Dublin, 7 October 2019. One day, one city, two women: Ruth and Pen. Neither known to the other, but both asking themselves the same questions: how to be with others and how, when the world doesn't seem willing to make space for them, to be with themselves? Ruth’s marriage to Aidan is in crisis. Today she needs to make a choice – to stay or not to stay, to take the risk of reaching out, or to pull up the drawbridge. For teenage Pen, today is the day the words will flow, and she will speak her truth to Alice, to ask for what she so desperately wants.

Deeply involving, Ruth & Pen is a portrait of the limits of grief and love, of how we navigate our inner and outer landscapes, and the tender courage demanded by the simple, daily quest of living.

Emilie Pine is Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin, Ireland. Her first collection of personal essays Notes to Self won the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year Award, and Book of the Year 2018 at the Irish Book Awards.