Page Turners: ‘Oddbody’ author Rose Keating

Waterford author Rose Keating’s debut short story collection, Oddbody is striking, visceral, and brutally honest. Delving into the weirdness of bodies and of existence itself through the voices of social outsiders and outcasts, these stories take you on a bold journey through the intricacies of sex, shame, and womanhood.

With ten enchanting short stories, she crafts an emotional masterpiece that challenges us to reflect on the movement and needs of our bodies. Strange yet utterly mesmerising, Oddbody is a provocative exploration that feels both surprising and sincerely authentic.

In Oddbody, a woman finds herself navigating a codependent relationship with a ghost, while Squirm portrays a daughter tending to her father as he devours himself from the inside out. Pineapple introduces us to a woman who opts to have feather wings surgically attached to her back. In Eggshells, a waitress gives birth to an egg during her breakfast shift.

Each narrative in this collection is immersive, bizarre, and deeply empathetic, shining a light on women who dare to defy societal norms and invite you to question the conventions and milestones that determine success.

Did you always want to be a writer? Tell us about your journey to becoming a published author.

I’ve almost always wanted to be a writer. I had one brief week when I was six or seven where I learned the word ‘zoologist’ and I wanted to do that instead, because I thought it meant working at a zoo. I then realized working at a zoo might include working with spiders and I saw the error of my ways. I’ve never not written. For a long time, I thought it was the only thing I could do, as I believed I was bad at every other thing in the world. I don’t believe that anymore, but it continues to be the thing that feels most natural to me, and is something I take great joy in – but I’m still secretly holding out for zoology.

What inspired you to start writing?

I don’t think I had one specific moment where I was inspired, or at least it wasn’t a conscious decision that I was aware of. I was a big reader growing up, and it felt natural to try to write myself even from a young age.

Tell us about your new book, Oddbody. Where did the idea come from?

I think writing a collection differs a lot from a novel when it comes to inspiration in the sense that there isn’t necessarily one singular moment of inspiration for the overall book. For me, it was a series of ideas that began to link together over time, and when that linking pattern began to emerge it was easier to start building towards a more unified thematic concept. Shame was a large part of the connecting force. I noticed as I looked back on the stories that I was writing that most of them centered around characters who feel wrong or incorrect in some way, whether that’s in the bodies they are in or the worlds they occupy. That feeling of wrongness is the core of Oddbody and the thing that I most wanted to communicate with my readers.

What do you hope this book instils in the reader?

I hope this book encourages readers to grow more accepting of sitting with discomfort. Oddbody is a collection that delves into tender, ugly, pathetic, intimate and comedic moments of life. These moments can be upsetting and unpleasant, but to sit with these moments is such an important part of understanding ourselves and understanding the world around us.

What did you learn when writing this book?

I think the most important thing I learned through the writing of the book is that writing is work, but it is also play. When I am writing at my best, I am having a lot of fun. I’ve been teaching children this year and it’s made me think a lot about play as a serious act, and I think that is what writing for me is all about – creativity as a form of play taken seriously.

Tell us about your writing process?

My writing process is messy and disorganised and not something anyone should emulate. Typically, I will have an idea at random and write it down, usually on a scrap of paper or somewhere on my phone. I will often forget about it or lose the piece of paper. I also frequently sum up my ideas in a word or two. Recent examples from my notes app include ‘Foot story’, ‘I can’t touch anything’ ‘sexting’ and ‘pile of Goo’. I can remember what one of those four was referring to, but have already forgotten the idea behind the other three notes.

If I remember one of the ideas, I will usually attempt to try to write most of the first draft over a week. For most of the stories in this collection I usually would try to narrow that down to two to three days, or less. I would start writing at 9pm or 10pm and continue writing until 5 or 6 in the morning and would then go to sleep. This method was more difficult post-university when I became an adult with responsibilities and sleeping schedules. I will still typically try to write the first draft within a very short time frame, as I tend to forget what I am actually trying to get at if I spend more than a week on a story. I also still prefer to write at night while drinking a lot of coffee and playing music.

After I finish the first draft, I put it away. It’s usually very sloppy and very rough. I come back to it in a couple of weeks or a couple of months and try to make it better, and then share with a friend and repeat that process based on the friend’s feedback. Once I feel like I can’t do anything else with it, I stop.

Then, I get another idea at random and the process begins again.