THE SHOp NEEDS SUPPORT

OK, I know ALL arts organisations are feeling the pinch, but The SHOp poetry magazine sent such a lovely plea with their latest issue - and they are so deserving - I thought I'd bring them to your attention.

Poet Bernard O'Donoghue said The SHOp is 'unquestionably the most beautiful poetry magazine now in existence.' And it is always a very attractive production. As a poet, you need to a) support them by buying an issue or subscribing, and b) try to get published by them. If you are not a poet (or even if you are) maybe you might send them a few euro as an Xmas prezzie. They lost out on significant funding this year and the Arts Council has warned them that 2009 will see 'a significant reduction' in their grant. I know it's the same all over but this magazine is a true gem.

Contact: John and Hilary Wakeman, THE SHOp, Skeagh, Schull, Co. Cork, Ireland.

PARIS AFTERS, GERMANY BEFORES

“I should like to spend the whole of my life travelling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.” - William Hazlitt

I am back from Paris and busily preparing for a book festival in Karlsruhe, Germany, where I travel to this coming Sunday. On Monday night I'm reading with fellow poets Matthew Sweeney and Ann Leahy.

This will be my last literary jaunt of the year and it has been quite a year for writing-related travel. Like Hazlitt, I love it and, yet, it takes me away from my home, my kids, my desk. Next year, though, will definitely be a quieter year for travel, so I shall enjoy it all while I can.

We were given a lovely welcome by Sheila Pratschke and her staff at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris and had a wonderful few days of walking, art, literature and good food. Our favourite veggie restaurant, Le Grenier de Notre Dame, has even opened a new branch on the peaceful Île Saint-Louis - heaven!

My reading and talk went well; Parisian audiences are very polite and they asked pertinent and interesting questions. Sheila brought us and the other resident artists - Martin Healy, Anita Groener, Greg Delanty and Ed Bennett - for dinner in Café Soufflot. It was a great evening of food and chat and lots of laughter.

We went to Shakespeare & Co, as usual, and to a different English language bookshop: The Red Wheelbarrow, in the Marais. I got another Mavis Gallant collection there (I had hoped to get it in Shakespeare but they only had the one I already own) so I was happy to buy her Paris Stories in Paris, as planned. I plan to blog about Gallant. I 'discovered' her this year and have been blown away by her brilliant short fiction; I will blog about her before long.

PARIS READING

Early on Sunday morning I will fly to Paris. I'm giving a reading at the Centre Culturel Irlandais on Tuesday night at 7.30pm. I'm also staying at the Centre. This is my first gig in Paris and I'm completely excited about it.

I've been going to Paris once, twice, three times a year for the last 10 years, all thanks to Michael O'Leary and his cheap Ryanair flights. I won't hear a word against the man. But, it feels different to be going for work.

When I first got serious about writing (i.e. trying to get published, attending workshops etc.) I met an older poet who regularly read in Paris. I remember thinking I want that life.

I'll report on the trip when I get back.

STORY WINNER & WINNER-TO-BE

Aiden O’Reilly has won the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award. Congrats Aiden! His blog The Stoneybatter Files resides here.

His story 'To the Trade', 'presents a rare insight into the gritty actuality of physical work', and it will be published by the Linen Hall Library in a limited-edition anthology To the Trade and Other Stories.

The two runners-up are Margaret Irish, from Tipperary, and Suzanne Walsh, from Kilkenny. Their respective stories, 'To the Limit' and 'Lily’s Day at the Beach', will also be published in the anthology.

The competition was judged by Anne Tannahill, freelance editor and former MD at Blackstaff Press, and short story writer and novelist and son of Edna O'Brien, Carlo Gébler.

REMINDER - MITCHELSTOWN COMP CLOSES SOON!

You could be the next Aiden O'Reilly if you enter The Mitchelstown Short Story Prize.
A shortlist of 20 stories will be selected by me, and Cork writer Vincent McDonnell; the final shortlist and winner will be chosen by Kildare writer John MacKenna.

Word count: max of 3000 words

Closing date: Friday 12th December 2008

Prize: €2,500 and a laptop computer

Five runners up will receive €200 each

Entry fee: €20.00 per entry and each entry must have an official entry form attached.

For more and to download an entry form see: Mitchelstown Short Story Prize

'WIND ACROSS THE GRASS' ON THE RADIO

'RORY' (BILL GOLDING) AND JUDGE - pic from the Wanderly Wagon website


My story 'The Wind Across the Grass' will be repeated on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday the 23rd November at 7.45pm. This story won the 2002 Francis MacManus Award for me and it was partly inspired by an anecdote of my Da's. I nicked the title from a line in Nuala Ó Faoláin's novel My Dream of You (about which she was very gracious). I went on to use it as the title story for my first collection, The Wind Across the Grass.

Bill Golding is the actor who read my story. Irish people of my generation will remember Bill as the dashing Rory in Wanderly Wagon. I think every young wan in Ireland fancied Rory - that posh accent! The fringed suede jacket! Swoon! I met him after he had voiced the story and he is a total gentleman and still rather dashing!

Winning was one of the nicest things that's ever happened to me in my literary career. One doesn't enter competitions hoping not to win, so I can't claim it was 'totally unexpected' to win, but it was a huge and welcome surprise. I didn't live off my writing earnings at the time (I worked in the Western Writers' Centre then), so I spent the money (€3000!!!) on: 1) a family holiday to Portugal (it was fab); 2) a red leather Filofax; and 3) a china cabinet to house the great hunk of crystal which was part of the prize. I like awards that give a memento as well as cash, I must say; I also like ones that are named after writers. Ah, happy memories!

For those outside Ireland there is info here about how to listen to RTÉ Radio 1 online. Sunday's schedule is not posted yet so check back in the day before or on Sunday here. I won't hear it myself as I shall be in Paris. Have I mentioned that already?!

DUNDALK AFTERS

Dundalk was a lovely workshop with a warm and welcoming group of sixteen writers, and their facilitator Barbara Smith. We talked short fiction and its specifics and, predictably, the day was over in what felt like moments.

Thanks especially to Barbara for the hospitality shown to me and F, by her and her own F. We had Indian food and great chats about family, love, life, kids and writing. Hope we can do it again soon!

Dundalk is a lovely town of pretty red brick terraces, overlooked by the hulk of the Cooley Mountains, former home of Queen Maeve's brown bull of the Táin legend. You could do worse than stay at the Lismar Guesthouse - a very impressive B&B on Stapleton Place. OK, Bord Fáilte ad over!

See Barbara's blog for a report on the day here.

Next week it's Paris and the Centre Culturel Irlandais. The whirlwind of literay events just never ends. Thank God!

DUNDALK WORKSHOP

I am off to Dundalk this week-end, to facilitate a day-long workshop (mostly short fiction, some poetry), on the invitation of fellow author and blogger Barbara Smith. I'm looking forward to meeting the people whose work I've been reading for the past few weeks and getting stuck in to a day of writing chat. Thanks goes to the Arts Office in Dundalk for funding this.

SHORT REVIEW - WIN A BOOK!

To celebrate their first anniversary issue, The Short Review are giving away copies of this month's reviewed books here.

If you like quirky, rich flashes you might like to try to win Kuzhali Manickavel's extraordinary first collection Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings which I reviewed.

Other books up for grabs include a signed copy of Jennifer Pelland's Unwelcome Bodies and Gerard Donovan's Young Irelanders.

GLEN DIMPLEX AWARD WINNERS

At a ceremony in Dublin last night, Sally Nicholls was named Glen Dimplex New Writer of the Year 2008, for her book Ways to Live Forever, published by Scholastic Children's Books. Sally wrote the story at the tender age of twenty-three years. It tells the story of an eleven year-old boy dying of leukaemia.

The Glen Dimplex Award celebrates first books by writers.

The winner of the Fiction category was Allan Bush for his book Last Bird Singing (Seren); the Biography/Non-fiction Book category was won by Nia Wyn for Blue Sky July (Seren); the Poetry prize went to Will Stone for Glaciation (Salt Publishing); and the prize for best Irish-language book went to Simon Ó Faoláin for Anam Mhadra (Coiscéim).

Many congrats to all.

ARLEN HOUSE POETRY BOOKS LAUNCH

ARLEN HOUSE in association with POETRY IRELAND
warmly invite you to celebrate the publication of four new poetry collections, to be launched by Nuala Ní Chonchúir:

Patrick Cotter - Perplexed Skin

Ann Leahy - The Woman who Lived her Life Backwards

Máighréad Medbh - When the Air Inhales You

Liz O'Donoghue - Train to Gorey

on Thursday 6 November @ 6.30pm
at the Unitarian Church, 112 St Stephenʹs Green West, Dublin 2

ALL WELCOME!

DAVY BYRNE'S IRISH WRITING AWARD

The Davy Byrne's Award is accepting entries now. The last one was won by Anne Enright.

Prize: €25,000 1st prize for a short story from an Irish writer. 5 runners up at €1000 each.

Entry Fee: €10

Judge: Richard Ford

Closing date: 2nd Febraury 2009

Word limit: none

And to help you along, here's what Richard Ford wants to see in a winning entry:

‘What any good judge wishes I suppose I wish for me—to have a brain that’s inquisitive and energetic enough to relish ‘the new;’ to not just prefer stories that are like my own stories, and yet to not shy away from those, either—in other words to recognise excellence in whatever form, style, length, etc. it comes in. I’d like to be won over, for the choice to be easy, for the chosen short story to dictate all the terms of its own brilliance and for me to be just a helpless celebrant. And… I’m not interested in the patented Irishness of any story. If an Irish writer writes it, it’s Irish enough for me—and even that feels a bit confining. In any case, the reader—the story’s charmed intended—can tweeze out what the winning story’s ‘cultural significance’ is, what it’s ‘saying’ about Ireland and history and the future, if indeed it’s saying anything at all.’

Oh, OK then... More here.