Ava Collopy

The Irish-American Experience Ava Collopy

A collection of research essays gathered from the academic, poetic, and richly historical environment of Ireland. Subjects covered include Irish migrations, Anglo-Irish writers, Shakespeare's views on women, colonial history in China, India, and Africa and corporate colonialism, Germany in the interwar years, and more. It was written and published by a woman from a working class background who originally did not go to school and had to teach herself how to read. It is a statement about human potential. THE BACK STORY: The Irish-American Experience In continuing with my ongoing, underlying project to show the often overlooked and wasted human potential in the working classes I decided to turn all my college-era research papers into a collection showing a proletariat's view on things academic. Generally people from the working class who go on to earn higher degrees (I've an MBA now) try to hide their roots and blend in. I do not. I'm certainly not the same as I was seven years ago, before I'd ever attended university, but I haven't changed into another person either. And I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of because I came from a salt-of-the-earth, work-a-day family. Further, I wanted to publish this book to further impress some of the youngest members of my family, who are growing up very poor and socially disadvantaged, to believe that we really can do anything we set ourselves to. The title of the book is simply because I am from US America and was studying in Ireland, and because I'm part Irish by blood. For the photo art direction I chose a view of modern Dublin City from a rooftop in the city centre. Not the pastoral image of Ireland that still lingers in the minds of the Irish diaspora abroad. Much of Ireland is still pastoral, especially on the west side, but Dublin is a very modern city. In fact, the Grand Canal Docks area in Dublin 2 has become a kind of European Silicon Valley. The author photo is of course of me in Oscar Wilde's childhood home which is the cultural centre of my alma mater, American College Dublin. (If you looked at all my author photos you'd think I was there all the time. I'm actually not, though the free Wi-Fi has been useful at times (I mean, free for me because I still have the password.) And I love the people.) (From the back page of my website: http: //www.avacollopbooks.weebly.com)