women and Scenes of a Graphic Nature, and is currently working on a collection of personal essays exploring her experiences of feminism and witchcraft. She has a regular column in The Irish Examiner, and has written for The Irish Independent, Glamour, Buzzfeed and Vice, among others. Caroline also hosts Sentimental Garbage, a podcast in which she reviews commercial women’s fiction titles with other authors. All Our Hidden Gifts is her first novel for young adults. Visit Caroline on Twitter: @Czaroline.

Today, Caroline O’Donoghue is on the blog to answer our Ten Terrifying Questions! Read on …


Caroline O'Donoghue - All Our Hidden Gifts

Caroline O’Donoghue

1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?

I was born and raised in Cork, which is a city in the south of Ireland. It’s a wonderful place to grow up: you’re never too far from the beach or the city, and when I was older, it was so easy to just stay out in town and get the last bus home. I was in an all-girls schools for almost all of that time.

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?

When I was 12, I was desperate to be a writer. Writing was the only thing I was ever good at so it seemed like a natural choice. At 18, I lost a lot of my confidence. I don’t think secondary school was very good for my self-belief, and because I performed badly in tests, I came to the conclusion that I would never be a writer. Instead, I started dreaming about jobs that included a lot of travel: wildlife photographer, air hostess. I think it was a sign that I was unhappy, that I wanted so badly to get away, by whatever means necessary. I’m 30 right now, and I don’t want to be anything else than what I am – an author!

3. What strongly held belief did you have when you were younger that you do not have now?

When I was a teenager (during the period I mentioned above, when I wasn’t so confident) I got it into my head that the way to be great was to be close to greatness. I attached myself to a lot of boyfriends who had huge dreams for themselves: they wanted to be writers, or film directors, or musicians, and were already making big steps to do those things. I thought that one day I could be, like, a great author’s wife, and that would be enough. I see now that I was hiding myself, and I’m so glad that I snapped out of it.

4. What are three works of art – book or painting or piece of music, etc – that you can now say had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?

Book: Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book by Terry Jones is a very, very dark book about a little girl who murders fairies. It’s the first fantasy book that I was really obsessed with, but the obsession was complex, because I didn’t understand all of it and it scared me. I think it was the one piece of literature that ignited my love of strange things.

Music: The Mountain Goats are a band that I got very into when I was about 17, and I maintain that John Darnielle’s albums read like novels, or books of short stories. The first song I ever heard from them was called ‘No Children’, and it was about a couple who hate one another but still won’t divorce. The lyrics that caught me were: “I am drowning, there is no sight of land / you are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand”. It was the first time I really understood how love can be a destructive force in a person’s life.

Film: Babe. Whenever me or my siblings were sick, my mum would watch Babe with us. Babe is about a pig who can herd sheep, and everyone is horrible to him because that’s not what pigs do, it’s a dog’s job. The bit that always chokes me up is, at the end of the film, Babe performs in a big sheep dog trial and the crowd are horrified – until he is successful. Then, they love him. I think that’s an important lesson! People are scared of new things until the moment it becomes successful – then, everyone applauds it.

5. Considering the many artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a young adult novel?

I’ve always loved young adult fantasy, because it allows for so much imagination, romance and hope. I love adult fantasy too, and if there’s any difference between the two genres I think it’s that YA is more hopeful: the characters tend to believe they actually can change the world. I think that’s true in real life too. In general, young people have more courage than adults.

6. Please tell us about your latest book …

All Our Hidden Gifts is the story of Maeve Chambers, a 16 year old Irish girl who is struggling in school and has fallen out with her best friend Lily. After she finds a pack of tarot cards, she experiences some brief fame at her school by giving card readings to the other girls. But when she gives Lily a tarot reading, it all goes badly when an unfamiliar card shows up in the deck. After that, Lily goes missing, the police suspect a right-wing Christian group that is gaining popularity in the town. But Maeve knows the truth behind the cards, and she enlists the help of Lily’s brother Roe and her new friend Fiona to help her get Lily back.

7. What do you hope readers will take away with them after reading your book?

That talent and intelligence comes in many forms – and so does forgiveness.

8. Who do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?

I love Diana Wynne Jones, who wrote fantasy for young audiences. She wrote extremely complex, artistic books but they could still be understood by a 10 year old.

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?

To still be doing this job when I’m in my 70s!

10. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Write as much as you can, but that’s obvious. Surround yourself with people who are as imaginative as you are: the kind of friends who love imagining ridiculous situations for fun. I get so much inspiration from silly games I still play with my friends.

Thank you for playing!

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue (Walker Books Australia) is out now.

All Our Hidden Giftsby Caroline O'Donoghue

All Our Hidden Gifts

by Caroline O'Donoghue

Maeve Chambers doesn't have much going for her. Not only does she feel like the sole idiot in a family of geniuses, she managed to drive away her best friend Lily a year ago.

But when she finds a pack of dusty old tarot cards at school, and begins to give scarily accurate readings to the girls in her class, she realizes she's found her gift at last. Things are looking up – until she discovers a strange card in the deck that definitely shouldn't be there. And two days after she convinces her ex-best friend to have a reading, Lily disappears...

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