Conor Matthews
Bio
Writer. Opinions are my own. https://ko-fi.com/conormatthews
Stories (207)
Filter by community
The Trees Swallow People: Part 5
It was one of the Tuesdays when I would go to the post office down the village when I saw Shepard again. He was standing atop a raised brim of a monument on Main Street, tucked away between a taxi rank, car park, and corner shop, opposite the road, a credit union, and a pub, yet that didn’t stop him from preaching, as he called it. I could hear him raving from down the street, first as incoherent calls, then becoming clearer in its lunacy as I got closer.
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Fiction
The Trees Swallow People: Part 4
After a few days, they had the pitch taped off. A local club wasn’t impressed. There were other pitches, but GAA lads aren’t known for their sense of rationality. Bitterly, they relinquished. The irony of trying to keep people away from the trees was it only led to more interest in them. People approached the tape, either noticing it in surprise or clearly searching for it, stopping and pointing. Usually, the latter came in groups, setting out together to investigate.
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Fiction
The Trees Swallow People
Reporting at the Garda station proved depressingly tedious. I went, expecting to be met with derision and light mockery or perhaps aggression for wasting their time. It proved to be neither, but still a regretful experience for two officers.
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Fiction
The Trees Swallow People
Over the weeks, two things continued to catch my attention. First, there was a sudden increased in the number of people going missing. Upon first impressions, one would say they had little in common. For instance, one was Michelle O’Reilly, a grandmother who emigrated and returned at least twice, known locally as a music teacher who muttered swears whenever she had a particularly untalented student, reported missing by her adult daughter. Another was Anthony Winkleman, a newly married husband from the states, working in the docklands as an engagement engineer; essentially, his job was to make social media users into social media abusers.
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Fiction
Write Every Day; The Worst Advice
Often I’m torn between two beliefs; determinism and defeatism. I love self-help talks but I hate those who blindly declare you deserve every negative aspect of your life. A middle ground I found can be summed up in the Serenity Prayer;
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Journal
Where Conspiracy Clichés Come From
I must have passively come across this quote a hundred times since the start of the Pandemic. Maybe even just as much before, but quieter, like pre-2020 seems to be in our nostalgia. Along with "NWO", "Global Reset", and Globalism, as well as a whole hotchpotch of other zaney sound bites, one quote keeps emerging;
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in FYI
What Writing Judges Think
I was fortunate to have to a runner-up in this year’s Hubert Butler Essay Prize. During the award ceremony, I got a chance to talk to the judges, made up of academics, bestselling authors, and even the family of the late Mr. Butler, where the topic of the fellow applicants who hadn’t been as lucky came up.
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Journal
How I Benefited From Covid
[The following was submitted for the 2021 Hubert Butler Essay Prize, where it was awarded a runner-up prize. The context is the essay was to be titled “ “During the plague I came into my own” (Anthony Hecht). Who or what benefited from Covid-19?” As such, the essay begins in reference to that title.]
By Conor Matthews4 years ago in Confessions
