Meet Your Host

Marion Kelly

Marion was born into the heart of Sliabh Luachra, County Kerry. The visiting customs and traditions of her family and neighbours stimulated Marion’s curiosity for the written and spoken word. The memory of these rituals in the Parlours of her youth was reason enough to re-create a similar atmosphere some twenty years later in the Parlour Review.

I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

History books, Gothic fairytales and the Glam horizons of the late eighties forged her identity beyond the locale. Five years in the University village of Maynooth introduced Marion to the academic world of historians, literature, research techniques and the latest philosophies and debates of Europe and the wider world.
In pursuit of dreams, intrigue and life experience, frequent journeys to the American east coast, particularly the artistic colony of Provincetown, allowed her to soak up the atmosphere of American art and literature. The ghosts of the Chelsea hotel, small-town productions of Tennessee Williams, and art-is-dead pop legacies did little to suppress an already well-curated eclecticism.

The past few years have been somewhat of an apprenticeship for Marion, having slowly built a community of support between artists, writers, festivals and established literary institutions. This period has allowed a salon atmosphere to develop, where individuals have the space and time to discuss, and reflect upon, their life, work and influences in a relaxed environment.

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