I think most people would agree with the fact that corporations are sucking the life out of individual expression and freedoms, whether is it oil companies, tobacco, drug companies, or Toyota. With their teams of corporate lawyers and lobbyists and powerful financial resources they control the stream of information and effectively block or even ruin and destroy anyone who gets in their way.

And how do we counteract that? Well, reading is one way. But the fact is that the corporations have gobbled up all of the publishers, so now there are only four publishing companies that can get their books into book stores, and one of them is owned by Rupert Murdoch, so, well, you know what I mean.

That is why it is good that there is one individual typing away in rural County Kerry in Ireland who will “take the piss out of” the corporate masses as they say there and reaffirm the dignity of the individual through her writings. Marcella O’Connor, is part of a small collective of writers based called the YearZeroWriters collective who have decided to bypass corporate publishing and take their wares directly to the people. I have read their books which are consistently excellent. These include Daisy Anne Gree with Babylon, as well as others. Marcella recently wrote a wonderful story (“Prick Uniforms”) on the YearZero website. It described the anger of an Irish person who encounters an outsider using the Irish tongue to impress his girlfriend. The scene evoked the rage associated with the rape of cultures (and women) by foreign oppressors as well as the personal meanings of native tongues. Marcella is working on a book called The Emptying about a scientist who has donated eggs for IVF and then the children later come back to find her. She tells me that that character was based in part on a friend of hers who is the lead in a rock band.

Keep an eye on this up and coming group of writers.

21 Feb 2010. This blog was corrected from the original version which mentioned checkpoints and the bloody English.