Notes to Self is a series of personal essays exploring topics such as addiction, family and feminism.
This week the book's author, Emilie Pine, received the 2018 Butler Literary Award from the Irish American Cultural Institute.
Emilie decided in 2014 to write a book about the events that had marked her life. A year earlier, her father — who had been an alcoholic for Emilie's whole life — went into liver failure, and she decided she "needed to write about it."
Fortunately, Emilie's father stopped drinking five years ago, but his alcoholism had a huge impact on her life.
"Trying to love someone who is an addict is really difficult. You love them, but you also hate the illness, and you have to renew your love for them every day and constantly reset boundaries."
"One of the things about writing this book was confronting stories that had almost been told as hilarious family anecdotes; the mad things that happen when alcohol is in charge. But it was also a process of forgiveness for those things and getting them out in the open."
Writing that essay made Emilie think about other things that had happened in her life. Another essay discusses the realisation that she had been sexually assaulted twice as a teenager. It took her a while to confront the reality of what had happened.
"In both cases they were men that I knew, and I suppose I had internalised an idea that the only encounter that could count as rape was by a stranger, after dark, on a street or something like that."
She says it was the hardest part of the book to write.
"It's over 20 years since those events happened, and part of the power of writing the book is in trying to be honest and open about those things, admitting vulnerability and also trying to find some power."
To catch the full chat press the play button on the image on the top of the screen
