Lynne publishes her poetry collection

Lynne Edgar, who works full time in a building society, is a member of Derry Scriptwriters Group, and has been putting pen to paper for a number of years.

“I began writing in 2005 when I started a course with the Open University where I am currently completing a BA Hons in Humanities. To date my poems have been published not only in the local press, but in magazines and more recently in Poetry Ireland Review,” she said.

In November last year she began a six-month poetry mentoring scheme run by LitNetNI and received an funding award from the Arts Council.

“My Mentor was Moyra Donaldson, a poet with four successful collections under her belt. Toward the end of our time together, Moyra encouraged me to put a collection of my poems together and ‘Trapeze’, is the result.

“Ever since I was a child, I liked writing. My favourite toy was a small manual typewriter in a grey tartan case. There was something about the sound of the keys hammering against the paper and the magic of seeing words appear on a page. I wrote stories, none of which I can remember, but I suppose I must have always been a dreamer,” Lynne said.

A pupil at Cathedral Primary School, in the 1970s Lynne moved with the rest of her family to the Waterside, where she still lives, but is still asked if she is “one of the wee McIntosh’s from The Fountain”.

“My only ambition when I left Clondermot High School at 16 was to be a proper grown up,” she said revealing that she was married at 19 to Brian, and she went on to have three children, Janelle, Dawn and Joel.

“In 2005, when I was experiencing that sense of emptiness you get when your children have grown up, a mail shot promoting the Open University landed on my doormat, triggering a series of circumstances that lead me to where I am today. One of the first courses I saw on the prospectus was ’Start Writing Fiction’. The notion to write that I’d only played with as a child was re-ignited,” she said.

One course lead to another, and one incorporated poetry.

“Until that I had no interest in poetry and knew nothing but nursery rhymes and the first verse of Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’. I approached the subject with trepidation. The last thing I was expecting was that I would enjoy it,” she said, adding: “But somehow I got gripped by the challenge of stretching a thought, condensing a narrative, making a handful of words, huddled together in a small space, say something significant, and I think best of all, by the joy of playing around with words and sound.”

In November last year she began her mentoring scheme and Moyra helped her develop her writing style.

“By the end of the course in May, I had put together Trapeze, which she suggested I send to Lapwing, a specialist poetry publisher in Belfast.

“I did so not really believing it would be taken that seriously. It was a pretty big day when I got word to say they were going to publish it. That sense of achievement was matched again recently when one of my poems was published in Poetry Ireland Review. It’s still pretty hard to believe that things have come this far in such a short time,” she said.

Asked what she thought might come next, Lynne replied: “I’m not sure what happens after this. Right now I am focusing on completing my degree in Humanities with the OU which I didn’t set out to do, but stumbled into as an offshoot of that initial mail shot. That, together with my full time job at the building society, keeps me pretty busy. But, definitely, there will be more poems, and there’s a radio play lying around looking to morph into something meatier.”

‘Trapeze’ will be launched on Friday next, October 21 at The Playhouse at 7pm.