 Sally, well it's good afternoon. I'm not sure what time it is in Texas, but it's good afternoon here. Good afternoon. And tell us first of all about your Irish connections. You left here when you've got a green card, you and your husband got a green card and you left many, many years ago, is that right? Yeah, a long time ago, back in 1995 we got the lottery visa. Okay, right. And have you been living in Texas since that? Yeah, we came straight to Austin because my husband worked for Dell and Bray in Wicklow. And so we moved here and he got a job here in sales and we just stayed because Austin is a brilliant place, the weather is gorgeous. And you can't really beat the friendliness of the people here compared to the rest of the country. Right. Except Ireland, of course. Well, of course, of course. And tell us your Donegal connections because you've got some connections in this part of the world as well. Yeah, definitely. My husband is Jerry Hannon and his dad was called George Hannon. George and Caroline Hannon lived in Mount Charles and George is very well known there still because he built that model railway that's in the Donegal Railway Museum. Okay, all right. So that's a good connection. Anyhow, when you moved, you moved into nursing and now that your family is growing up, you're able to devote more time to writing a passion of yours. And is your debut novel, is that correct? It is. Yeah, it is. Okay, and it is called My Heart Went Walking and it is based on three characters, two sisters and a man and they're both in love with the one man. Would that be fair to say? That is fair to say, yes. All right. But it starts, it's set in the 80s and it starts when they're very young. Yeah. Okay. Tell us a little bit about it. So it's a big family living in Donegal and the oldest sister, she's in her last year of school. And she has been best friends with this boy since they started in junior infants. And so they're at a party, there's a lot of drink going around and things happen. And she discovers a few weeks later that she's pregnant and they've never been going out together. So she doesn't think it's fair to even let him know because his future will be ruined, you know, back in the 80s. It was a very different thing than it is today. And she thinks he'll instantly have to marry her and everything will change for him and she just doesn't want that form. So she runs away and she runs up to Dublin and leaves the rest of the family behind. And so while she's away, the younger sister then has her eye on him and things start to happen there once she's gone. Okay. And it moves on, the story moves on and the locations change as well. Right. Exactly. Yeah, because the boy in the story, he becomes a farrier blacksmith. And so he moves, he gets a job in a scary and county Wicklow and he moves a bit closer to Dublin. And then the sister that he's going out with, Ellie, she, something happens to her. And she ends up back and forth between Donegal and Dublin as well. Okay. So it goes between the three of them, Una, Ellie and the Cullen. Yeah. Cullen, Cullen, Breslin. Great, great surname there. Yeah. As he is in the book. And it unfolds over a course, over the course of three years. It's set in the early, is it 83 to 85? Yeah, yeah. And told from the three perspectives. Right. And how did the story come about? I mean, there has to be some sort of, you know, it has to formulate in some way or another. How did it come about? Where did the spark come from? Well, I saw a photo in the paper and it was of this old woman looking out a window on O'Connell Street. And she was looking straight over at the cinema there. I used to get the Mageans bus up and down to Donegal and back because I was going out with a fella there for a while. And so I'd go up and down on that Mageans bus and I'd get off at the cinema every Sunday night. And it was the cinema in this photo that this woman would have been looking at. And I thought, you know, what if there was a runaway from Donegal get off that bus and that woman sees her? What would happen then? And so this story started to formulate in my mind about what a runaway might do in Dublin and how those two people might meet and what might happen from there. And on it went from there. Well, I suppose it just takes something to spark the imagination and then a story can unfold. And did you find that once you started writing different strands of the story came into place? Was it, some writers say it's all about the characters? It is. You start to sort of get in their head. And when I'm writing, I have to imagine that I'm in their bodies and looking at their eyes so that I can see what they're seeing and feel what they're feeling. And so that's what I had to do with these three. And but, you know, I'm an eighties child myself. And so and because I haven't been really been living in Ireland, you know, since 95. Really all my memories that I have to pull on are from growing up there and from when I left. So so I had to picture myself, you know, back in those eighties clothes and and having the Madonna hair and the earrings and the pinstripes and, you know, those skirts with the dots on them, they were like three layers, the rare escorts and just a whole bunch of things that you're pulled back into. And and you remember, you know, stuff that you don't really dwell on as an older woman. And once you start writing, it unlocks memories of things that have no reason perhaps to revisit unless you're unless you're going certain places in the story. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And you remember, you know, what the streets were like and and the shops that were there. And so I had to picture myself back in Donegal Town. And I remember, you know, when I was going up and down there, the middle and the middle of Donegal Town wasn't for cars. No, it was for cars. I can't even remember now. Well, as it changed, they did realign the diamond and and it was cars allowed on cars allowed to park on it back then, but but not now. It's been closed to cars for years. Right. Right. So yeah, when I was there, there was the cars there. And so we'd go into the Highland Hotel and I'd go into the Four Masters Bookshop. And sometimes when we went back to visit family, we'd go into that little internet shop. Remember, there was a little cafe in the corner of the diamond. And you had to go upstairs and plug in the internet and hear all those beeps and we could send emails back home when we were away. Both we, Jerry, I'm just trying to think where that might be. It was a tea shop. Okay, right. There's still a tea shop around the corner from the Four Masters. So maybe that's the direction you're chatting about. And it was early days, the internet, so it was dial-up internet. Yeah. Okay. Well, where could people get their hands on the book? Just remind people that my heart went walking as the title and it's your first novel. Where could people get their hands on it? I presume it's available online and in good bookstores. Yes. Now, I think the Four Masters did order in a few copies in advance. I'm not totally sure about that, but they said they might. And I know on all the online shops, I know Waterstone says they'll order it in. Kenny's, I'm not sure. But yeah, any bookshop you go into and ask them if they can order it in for you, they'll definitely be able to order it in. You haven't, all the years over in Texas, you haven't really lost a soft and weeb, but you haven't lost your accent. Well, when I'm talking to the Americans here, I do sound different. And you find that you have to, you can't slide your T's. You know, like the Irish, when we say a word like white, you can't say that in here, are you? They look at you funny. So you have to say white, you know, you have to clip your tongue on the roof of your mouth for a lot of those words. But at the same time, I'm sure you still stand out, even if you do sort of moderate it slightly. I'm sure you stand out in Texas and then people ask you all the time, where are you from? Yeah, I used to drive for Uber for a few years and we'd get chatting with the passengers in the car. And they'd always be like, oh, I detect an accent. You know, what is that? Are you English? I'd be horrified. I'd be like, no, I'm bloody Irish. Very good. Well, listen, the book is out now. Congratulations on it. And you're not going to stop there, are you? No, no, I'm actually, I have two books in the works. There's one I'm writing now. I'm actually writing it for a publishing company. And it's set in the 1930s during the Depression in Detroit, which is a bit out of my wheelhouse. So I've had to read up a lot about this, but it's about an Irish priest. Well, his parents are Irish and he grew up in Canada and he was moved to Detroit, Michigan. And he was the one who really started radio propaganda around the country in the 1930s. So it's a fascinating story that not many people know about, but there's an Irish family that meet up with him and his radio show. So there's a lot to learn, but it's great learning all about that time. Well, it sounds like it because it sounds like it's entirely different to this book. The best look with that in the works. My heart went walking anyhow. It is out now. Sally Hanan, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you.