Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award

Colm Tóibín  - pic by the Guardian

I'm delighted to be on the judging panel, along with Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin and Lisa Coen, for the inaugural Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award.

Word count: 1800 - 2000 words

Closing date: 31st May 2016

Prize: €1000 first prize, €500 second, €350 third prize.

All details here.

LISTOWEL 2015 - AFTERS

Another Listowel Writers' Week put to bed, exhausted by good talk, food and chats. I facilitated the three day short fiction workshop (with a great group of people), did two readings and a panel. And attended the opening night awards ceremony. Busy busy.

A few pics from the week is the most I have time for; I've to give  talk to a writing group in Athlone today and I'm busily writing articles for US and Canadian newspapers and such for Miss Emily promo. Six weeks exactly to pub day!

I managed to get to a few readings in between my own hectic schedule of events. Highlights: Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Dennis Lehane. And meeting my co-reader Alex Preston. Each of whom read/spoke with passion and verve. Some quotes I jotted down:

'Writers live in the shadows and work in silence.' Colm Tóibín

'I'm often surprised by my characters - I don't live in a goggle-eyed state, but I like to be surprised. I like an unexpected but right thing to happen.' Anne Enright

'The hard stuff is having to crawl into dark spaces and write them.' Dennis Lehane

On authors who are novel-to-film moaners (about their own book): 'It's like the guy coming out of the whore house saying he doesn't feel loved.'

On that happy note, I'm off to write yet another piece about my beloved Emily :)

Juno and me at our B&B, Gurtenard, waiting to got to the Kerry Award ceremony

Signing copies of The Closet of Savage Mementos for Anne Enright and Colm Tóibín

The five Novel of the Year shortlistees with the man from Kerry & judge Gerald Dawe

Shortlistees with Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Seán Lyons, Director of Writers' Week and judge Gerald Dawe

Flowers on the table at the pre-awards dinner at the Listowel Arms Hotel

Anne Enright doing the official opening speech

Caoilinn Hughes and Ger Reidy receiving their Piggott Prize shortlistee prizes (listees got an engraved pen and a cheque)

Judge of the Kerry Award, Gerald Dawe, saying lovely things about our shortlisted books for the Kerry Prize

Winner of the Kerry Award, Eoin MacNamee, accepting his prize

Anne O'Neill, myself and Alex Preston at our reading/discussion event

Newly engaged writers Tanya Sweeney and David Butler

Our B&B, Gurtenard

Myself and Patrick O'Keeffe - fellow listees!

Juno on the Alice chair

O'Connor's - yay!

A drink in John B. Keane's bar

Juno with dancers at the children's festival - she had a brilliant time

COLM TÓIBÍN READING - DWF - OFF THE PAGE EVENT

ST STEPHEN'S CHURCH (THE PEPPER CANISTER) | 7PM WED 1 OCT | €12/€10 DWF returns in October with their OFF THE PAGE series featuring award-winning author Colm Tóibín. A new novel by Tóibín is always a major event and Nora Webster is no exception. To mark its publication, the Dublin Writers Festival in association with Dublin UNESCO City of Literature hosts a special reading and discussion. MORE INFO & BOOK NOW

FRANK O'CONNOR SHORTLIST 2011!

Author Edna O'Brien - shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor Award 2011

News just in from the Munster Literature Centre - the 2011 Frank O'Connor Award shortlist has been announced. Two Irish writers, Edna O'Brien (see my review of her collection here) and Colm Tóibín have made the list as well as former winner Yiyun Li.

Women writers dominate the  shortlist for what is the world's largest short story award, (€35,000). There are two young debutantes, Canadian Alexander MacLeod and American Suzanne Rivecca. American novelist Valerie Trueblood is shortlisted with her first short story collection. So the six shortlisted books are:

1)      Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li (Beijing-born, American Resident)

2)      Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod (Canadian debutante)

3)      Saints and Sinners by Edna O'Brien (Irish) 

4)      Death is Not an Option by Suzanne Rivecca (American Debutante) 

5)      The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín (Irish)
6)      Marry or Burn by Valerie Trueblood (American)

It is the first year two Irish authors have been shortlisted for this, the world's largest and most prestigious award for the Short Story. Established in 2005 the award is in the gift of the Munster Literature Centre and funded by Cork City Council. It is awarded for what is judged to be the best original short story collection published in English between July 1^st 2010 and June 30^th 2011.

The award will be presented at the culmination of the Cork International Short Story Festival on Sunday September 18^th. 

Previous winners have included Haruki Murakami, Jhumpa Lahiri and Simon Van Booy. 

The 2011 jury consists of Alannah Hopkin, Irish novelist and short story writer; Chris Power, music and book critic for the Guardian, BBC and London Times; and Thomas McCarthy, Irish poet, novelist and librarian.

MAN BOOKER LONGLIST 2009

Irish interest on the Man Booker Dozen list - always fun! William Trevor and Colm Tóibín have both been longlisted with their novels Love and Summer and Brooklyn respectively. Go n-éirí an bóthar leo.

Addendum: Eimear has pointed out that Ed O'Loughlin is also Irish. Great! Three Irish writers in the dozen. Not bad at all!

More here.