'NEW' POETRY ESSAYS

Two forthcoming books caught my eye in the current Books Ireland magazine:

Flowing, Still :Irish Poets on Irish Poetry from Dedalus Press.
It's actually a re-issue* of Watching The River Flow (1999) with the addition of essays by Pat Boran, Theo Dorgan and David Wheatley (15 essays, 3 by women). The book will form the basis of a panel discussion at the Dublin Book Festival at City Hall, on Saturday March 7th, at 1.00 pm. Free Admission.

Poetry: reading it, writing it, publishing it from Salmon Press and edited by Jessie Lendennie. I'm not sure if this book is all written by Jessie, or if others also contribute. There is scant information either in Books Ireland or on the Salmon site. Still, the title is intriguing.

Both books are due out in February. I might make them part of my books haul at Cúirt in April.

* See clarification of this from Pat Boran of Dedalus in the comments

COSTA SUPPORTS WRITING

Thanks to my fellow blogger Total Feckin' Eejit for sending me Frothy Tales by Costa Coffee Writer-in-Residence Davey Spens. We don't have Costa in this neck of the woods but I've always admired their support of literature.

Lucky Davey decided in November 2007 (!) to leave his job and write a novel. Somehow he landed the job of first ever Writer-in-Residence at Costa and, as part of that, he wrote his Frothy Tales, most of which are amusing flashes based on his observance of coffee drinkers. They are light, fluffy and bite-sized, but the book only costs €1.50, and the proceeds go to improve the lot of coffee growers.

In other Costa-related news, Sebastian Barry has won the overall Costa Award - Costa Book of the Year - for The Secret Scripture. Yay! Well done, man. But it was irritating to hear Arts Minister Martin Cullen saying: “The award is due recognition for the incredible talent and creativity that has been fostered by the Irish literary community."

Yes, well, the Irish literary community has gained its successes largely without the support of the State, Minister, as you cut the funding to the only Writers' Centres in the East and the West of the country, and literature in general is the poor relation in the arts. So maybe you might reconsider those cuts in the light of our writers' international reputation and support those who are still up and coming.

POSTSCRIPT

By way of a postscript to what I wrote above this morning, in the Irish Times today Sarah Bannan, head of literature at the Arts Council, said the award to Barry, who has received a number of grants from the Art Council in the past, was "proof that investment in the artistic community has borne fruit". Pity then that the Arts Council doesn't do more of that investing.

Fine Gael's Olivia Mitchell hit the mark more clearly when she said Barry’s win “highlights the depth of talent in Ireland’s literary community and the continuing need to aid writers”.

JANE AUSTEN SHORT STORY AWARD

PIC: JANE AUSTEN IN HER COTTAGE GARDEN AT CHAWTON by TOM CLIFFORD

Here’s a new one from Chawton House Library in Hampshire in the UK: the Jane Austen Short Story Award.

It’s for a 2000 to 2500 story and the prize is £1,000. Two runners up get £200 each and all three finalists will also win a week’s writers’ retreat at Chawton House. (This has to be taken during the month of September 2009, which is very limiting, especially for those writers who are also parents.) Fifteen other shortlisted authors will receive £40 plus publication in the winners’ anthology.

Their site says: “The inspiration for your story can be taken from any theme in Jane Austen’s novels: it might even be a character or a single sentence that sets your creative juices flowing. Or perhaps your imagination will be fired by the Elizabethan mansion, Chawton House, where Jane Austen and her family often gathered, and now houses a rare collection of early women’s writing.”

Entry fee: £10 and the judge is Sarah Waters, though the story can be historical or contemporary.

FOOL FOR POETRY 2009 WINNER

Done Dating DJs by Jenny Minniti-Shippey is the 2009 winner of the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition published by Southword Editions, Cork. Minniti-Shippey’s chapbook contains poems with precursors as varied as William Carlos Williams and Rita Ann Higgins.

The website says: "A wry sophisticated humour is invested in these crisp confident poems by a young poet who has found her voice. If Sex and the City were aimed at a higher brow level and written inverse, this could be it."

Jenny Minniti-Shippey will appear at the Munster Literature Centre's Éigse 2009 festival on Thursday, 19th February 2009.

A list of commended entries from the competition will be posted in February 2009.

More at the Munster Lit Centre's site here.

SHORT STORY ON SCREEN # 2

In short stories in the Oscars news, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I posted about before here, has received 13 nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay.

And New Boy, which is based on a Roddy Doyle short story, about a Rwandan refugee's first day at his new Irish school, has been nominated in the Best Live Action Short Film.

In other Irish-interest Oscar news, Martin McDonagh has received a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination for In Bruges.

Congrats to all and best of luck. Go n-éirí an bóthar libh!

WRITERS & LONGEVITY OF WRITING

'Old people, in general, don't have literary careers.' So said Robert McCrum in last Sunday's Observer piece.

He goes on to talk about the longevity or not of most writer's careers and how it's hard to follow early success with even more success:

"For this process [the process of writing lots of books], "career" is really the wrong word. There is no useful correlation between the conduct of law or medicine, on the one hand, and literature on the other. You can have a career as a lawyer or a doctor. As a writer, you are always starting out afresh. Age and experience may teach you some tricks, but it will not touch your work with magic."

He's so right. Sometimes I think the more I learn about the mechanics of writing (which I love learning about) the less I write, and the less of worth I write. It's all a bit depressing though, isn't it? All we can look forward to. as writers, is worse books, less publication and continued poverty. Sigh.

Read the rest of what he had to say here.

WESTERN WRITERS' CENTRE FUNDING CUT

In another bizarre move, which deals a further belly-blow to literature in this country, The Arts Council have removed all funding from the Western Writers' Centre, Ionad Scribhneoiri Chaitlín Maude, in Galway. The Centre has been in operation as the only Writers' Centre West of the Shannon for almost seven years (I worked there for a couple of years) and has provided workshops, readings, a website, a newsletter - 'The Word Tree' - and were the first to organise a writers' residence in a Galway hospital (I worked on poetry and memoir with elderly patients in Merlin Park).

Among a lot more, they also run an annual festival, 'The Forge at Gort' which I attended and thoroughly enjoyed last year.

Their Arts Council grant of €10,000 enabled them to plan forward and continue to develop the Centre. Now it's gone. Please take the time to add your name to their petition calling for reinstatement of Arts Council Funding here.

Reading for Peace - Stellar Line-up

Poetry Ireland in association with Trócaire and Amnesty International have organised a reading of some of Ireland's best writers reading in response to the situation in Gaza. Each writer will read for 5-7 minutes at this non-partisan event.

Confirmed readers include:

Seamus Heaney,Evelyn Conlon, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín, Susan McKay, Hugo Hamilton, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Lia Mills, Ronit Lentin, John F. Deane, Macdara Woods, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Peter Sirr, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

Tuesday 20th January, St Anne's Church, Dawson St. Dublin 2, from 6.30pm (sharp) – 8.30pm.

MOIRA CRONE REVIEWED

My review of Moira Crone's beautiful short fiction collection What Gets Into Us, is up now at January's The Short Review here.

There is also an interview with Moira Crone - as well as six other authors - plenty of short story collection reviews, and even a new look to the site.

Enjoy!

FUNDING CUT TO IRISH WRITERS' CENTRE - UPDATE

Further to my blog post of the 21st of December, the following press release just landed in my inbox. It's long but let me highlight the fact that they are having an Irish Writers' Centre Benefit night on Thursday 22nd January at 7 p.m., with leading Irish author and recent winner of the Novel category at the Costa Awards, Sebastian Barry. Tickets are €50.

The Press Release:

Ireland’s writers protest at disturbing decision by the Arts Council of Ireland to terminate funding to the Irish Writers’ Centre with immediate effect.

Ireland's literary fraternity has been stunned by the decision by the Arts Council of Ireland to terminate with immediate effect all funding to the Irish Writers Centre. Their statement, signed by a number of Ireland leading authors, including Maeve Binchy, Booker prize winners, Roddy Doyle, John Banville and Anne Enright, acclaimed International authors Richard Ford and Will Self, leading novelists, Joseph O’Connor, Dermot Bolger, John Boyne and Sebastian Barry, poets Paul Muldoon, Derek Mahon, Paul Durkin, Ciaran Carson and Ireland’s Professor of Poetry Michael Longley and literary figures such as literary agent Jonathan Williams are amongst the 55 signatories on the statement that has been circulated to all the National newspapers in Ireland and the United Kingdom expressing their dismay at this disturbing decision and calling for the urgent reinstatement of funding.

The Irish Writers' Centre, which Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney has called "a part of the literary culture", and best selling author John Boyne has described as “a part of the fabric of literature in Ireland”, is the national development agency for the development of writers and writing in Ireland where one if its primary functions is to foster and develop new writing talent so as to maintain Ireland's leading position in World literature.

Literature is a major part of Ireland's social and cultural history. The Irish Writers’ Centre was a space that writers could call their own. It is the only centre in Dublin devoted to literature that can provide an in-house space for readings, literary events, festivals, creative writing courses, developmental works and was the home to a number of writers groups and National organisations such as the Irish Writers’ Union and the Irish Translators and Interpreters Association. With the termination of funding access to these resources will be lost, leaving the next generation of Irish authors in a vacuum and having to look elsewhere for guidance and development.

If Ireland is to maintain its position as a major literary country it needs to develop new and talented writers who have access to the necessary skills, resources and outlets to further their work which, with the termination of funding to the Irish Writers’ Centre, they will find increasingly difficult.

The Irish Writers' Centre will now have to generate its own financial support to be able to provide the services we offer. To do this we have launched a donation scheme whereby you can donate money online at www.writerscentre.ie or you can send a cheque pledging your support to the centre at 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1.

We have also set-up an Irish Writers' Centre Benefit night on 22 January at 7 p.m. with leading Irish author and recent winner of the Novel category at the Costa Awards, Sebastian Barry. Tickets are priced at €50 with all the money raised going to the Irish Writers’ Centre. Tickets can be purchased from the Irish Writers’ Centre on 01 872 1302.

With your help our fundraising target of €200,000 can be achieved and our programmes and services for writers reinstated in full.

SIGNED STATEMENT

The Arts Council has recently terminated all funding to The Irish Writers’ Centre, an important national institution for the support, development and promotion of writers and writing. While we acknowledge that cuts are inevitable in the present economic downturn, this decision is nevertheless disturbing. It comes at the end of a notably successful year for the Centre, a year which has seen audience numbers and the Centre’s participation in the country’s literary culture at an all-time high. We therefore strongly urge that this decision be reversed and funding for the work of a thriving cultural organisation (€200,000 in 2008) be reinstated urgently.



John Banville

Sebastian Barry

Maeve Binchy

Dermot Bolger

John Boyne

Liam Browne

Ciaran Carson

Prof. Danielle Clarke, University College Dublin

Harry Clifton

Dr. Steve Coleman, NUI, Maynooth

Kevin Crossley-Holland

Philip Cummings

Peter Cunningham

John F. Deane

Celia De Fréine

Roddy Doyle

Paul Durcan

Anne Enright

Prof. Tadhg Foley, NUI, Galway

Richard Ford

David Gardiner, Director, Creighton University Press

Prof. Luke Gibbons, University of Notre Dame

Hugo Hamilton

Dr Derek Hand, St Patrick's College, Dublin

Kerry Hardie

Sean Hardie

Jack Harte

Aidan Higgins

Alannah Hopkin

Jerzy Jarniewicz

Prof. Margaret Kelleher, NUI, Maynooth

Claire Kilroy

Edna Longley, Professor Emerita, Queen’s University Belfast

Michael Longley, Ireland Professor of Poetry

Deirdre Madden

Derek Mahon

Prof. Kerby A. Miller, University of Missouri

Prof. Sean Moore, University of New Hampshire

Paul Muldoon

Éilis Ní Dhuibhne

Dr. Clare O'Halloran, University College Cork

Sean O’Brien

Joseph O'Connor

Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin ("Cormac Millar")

Timothy O’Grady

Glenn Patterson

Justin Quinn

Ian Sansom

Will Self

Matthew Sweeney

Prof. Lawrence Taylor, NUI, Maynooth

Alan Titley

Shaun Traynor

Prof. Kevin Whelan, Director, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, Dublin

Jonathan Williams

LEAF YOUNG WRITERS' COMP

I'm posting the following from Leaf's Facebook page, hoping that Siobhán, Mom of the super-talented Grundy brothers, Hugo and Dualtagh, (who won the Ted Hughes Award) will see it. This is for you guys - another poetry competition, especially for little people:

Leaf Books Young Writers’ Competition

Even if you're over 18, I'm sure you know a young person-sibling, offspring, neighbour, student- who loves to express themselves and scribble their thoughts on a page. Someone who'd want to know about this competition and get involved.
Pass on these details to them....

We love Young Writers at Leaf Books. They impress us with their whole sitting down and writing clever words thing at an age when we were mostly falling out of trees. So we’ve decided to open our first ever Young Writers’ Competition for people under the age of eighteen.

We’d like you to send us POEMS (up to 25 lines long) and MICRO-FICTION (short stories under 300 words) on any theme imaginable.

We’ll then pick our favourites and publish them in an anthology.

AGE CATEGORIES:
18 and under
Under 14
and Under 11.

PRIZES:
One winning entry in each category will receive £50 and a free copy of the anthology. One runner-up in each category will receive a free copy of the anthology. All other selected entries will be included in the anthology and authors will be able to purchase copies at half the usual retail price.

HOW TO ENTER:

Enter online or by post: please see website for further details:
http://www.leafbooks.co.uk/New/For%20Writers/CurrentCompetitions.html#Young

Entry fee:

£3 per single submission;
£10 for four submissions.

CLOSING DATE: 31st MARCH 2009

Leaf Books Ltd,
GTi Suite,
Valleys Innovation Centre,
Navigation Park,
Abercynon,
RCT,
Wales, U.K.
CF45 4SN

CAOMHNÚ COMPS

There's still time to enter the CAOMHNÚ National Short Story and Poetry Competitions. Closing date is this Friday the 16th of January.

The comps are open to anyone aged 18 years of over.

Short story: up to 2000 words
Judge: Shane Connaughton

Poetry: up to 40 lines
Judge: Noel Monahan

The prizes in both competitions are 1st Prize €200, 2nd Prize, €100, 3rd Prize €70.

And the Caomhnú Literary Festival takes place in County Cavan from Thursday 5th February to Sunday 8th February 2009.

See the Cavan Co Co Arts Office site here for entry forms, rules etc.

NOTICEBOARD SNIPPET #6

‘There is no perfect time to write. There’s only now.’ Barbara Kingsolver

WINNERS & WORKSHOPS

Irish author Sebastian Barry has won the Costa Novel Award category for his novel The Secret Scripture. Congrats to him! More here.

The Western Writers’ Centre in Galway - Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude, Gallimh - is hosting two literary-media workshops in the Irish language.
Ailbhe Nic Giolla Bhríghde, on the 17th January, runs ‘An Introduction to writing for Television,’. Then on the 31st January, Diarmuid de Faoite runs a workshop on where theatre and television crossover. Fees are €20 per session. Places are limited. Details from the Western Writers' Centre at westernwriters@eircom.net or 091 533594 and 087 2178138.

And it's business as usual at the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin. They have announced their spring 2009 workshops, featuring John Boyne, Cormac Millar and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill as tutors.

WIGLEAF STORY

I have a flash story up at Wigleaf called 'Vincent in the Yellow House' about Van Gogh and Gauguin's ill-fated co-habitation in Arles.

Wigleaf also ask contributors to send them a postcard, which I did, several months ago. It can be read here.

Wigleaf publish fiction up to 1000 words.

Contact: wigleaf.fiction@gmail.com. Further subs guides on their 'About' page.

NEW BOOK & 'PERSON TO WATCH' in IRISH TIMES

Photograph by Alan Betson, The Irish Times

I’m starting the New Year on a literary high note. Before Christmas I was delighted to sign a contract with the inimitable and innovative UK publishers, Salt.

Salt are well known for their poetry titles and in the last few years they have become champions of the single author short story collection. My collection Nude, which features stories centred on the nude in visual art, as much as in various love lives, will be published by Salt in September 2009. Nude will be launched in mid-September at Cork city’s Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival.

And today I am featured in the Irish Times Week-end Review as one of their People to Watch in 2009, along with politicians, an actress, a model, an IT innovator, sports stars, a comedienne and a chef, among others. See here.

ATHBHLIAN FAOI MHAISE!

Athbhliain faoi mhaise (a Happy New Year) to you all. I hope 2009 brings great things to your doors.

Pondering New Year's resolutions, I think they can be distilled, for me, into two (as per):

1. WRITE MORE

2. WORRY LESS