Sue Rainsford does not begin her novels with plots, she begins with images.
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A father and daughter digging a grave for someone not yet dead. The outline of a body pressed into the earth. A young girl sitting on the edge of her own coffin, looking away.
From these fragments emerge novels that readers and critics have variously described as strange, haunting and unsettling. Rainsford herself seems amused by such descriptions.
“People are always bending over backwards to tell me how strange my writing is,” she laughs. “But I never set out to write anything intentionally strange.”
The Dublin-based author has built an international reputation through novels that explore the body, identity, desire, illness and the often uncomfortable realities of physical existence. Her debut novel, Follow Me to Ground, was published in Ireland before being picked up in the UK and later by Scribner in the United States. It was followed by Redder Days, and this October her third novel, From Out My Heart, will be published by Lilliput Press.
Listening to Rainsford speak, it quickly becomes clear that her work is deeply influenced by her background in art history. She studied art history and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin before completing a Masters in Visual Arts at IADT. Although she does not consider herself a visual artist, she has spent much of her professional life collaborating with artists and writing scripts for sound and video installations.
The visual world remains central to her creative process. Follow Me to Ground began during a visit to West Cork with her partner.
“I looked out onto the patio and saw a father and daughter digging a hole,” she recalls. “Then I thought, no, it’s not a hole, it’s a grave. Then I thought, it’s not just a grave, it’s a grave for somebody who’s not yet dead.”
Around that image gathered ideas drawn from philosophy, feminism and female embodiment.
For Redder Days, inspiration came from the work of Cuban artist Ana Mendieta and her silhouette series, which explores traces left behind by bodies. Rainsford became fascinated by the idea of residue and what stories remain after a body has moved on.
Her forthcoming novel emerged from another striking visual image: a girl sitting on the edge of her own coffin. That image became connected to Virginia Clemm, Edgar Allan Poe’s young wife and cousin, whose brief life and elusive presence became the starting point for a meditation on haunting, absence and the lives of women who disappear from history.
If there is one theme running through all of Rainsford’s work, it is the body.
“I’ve always been so cognisant of myself as a fluid-producing vessel,” she says candidly. “I’ve always felt my body is quite a pronounced filter for how I engage with the world.”
Living with endometriosis from an early age profoundly shaped her experience. While many people move through life largely unaware of their physical selves, Rainsford describes being constantly conscious of her body, its pain, rhythms and demands. That awareness became a lens through which she viewed everything else.
Her novels frequently explore bodies that leak, ache, transform and transgress social expectations. They examine the ways physical experiences shape identity and how society responds to bodies that refuse to behave according to accepted norms. Yet there is no self-pity in her reflections. Instead, there is curiosity.
“The body is something I can’t shake,” she says. “Certain things are imprinted on you and they show up everywhere when it comes time to sit down at the desk.”
That curiosity was tested when she and her husband began trying to start a family. Years of surgeries had improved her quality of life, but scar tissue caused by endometriosis had blocked her fallopian tubes, making IVF their only option.
What followed was an eighteen-month journey involving medical complications, uncertainty and disappointment. Unexpected reactions to fertility treatments placed her at risk of serious health complications and forced doctors to halt procedures at critical moments.
Eventually, however, the process succeeded. Their son, Calum, was born following their first successful embryo transfer. Motherhood brought immense joy, but it also changed her writing life. For one year, Rainsford had enjoyed the luxury of a dedicated workspace. Today, that room belongs to her young son.
Rainsford speaks warmly about the support she received from the Arts Council, whose early bursaries provided the time and space necessary to complete her first novel. Later came international publishing deals, literary residencies and recognition abroad.
Among her most treasured experiences was a residency at the renowned McDowell Colony in New Hampshire.
“They give you your own cabin in the woods,” she recalls. “A man arrives and leaves your lunch in a picnic basket at the door. There were deer outside the window and hawks sitting in the trees. I just remember thinking about the resources and care being poured into me as an author.”
The experience remains one of the highlights of her writing life.
Today she is preparing for the publication of From Out My Heart, a novel she speaks about with obvious excitement.
Asked what she considers her greatest achievement, however, she does not mention awards, residencies or publishing deals, instead, she talks about persistence.
“Keeping faith in myself as not just a writer but an author has been hugely important,” she says. “Really just getting this book into the world and continuing to believe in myself as someone who has stories worth telling.”
Sue’s Three Songs
Take This Waltz – Leonard Cohen
“I’ve been listening to Leonard Cohen since I was in utero,” Rainsford laughs. “My mum used to play him constantly. His lyrics are so poetic and the images are so deep. They always bring me back to a place of calm.”
Digging for Fire – Pixies
Introduced to the Pixies by her father, this song has stayed with her since her teenage years.
“I always loved the title. I’m digging for fire. What a way to describe life. Going deeper, looking for something hotter, more potent, more generative. It gives me a feeling of possibility.”
Hurt – Arlo Parks
A more recent addition to her soundtrack, this is the song that accompanies her runs around Dublin.
“It’s one of those songs where the sensibility of it is something I’m trying to match in my day-to-day life.”
The Wishing Well
If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
Rainsford laughs before giving an answer many writers will immediately understand.
“I would love a room of my own to work in again. Just somewhere my writing can live. To be able to close the door and say, my writing is staying in this room while I go and do something else.”
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
“Getting this book into the world. Keeping faith in myself as not just a writer but an author.”
If you were standing in front of the wishing well, what would you wish for?
Her answer comes without hesitation.
“Palestine.”
She pauses before explaining that she thinks about the situation constantly and wishes simply for an end to the suffering and devastation.
It is an answer entirely consistent with the woman who spent an hour talking about bodies, vulnerability, art and human experience. Whether writing about fictional characters, historical figures or her own life, Sue Rainsford remains fascinated by those who occupy difficult spaces and whose stories risk being overlooked.
Like the traces left behind in Ana Mendieta’s artwork, her novels invite readers to look more closely at what remains after we think we have looked away.
