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Nesta Tuomey is married and lives in Dublin with her family. Educated at the Sacred Heart Convent, Leeson Street and the National College of Art, she worked in the Bank and then as an air hostess with Aer Lingus. She started writing for radio, and her plays, documentaries and short stories have been broadcast by BBC and RTE. A winner of the John Power Short Story Award at Listowel, and the Image/Oil of Ulay Short Story Competition, her short stories have also been widely published in magazines. Her one-act play Whose Baby won the O. Z. Whitehead Play Competition in 1996, and her novel Up Up and Away, depicting life in an Irish airline, was published in 1995 and Like One of the Family in 1999. Chairperson Society of Irish Playwrights 1980-1982. Treasurer Irish PEN 2000-2005. Secretary Irish PEN 2005-2006. Member of The Writers Union.
 In my family there were eight boys and three girls. Some years ago a school pal told me something she remembered from our Montessori days. At gym one day, the teacher, in an effort to get to know her pupils better, played a ‘game’. She started by asking those with four in their family to stand up and then five, and so on. As the number steadily mounted the pal was amazed to see me still sitting serenely there, and then finally came eleven. Bingo! I jumped up and ran to take my place on the benches. I have no recollection of this. I suppose I took being one of a big family very much for granted.
Having eight older brothers – advising, protecting, disciplining - I sometimes felt as though I had nine fathers! Actually though, it had to be very serious stuff indeed, before my father felt the need to remonstrate. Like all families we each had our favourites but there was a great unity amongst us all. On my thirteenth birthday my brother, who was also my Godfather, sent me congratulatory telegram from America, making me the envy of my classmates.
Support for writers is essential, and especially during the formative writing years. One such time for me was in the mid-eighties, when I was selected with fourteen other women writers to take part in a six-week seminar held in Dublin and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. The first of its kind, it was televised by RTE and directed by poet Eavan Boland.
We did a lot of group reading and analyses of our work, wrote in our rooms and then met again for late evening sessions. Inspiring, and fun too. Guest authors were Seamus Heaney, John McGahern and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. The cream of the crop!
Listowel Writers’ Week also featured very much in my writing life and I attended several workshops, as well as being present for the 25th anniversary of Writers Week in 1995. This was marked by the publication of a book containing the twenty-five prize-winning short stories (mine included) and edited by David Marcus. It was fitting that this same year my first novel was also published, Up Up and Away.
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