About

After qualifying with a BA in History & English Literature from National University of Ireland, Galway & an MA in History from National University of Ireland, Maynooth; and after two years working as a librarian for the Bar Council of Ireland, at the Four Courts in Dublin, I completed a HDip in Archival Studies at University College Dublin. 

After qualifying as an archivist, I was employed by Louth County Council to create an Oral History Archive for Louth County Archives in association with Newry & Mourne Museum. In this capacity I conducted over 300 oral history interviews in two years. Later while employed as the County Archivist for Monaghan County Council, my father asked me to record my grandmother’s personal history. So, over the course of six consecutive Saturdays, I recorded my grandmother in her kitchen at her home in Co. Wicklow and so entered the wonderful world of memoir creation. 

It is something that I continued to do part-time while I worked in a few capacities, eventually becoming a freelance journalist for Hot Press Magazine where I began writing live reviews under the pen name Will Russell. I am now writing for the magazine for five years and have completed over 400 commissioned pieces including cover stories, feature pieces, artist profiles and interviews. 

Alongside working with Hot Press Magazine, I host my own podcast Teenage Wasteland, in conjunction with Live Transmission Records, interviewing musicians, artists and writers. I have also written several documentaries and screenplays; as well as two biographies and a psychogeography novella. 

Combining my experience in writing, interviewing, research and oral history; I created Life Story Recording as a platform to provide personal history services to private individuals. 

Russell Shortt