Marian O’Shea Wernicke

Marian O’Shea Wernicke is the author of Out of Ireland, her second novel,  which will be published by She Writes Press on April 25, 2023. Her debut novel, Toward That Which Is Beautiful, was published by the same press in 2020, and was a finalist in Literary Fiction and Romance Fiction in the 2021 International Book Awards, as well as a finalist in Multicultural Fiction in the 2021 American Fiction Awards. She is also the author of a memoir about her father, Tom O’Shea:  A Twentieth Century Man. After living and working in Lima, Peru, and Madrid, Spain, Wernicke was a professor of English at Pensacola State College for 25 years. She and her husband are the parents of three wonderful children: Kristin, married to Max Benitez, Tim, married to Sarah Jasinski, and John Wernicke. Marian lives in Austin, Texas, where she is a member of the Writer’s League of Texas. 

Instagram: @marianosheawernicke_author

Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?

Even before I started writing Out of Ireland, I have always loved films set in that beautiful island. Ryan’s Daughter, filmed on the wild Dingle Peninsula, is one of my favorites. A young Irish woman marries the steady, bookish, but somewhat boring village schoolteacher, (played by Robert Mitchum against type), but soon the young wife falls for a handsome but crippled British officer stationed at a nearby barracks.  Full of tension, passion, and heartbreak for all, the film is wildly romantic. A more recent favorite is Brooklyn, adapted from the novel of the same name by Colm Toibin. A young Irish girl, Eilis,  travels from her small town home in Ireland to Brooklyn in 1950s New York to find work. At a parish dance she meets an Italian boy who falls in love with her. Complications ensue, and the lovers are parted when Eilis returns home for her sister’s funeral, and she must choose between the two countries and the life she could lead in both. The gorgeous scenery of rural Ireland is what I hoped to re-create in my novel as well as the tug of home for immigrants in a new country.

Is there a work of art that you love?  Why?

In Dublin at the Hugh Lane Gallery, I came across the work of the  Irish painter Paul Henry, born in Belfast in 1876. He moved to Achill island in County Mayo in 1910 and painted the working people and scenes around him. His landscapes, especially one called “Lakeside Cottages,” drew me. Billowing clouds over gentle hills, a lake with thatch-roofed cottages nestled neatly beside the lake, this painting was a scene vividly before me as I wrote my novel Out of Ireland, set in Bantry on a serene bay surrounded by the blue Caha Mountains. 

What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?

At the bottom of my jewelry box, hidden beneath old mis-matched earrings, lies a small silver cross, engraved with palms, and in the center is a circle with the initials CSJC, a Latin  phrase, Glory Be to the Blood of Jesus Christ.  This cross is the only physical evidence of the eleven years of my life, from age 16 to age 27, that I spent as a nun.  Raised as the oldest child in a large Irish Catholic family, I entered the convent at age 16. The sisters of this community of nuns had been my teachers all through grade school and high school.  Those years as a sister formed me in many ways. I learned discipline (sort of), compassion, humility (some) , love of quiet prayer, and I made deep friendships. I left religious life after a three year struggle, realizing that I wanted to be married and have children. But I would not trade that part of my life for all the diamonds in the world, and the small silver cross is a precious reminder of that time.

What do you worry about?

Oh my! Just turn on the news! What I worry about most is the lack of compassion in many of my fellow Americans for the refugees seeking a better life in our country. Many have forgotten the lives of their own ancestors, people who left their beloved home countries and families because of political persecution, lack of human rights, poverty and crime.  So how can we make room in this vast country for people today who are fleeing those same things?  There must be a way to fix our immigration problem.  

What brings you joy?

This is a hard question to answer right now since my beloved husband of 46 years died two weeks before Christmas of Leukemia. After six months of clinical trials and a stem cell transplant, complications set in and Michael’s body gave out. However, sometimes joy steals in like shafts of sunlight peeking through dark clouds. Walking on a beautiful spring morning here in Texas, watching the  birds splashing in the birdbath Michael rigged up to drip fresh water all day, looking at old pictures of our life together with our  three children, all bring me joy. Above all, watching our eight-year old grandson run around with his dog makes me smile, as does knowing there is  another grandson on the way in August, to be a cousin to our first grandchild. Life flows on in our children and  grandchildren.