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NW Side Teen's Forced Move to Ireland Subject of Taft Teacher's First Novel

By Heather Cherone | October 15, 2014 5:29am
  Jessie Ann Foley's "Carnival at Bray" focuses on a Northwest Side girl forced to move to Ireland.
Taft English Teacher Publishes First Book
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JEFFERSON PARK — Jessie Ann Foley knows a little bit about giving birth.

An English teacher at Taft High School, Foley, 34, is looking forward to going back to work in January after giving birth to Roisin, who is now 5 months old.

But her little girl isn't Foley's only baby — the Jefferson Park resident's first novel — "The Carnival At Bray" — was published this month by Elephant Rock Books, fulfilling a lifelong dream. 

"As a writer you get rejected so much," said Foley, who earned a master's of fine arts in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago at night while teaching at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. "It is really cool to see it published."

Heather Cherone says Foley faced a lot of rejection on the way to publication:

The book, set partially in a two-flat on the Northwest Side, was published after it won the Helen Sheehan Young Adult Book prize, and was picked to launch Elephant Rock Books new young adult imprint.

The novel, which is set in 1993, tells the story of 16-year-old Maggie, who finds herself marooned in Ireland after her mother marries a man she has only known for a short time.

Maggie struggles to adjust, falls in love, gets her heart broken and experiences the transformative power of music through Nirvana, which was then at the height of its popularity during the Grunge Era.

"She really has to adjust to a whole new world," said Foley, who is Irish American.

The novel has been well received, winning a starred review from Kirkus Review, which called the book "powerfully evocative" and said the characters and places are "alive with crisp, precise detail."

Foley, who grew up in Edgebrook and attended St. Mary of the Woods, said the setting of the novel was inspired by her own trip to Bray, where she happened upon a "depressing, weird" carnival.

Foley's husband, Denis, who is from Ireland, helped her tweak the dialog and get the details of living in Ireland just right.

"He was super helpful," Foley said.

The novel began as a short story published in the Reader in 2010 that got the attention of an agent — and drew encouragement from a professor who urged Foley to transform it into a novel.

Foley finished the first draft of the novel in September 2013, just as she found out she was pregnant with her daughter — but never heard back from the agent, leaving her novel in a limbo familiar to many aspiring authors.

Foley entered the Sheehan contest on a lark, and said she was shocked when she won.

"I always doubt myself," Foley said.

Thinking of herself as a published author can be "so weird," Foley said.

"Sometimes I think, who do I think I am to be signing books and having events?" Foley said. "I still consider myself a teacher."

Foley said she hopes that her eighth-grade students in Taft's Academic Center program will benefit from the experience she gained not only writing her novel, but also going through the publishing — and revising — process.

"I will always love teaching creative writing," said Foley, who said she planned to try to expand the creative writing program at the Far Northwest Side school. "We have so many kids who are so creative."

Foley will sign copies of "The Carnival at Bray" starting at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square, 4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave.

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