Meet the Cork student behind our latest Summer Soap series

A CLASSIC love triangle, is how Gabrielle Dufrene describes her soap opera, Charlotte’s Choice, which is to be serialised in the Echo in print and online at EchoLive.ie starting on Monday.

The Echo’s annual feature - Summer Soap - now in its eighth year, is a daily fictional serial run over 12 parts, in conjunction with the MA in creative writing programme at UCC.

UCC student Gabrielle, 22, was born in New Orleans before moving to Chicago, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Loyola University.

She has written a dramatic story about a young woman who is trying to decide between her home-town sweetheart and the guy she is engaged to.

Charlotte is betrothed to Gregory, a wealthy Dubliner living in Cork, “because she wants to up her social status”. In the meantime, she runs into her first boyfriend, Sean, who is from Dunmanway.

“Things escalate with Sean at his mother’s funeral,” explains Gabrielle. “She gets found out. Gregory gives her an ultimatum.

But she visited Sean’s mother in hospital before she died. Her dying wish was (for Charlotte) to ensure that Sean and his younger siblings are taken care of.

“The mother knew how important Charlotte is to Sean. Charlotte’s own mother was kind of absent in her own life and Sean’s mother was like a mother to her.

“So there’s a lot of factors influencing her decision.”

Gabrielle says she had a lot of fun writing the soap. “Usually, what I write is heavier and darker. The structure of the Summer Soap means that it ends on a cliff-hanger in each episode.”

After graduating in Chicago, Gabrielle was working in marketing but wanted something different.

Asked why she chose Cork, Gabrielle explains that she wanted to move somewhere that was English- speaking and safe for her to live alone.

I was trying to decide between Cork and Dublin. I felt I could really get used to a smaller city. I love being able to see people I know walking on the street in Cork.

Gabrielle is happily ensconced in the city and has a boyfriend from Clonakilty.

Her main interest in writing used to be poetry. “It comes most naturally to me. But while I have the resources to really expand on my fiction writing, I felt I should brush up on it.

“For my thesis, I’m working on historical fiction and have been learning how to do the research for my novel. It’s set in 1950s Chicago and is loosely based on the life of Chet Baker (the jazz vocalist and trumpeter).

“It’s based on his relationship with his second wife. The relationship wasn’t all it seemed to be. It wasn’t all glitz and glamour.”

As part of her reading around the theme of women and their artist spouses, Gabrielle read Nora by Nuala O’Connor. It’s about Nora Barnacle’s life with the author James Joyce. She read Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, which looks at Ernest Hemingway’s first wife and her relationship with the American writer.

Gabrielle also enjoyed reading the memoirs of Nuala Ó Faoláin.

“I love that Ireland is post-religious and the influence that has on literature here,” she said. “I loved A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride. I’ve written a few critical papers on it. I love what female authors are doing in Ireland.”

Gabrielle also likes to read dark magical realism from the likes of Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro. Her favourite poet is Mary Oliver.

“I also adore the poetry of Victoria Kennefick, who did a workshop with us. She was exploring the idea of the Catholic martyrs, revered by the church, looking at young girl martyrs who might have been struggling with mental illness.”

While Garbrielle has enjoyed everything she learned on the Masters in creative writing in UCC, which she will complete in September, what she values most is reading all the other students’ work.

“We have people from so many different backgrounds and countries on the programme. 

I have genuinely learned the most from reading what other people are writing. It’s so impressive, seeing how the writing has grown.

Gabrielle’s own writing has improved. “I’m on edit 40-something of the historical fiction project. The editing is a very tedious point in the process, but version one is very different to today’s version.”

Having been involved with her college magazine in Chicago, Gabrielle is the poetry editor of Quarryman, UCC’s literary journal.

“I have been submitting poems to magazines since I started the programme at UCC,” she said. “I really enjoy being on the other side of that, making decisions about what’s going in.

“We’re hoping to launch our next edition over the summer.”

What are the concerns of the contributors? “People are writing a lot about religion and how it impacted their childhoods and day-to-day society as a whole.

And there’s writing relating to people’s sexual identities and femininity as well. Our theme is rebirth.

Gabrielle would love to be a full-time writer. “To be honest, before I got onto the programme at UCC, I had never really considered writing full time, but we had an opportunity to talk to a lot of people who are working full time as writers in Ireland, whether it’s through offering workshops or freelance editing or whatever.

“I hope my thesis will be a fully fleshed out novel by the end of May next year. I’m happy to dedicate the next few months to working on the novel. I have written about 40,000 words so far.”

Gabrielle plans to stay in Cork. “It’s so beautiful here,” she said. “If I was born here, I’d never want to leave.”

Catch Gabrielle's Summer Soap, starting in The Echo and on EchoLive.ie on Monday.