CÚIRT NEW WRITING PRIZE 2016

The Cúirt New Writing Prize, in memory of Lena Maguire, is now open for submissions. Entries should be sent via email to: info@cuirt.ie

There is a €500 cash prize for the winner in each category and an opportunity to read at the Cúirt/Over the Edge Showcase event at Cúirt 2016. This years judges are Elaine Feeney (poetry) and Declan Meade (Fiction).

Young Cúirt (Ages 12-17)

The winner will receive €100 cash prize and they will have the opportunity to read at the 2016 Cúirt Labs in April.

The guidelines for both adult and youth submissions are as follows: Poetry entries must consist of 3 poems under 50 lines each, and fiction pieces may be up to 2000 words. Entries in both English and Irish are welcome. Writers submitting work should not have had a collection published in the category in which they enter.

The entry fee for each submission is €10, this can be paid via the Paypal button at: www.cuirt.ie. When emailing submissions, please include the unique transaction ID and the account owners name. Entries should be sent via email to: info@cuirt.ie

The closing date for submissions is Thursday 28 January 2016 at 5pm. For further information see: www.cuirt.ie

MISS EMILY ON IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR SHORTLIST

I am thrilled beyond the beyonds that Miss Emily is on the shortlist for the Easons Book Club Irish Novel of the Year along with books by Edna O'Brien, Anne Enright, Paul Murray, Belinda McKeon and Kevin Barry, in the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. And you can vote for your favourites!

The Long Gaze Back womens' story anthology is also shortlisted, in the Best Published Book of the Year category, which is an extra thrill.

Ger Holland took this pic of Declan Meade and me. Love it.

There was a lovely ceremony in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin yesterday to announce all the shortlists. Ger Holland took lots of great pics which you can look at on the writing.ie Facebook page here. The Big Night is the 25th, when the winners will be announced. The public part of the Book Awards vote is now open here.

And in today's Irish Times, the sublime Sinéad Gleeson interviews me about Miss Emily. It's here.

FINISH THAT BOOK PANEL @ IWC

Writer Lisa McInerney

Thomas Morris, editor of The Stinging Fly magazine, will chair a panel about finishing books on Saturday 14th March at 2pm at the Irish Writers' Centre. With myself, Lisa McInerney, Gavin Corbett and Kevin Curran. This is part of the magazine's Fly on the Wall sessions.

Afterwards, Kevin Barry will read from his work and chat with Fly founder, Declan Meade.

Tickets €12. More here.

LSAD - VISUAL FICTION

A very short story - Fred Eerdekens

I started a new collaborative project with the 4th year Visual Communications students at Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD) yesterday. Their project is called Visual Fiction and they are using short stories as a jumping-off point for work that will show how good design and typography can play an important part in the appreciation of literature.

The project is in collaboration with lit mag The Stinging Fly and editor/publisher Declan Meade and myself picked 10 stories for the thirty students to work from - everything from Guy de Maupassant to Claire Louise Bennett (whose short story collection Pond will be out in April from the Stinging Fly Press).

Yesterday the students received their brief, as well as the stories they will work from, and we spent the day exploring what short stories are and what they hope to achieve. And they wrote. A few brave types shared their writing and their work was great - as good as anything from wannabe writers. Art finds its way.

They were a warm bunch, as were their lecturers, and I am really looking forward to heading back to Limerick in a fortnight to see/hear about their ideas and plans for their projects. Having looked at some of the fantastic design work these students have already produced, I can't wait to see what they come up with - there is a feeling of anything might happen and probably will.

THE STINGING FLY - WINTER 2012

The new Stinging Fly dropped welcomingly (how's that for a horrible, made-up adverb?!) through my letterbox this morning. I am dying to snuggle up with it for a read.

They have changed their subs guides for 2013: they will accept submissions in February, June and October. They will effectively, from now on, be working two issues in advance. So, submissions received in February 2013 will be considered for the October issue (Winter 2013-14); June 2013 submissions will be read for the Spring 2014 issue; October 2013 submissions will be read for the Summer 2014 issue.
The postal address for submissions is: The Stinging Fly, PO Box 6016, Dublin 1, Ireland. They do not accept e-mail submissions. More here.

INTL SHORT STORY DAY GIVEAWAY & DALKEY PICS

In honour of International Short Story Day, I am giving away a copy of Mother America to one reader of this blog. To win, all you have to do is tell me the name of your favourite short story writer, or short story, in a comment. Easy peasy!

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I have been too snowed under to report on the Dalkey Book Festival. Let it suffice to say it's a gorgeous festival in a gorgeous place. If I were a millionaire (har har) I'd live there - the cute village, the beautiful bay, the warm locals...

Bono showed up to hear Heaney; and Helena Nolan and Carlo Gébler showed up to hear Mary Costello and me ;) We were delighted with our large, attentive, literary audience in The Magpie Inn, a truly friendly and lovely venue with great food, organic wine and a variety of good beers. All thanks to Declan Meade of The Stinging Fly and Rachel of the Inn who organised the reading and hosted us so well.

Earlier in the day Yvonne Cassidy read beautifully from her new novel, set in Manhattan and Dublin,  What Might Have Been Me. She is already in the thick of her next New York novel, whose main character she told us is 'a bit OCD, a bit spunky'.

Mary Costello read a gorgeous, moving story from her acclaimed collection The China Factory. The story - 'This Falling Sickness'- is about a woman attending her ex-husband's funeral in Mayo, but also has the death of a child in an accident. The story I read, 'Cri de Coeur' was as jolly - death by suicide of a mother and her daughter - it isn't all about that, of course, but we were well matched. Q&A and signing afterwards.

Here are a couple of my pics of the day. See the festival's Facebook page for the ones of Heaney and Bono.

Writers rocking stripes: Myself and Helena Nolan before Yvonne Cassidy's reading (Juno in the back)

Yvonne Cassidy signing after her reading

Mary Costello reading from The China Factory

STINGING FLY - NOVEL WORKSHOP

Seán O'Reilly - pic Faber & Faber

The Stinging Fly literary magazine is now accepting applications for the fourth year of its innovative novel-writing workshop.

Led by novelist and short story writer, Sean O'Reilly, 'New Way To Fly' is the perfect solution for those who are in the early stages of writing a novel and who feel they will benefit from a relationship with a group of others engaged in the same process.

 

Under Sean's expert direction, the group will meet once a week in a workshop setting over a six-month period. The ultimate aim is for each participant to complete (yes!) a strong first draft of his/her novel.

 

Alongside the workshops, there will be a series of specialist talks by guest speakers on several Saturdays over the period. Previous guest speakers have included Chris Binchy, Evelyn Conlon, Mia Gallagher, Michael Harding, Dermot Healy, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Declan Hughes, Emer Martin, Paul Murray, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Mark O’Halloran, Kevin Power, Ed O’Loughlin and Peter Sheridan.

 

Participants will be selected on the basis of work submitted. Applications up to August 3rd 2012, though early entry is encouraged as places on the workshop will be offered on a rolling basis.

 

What past participants say about the workshop:

• "This is an excellent workshop – unique in fact and I have recommended it to other aspiring writers. Sean O’Reilly is an outstanding and unconventional teacher."

• “What is outstanding about this course is the generosity, both in terms of time and close attention, with which every submission was discussed by Sean and the rest of the group.”

• “It’s the best writing course I've done, and I've done a few, including a Masters. Without doubt everybody's work improved during the course – and the work was good to start with.”

• “The Saturday sessions were fascinating. To meet and discuss work with one published writer, let alone ten highly respected and interesting published writers, was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The details:
Workshop Starts: Monday, September 24th (introductory session)

Times: Twenty weekly workshops on Monday evenings from 6.30pm – 9.30pm at the Irish Writers’ Centre, Parnell Street, Dublin 1. Plus Saturday dates to be agreed.

Cost of workshop: €1500 (A €200 deposit will be payable once a place on the workshop has been offered and accepted. The balance is to be paid in two instalments in September 2012 and in January 2013. Where necessary a monthly payment plan can be agreed.)

For further details, please email: stingingfly@gmail.com

ELECTRIC PICNIC - LIT EVENTS 2

ANNE ENRIGHT, ELECTRIC PICNIC READING & INTERVIEW

We were up with the lark on Sunday morning, wandering about, enjoying the calm and quiet main area – most others were still tent-bound. At half twelve Anne Enright and Claire Keegan were to read and discuss the short story with Declan Meade of the Stinging Fly, in the Arts Council tent. Claire couldn’t make it, so we had more of Anne. She spoke frankly and honestly about her writing life, as always, and she read two stories from Taking Pictures, the one about organic farming (title escapes me & I'm too agitated with computers/the net just now to go and check) and 'Shaft'.

Anne said ‘The short story is an instinctive form’. I agree with that and I’d also say that non-short fiction writers (pure novelists) often don’t ‘get’ that. She also called it ‘a modest, unassuming form’. She said she doesn’t do plot (yay!) as life is plotless and more of a story. She said that her narrators are always unsure about what happens in the same way she herself is unsure about what will happen in life or a given situation.
‘You’re just writing sentences,’ Anne said. ‘See where it goes.’
At the Q&A someone mentioned that she often writes in the first person and she said that she’s just not very good at the third person; that when she writes it, she writes a ‘close’ third person.

Again, feeling that it’s nice for a writer to be asked a few questions, I asked if she ever writes historical short stories. ‘Not so far,’ she said, but she’d like to try it. She also said she is writing a new novel but refused to say what it’s about. She kind of cheekily told Declan it was ‘an impertinent question’ when he asked. It’s a good policy. I have a sign on my notice board that says: ‘The story you’re writing is a secret’, to stop me talking the good out of it. I’m guessing it’s the same for most writers. They want to keep the thing to themselves until it reaches a point where it seems to be going OK.

All in all, she’s a very good interviewee: funny and honest and irreverent. It was a great event.