Dear readers,
I wrote a poem/ short piece about a Catherine Wheel firework back in November. It came out of a kind of nostalgia for the UK’s Guy Fawkes celebrations on November 5th, and a series of very honest conversations I had with a group of powerful women at JOYA artist residency. The poem is not just about a firework. I hope you get something out of it. I have been working on shorter form pieces recently, which I look forward to sharing with you soon.
I made the video in Mexico City in January 2026, thanks to the generosity of fellow writer Martha Hipley and the help of my wonderful friend and artist Chloe French. The process involved going to ‘Firework City’, a dusty, eerie market on the very outskirts of town, and explaining at length the specific kind of spinning firework we needed. We decided against the bigger, more dangerous options, which I now quite regret, because we shot the film in the garden of a guy who turned out to be nothing more than a big fat love bomber. BANG! Here it is. If you like my writing, please share it.
My first novel, I Keep My Shadow Light, is also now available to buy in She Said bookstore in Berlin. It will soon be stocked in Metis bookstore, Hundt Hammer Stein, and some others. You can, of course, still order it from the devil.
There will also be an official launch event in Berlin in the spring, where I will sell and sign copies, as well as the official merch t-shirts ‘Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel’, and some limited prints from the green poster series. Wooo! More soon.
Warmest,
Fionnuala
