"By
Endurance We Conquer"
Creative Writing with Mary Russell
Workshop Director
Mary Russell was born in Dublin and studied Arts at University College
Dublin. She soon began writing for The Irish Times. Her career in
travel writing escalated with a four-part series on solo women travellers
for the Guardian Newspaper. She followed this with a book about
women
travellers and explorer called The Blessings
Of A Good Thick Skirt.
In 1981, Mary travelled to Lesotho, the first of many such journeys.
Later, Mary cycled through France, from Le Harve to Marseilles.
She
caught a ship to Algiers, continuing to the Sahara Desert where
she
spent time with the Saharawi: a desert people displaced by the
invasion of their country by Morocco. Other journeys followed; to
the
Arctic, South Africa, Hungary and the Eastern Caribbean.
In 1998, Mary was invited to contribute to Penguins Amazonian,
a
collection of new travel writing, by women. Following on from this,
Irish publishing company, Town House commissioned her to write a
travel book, which looks, not only at the places she has so far
visited,
but also at her reasons for going to these places. The Arab world,
with
all of its complexities continues to entice Mary, with more recent
travels taking her to Israel, Syria and Iraq.
Journeys of a Lifetime by Mary
Russell was published in June 2002.
According to The Irish Times the book is vivid, self-depreciating
and
often hilarious.
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