SMALL PRINT:FIGHTING WORDS continues its impressive record of bringing young writers to print with its latest publication, A Window on the Lane. For the book, 15 Transition Year students from Mercy College, Coolock, in Dublin identified a work from the Hugh Lane gallery, and wrote a piece to go with it.

The results include poetry responding to the Francis Bacon studio; impressive short story out of Séan Shanahan’s vibrant, abstract painting Sister; and other short pieces reacting to a range of art, including sculpture, photography and Harry Clarke’s stained glass.

As well as being fully illustrated, A Window on the Lane contains introductions from photographer Perry Ogden (whose work features) and poet Gerard Smyth, who writes: “What is particularly marvellous about this whole venture is how all the students ‘fell in love with looking’, as Hannah Kelly describes it in the first line of her poem Blind Looking.” Not content with simply writing, the students also came up with the title, designed the cover and organised the launch party.

See fightingwords.ie