Passion for Words: Lucy Durneen "So what is a lyric essay anyway?"

The heart of a shrimp is located in its head. A girl watches shark fishermen on an Omani harbour. A man does not want a child. And Heidegger’s looking on. What connects these things? Separates them? Braids them into one? The lyric essay steals from many literary forms to ask questions, test limits, and dig deep. We’ll explore how they work and why you’d turn to them.


Lucy Durneen's short stories, poetry and non-fiction have been published and commended internationally in journals including World Literature Today, Hotel Amerika, and Meniscus. Her fiction has been Pushcart Prize nominated and Highly Commended in the Manchester Fiction Prize, while her non-fiction has been adapted for broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2017. Her first short story collection, Wild Gestures, was published in 2017 with Australian press MidnightSun and won Best Short Story Collection at the Saboteur Awards in London in May of the same year. Her research interests include War Writing, literatures of exile, migration and asylum, and graphic narratives, as well as short stories, creative non-fiction and hybrid forms of writing.