LARRY GROGAN CARTOON - SHORT STORIES

Self-styled 'author and doodler' Larry Grogan doodled this cartoon after something I said at the Art of the Short Story event in Smock Alley at the Dublin Writers Festival on Thursday. I was paraphrasing Elizabeth Gilbert and I said words to this effect, 'A good short story should bend over backwards and kiss the beginning.' (I can't remember EG's exact words.) It's a quote I like because it speaks to that amalgamated 'oneness' that is one of the hallmarks of short fiction. Anyway, here are me and Mike McCormack, yapping about stories. Cool, no?

TWO FLASH COMPS

Two flash comps you might be interested in, dear readers. One from the Rape Crisis Centre in Galway, one from Ginosko mag in Canada.

This is a Story invites entries of all original unpublished work of up to 500 words and the cost is €5 per entry (3 entries for €10). There is no theme or subject limitations and entries will  be judged anonymously by author Mike Mc Cormack. You can enter by post, by e-mail or by Facebook and the deadline is January 14th 2014. Prize: €300.

Send entries to GRCC, "The Lodge" Forster Court, Galway with cheques/postal orders made out to Galway Rape Crisis Centre.

Overseas entries:

a)    enter via website using a credit card

b)    enter by sending a paypal payment to coordinator@galwayrcc.org

c)    enter by post 

Competition winners are informed around late Febuary but the official announcement is made at the time of the prizegiving – this year it will mid March 2014.  Check the website after this date or send an SAE for the list of winners and judges’ reports.

More info: Aoife Ní Laoi - fundraiser@galwayrcc.org

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Ginosko Flash Fiction Contest

$250 Award, $5 entry fee, deadline March 1, 2014.

Submit up to 2 pieces, 800 words maximum each piece.

Final Judges:  Maggie Heaps, Michael Hettich, Gary Lundy, E M Schorb, Larissa Shmailo, Andrena Zawinski, Andrei Guruianu, Robert Paul Cesaretti.

Awarded work will be published in Ginosko Literary Journal, http://GinoskoLiteraryJournal.com/

Guidelines and Eligibility:

The Ginosko Flash Fiction Award is for an unpublished work of flash fiction. Awarded piece is selected through a submission process open to all writers with the following exception:

Relatives or individuals having a personal or professional relationship with any of the final judges where they have taken any part whatsoever in shaping the submitted manuscript.

Procedures and Considerations:

Please submit work, along with a brief bio, and cover letter if desired, to GinoskoContest@gmail.com.  Attachments must be in .wps, .doc, .rtf, or .pdf form, otherwise they will not be considered (please include last name on every page submitted). Send print submissions to:

CONTEST

Ginosko Literary Journal

PO Box 246

Fairfax, CA 94978

Payment Procedures:

Online submissions will receive emailed invoices via PayPal, though you do not need a PayPal account. Print submissions may send $5 in cash or check (made payable to Ginosko Literary Journal) to the above address.

CÚIRT 2013 - AFTERS

So, for me, Cúirt is over for another year. I'm partly sad, partly glad - recovery can begin. Cúirt is a very social festival and I'm not used to the late nights, but they are great fun, of course.

Actor reading Julian Gough's story in St Nicholas's

I started my Cúirt at Vincent Woods interview with Edna O'Brien. It was too dark in the Town Hall theatre to take notes but the interview will actually be broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Arts Tonight tomorrow the 29th April, at 10pm. Vincent is a good, warm interviewer and Edna is a very fluent speaker; she spoke about her life and particularly the influence of her homeplace and family in Co. Clare on her writing. She was charming, regal, witty.

I am writing an essay on her at the moment for a plenary I am giving at the AEDEI conference in Spain next month, so I have been immersed in Edna interviews lately online etc. I didn't learn anything new on Thursday night but it is always a pleasure to listen to her. Did somebody once say that if we didn't have Edna O'Brien we would have to invent her? She is our grand dame of letters, for sure.

Crowd at Galway Stories literary walk/reading, St Nicholas's

The next event I attended was the Arena live recording at the Nun's Island Theatre; it was broadcast Friday evening and you can listen to it here for a week or so. There was no way of knowing who was going to feature and I was thrilled when I got there to find that two of the guests were Paula Meehan and Sharon Olds, two of my favourite poets/women. Seán Rocks asked about the American-Irish poetic relationship. Paula said that 'from Emily Dickinson to Bob Dylan' American poetry has always provided 'huge nourishment' to Irish poets. She said she particularly likes Alicia Ostriker.

Sharon said that for her Irish poetry is both 'an ancestor from the past and a sister-brother from the present'. She also said 'Poetry is about going below while singing above.' I love that. Seán asked her about the tag 'confessional'; Sharon said she feels her poems are more 'accusational'. She said, 'No one would choose to be in the family of a family poet' and that when she writes she is 'resting' from herself. She also said that when she edits what she has written she 'tries to take out half of the adjectives and a third of the self pity.'

A local, sweet-voiced singer, Stacey Nolan, sang two songs at the Arena event. She may be Galway's answer to Gillian Welch. Writer and film-maker Conor Montague read from his story 'Eat the Swans' which features in the new Galway Stories anthology from Doire Press - a visceral, shocking story that will not suit the squeamish reader/listener.

Juno McLoughlin at Alan McMonagle's book launch, Town Hall Theatre

From there we went directly to the launch of the Galway Stories anthology which took the form of a literary walk with stop-offs for readings. It rained - of course - but Jim Mullarkey entertained a huge crowd outside McCambridge's; an actor read from Julian Gough's story in Saint Nicholas's Cathedral; Olaf Tyransen did the honours outside Neachtain's Pub, and finally we all piled into Monroe's Tavern where Kernan Andrews from the Galway Advertiser did the official launch. Congrats to Lisa Frank and John Walsh of Doire Press for a great idea, well executed.

Later I went to Paula Meehan and Sharon Olds's excellent reading at the Town Hall. They are a great poetry pairing and Paula was in fine, lively reading form. Sharon has a more subdued style in comparison but she is utterly convincing and sincere. It was a great evening. Down to the festival club after in the Meyrick Hotel where I enjoyed chatting to the very affable American writer Ben Marcus, as well as Mary Costello, Declan Meade, and many others.

Alan McMonagle signing Psychotic Episodes

Midday on Saturday saw my fellow member of The Peers, Alan McMonagle's, launch. Psychotic Episodes is his second short story collection and it comes from the inimitable Arlen House. Pat McMahon did the launch speech and also being launched was Aideen Henry's newest book, Hugging Thistles.

We went back to our hotel for a swim/rest and later for a walk on the prom in Salthill, where I used to bring my kids a lot when I lived in the city. My parents brought us on holidays there in the 70s and 80s. A special place. Then I went to Ron Rash and Claire Keegan at the Town Hall. Burning Bright, Ron's Frank O'Connor Award winning collection, is one of my all-time favourites. He read a harrowing drowning story from the new collection. In the Q&A he said that each story and novel of his is sparked by an image. He then follows that image, believing it will lead him to the story (he does not plan - yay!)

Salthill!

Claire Keegan read from Foster, that wonderful section where the child is brought home from a wake by an inquisitive neighbour. Claire is an original thinker which always comes across in her Q&A responses - she is unpredictable, sparky, interesting. There is never a rehearsed, sound-bytey quality to her answers. She is our Edna of the future but in her own particular maverick way.

I spent the evening in the Meyrick again enjoying the great conversation of Ron Rash (yes!), the lovely Richard Burns of Nantucket (a Cúirt stalwart), young London-based Irish writer Danny Denton, Mike McCormack, who is just back from a US book tour, Declan Meade, Mary Costello, and Martin Dyar who is now running the Strokestown Poetry Festival which is on next weekend. And I'll be there for the first time - whoop!

So, that was my Cúirt. I hate to think of all I missed due to fatigue/needing to eat/clashing events etc. I managed to meet the lovely Michael Harding and I got him to sign his memoir for my Ma. She will love it. I also met friends from near and far which, at the end of it all, is what good literary festivals are all about: the old friends and the new, the old books and the new, and all that great chat that makes going back to the desk alone both easier and important.

Next stop Strokestown :)

PRUDENCE FEATURES MOTHER AMERICA

One of the only women's magazines I actually enjoy is the Irish mag Prudence. So I am delighted that the editor Annette O'Meara has included Mother America in her preview of New Year reads in the current issue (Jan./Feb. 2013). It's in the Bookworm feature, along with the latest short fiction collections from Mike McCormack and Kevin Barry.

Prudence, unlike other women's mags, doesn't leave me feeling lousy after I read it. Its pragmatic approach to style, interiors, beauty and employment issues is refreshingly intelligent - I usually feel energised after reading the magazine. And that it's Irish is a real bonus. Yay!

FIVE DIALS! FIVE DIALS!

 
The first installment of the special Cork issue of Five Dials (Five Dials 25) has just been released. Frank O'Connor's daughter, Liadain O'Donovan, pressed the magic button that sent it flying into our inboxes. Five Dials is an eclectic literary magazine published by Hamish Hamilton and edited by Craig Taylor.

For those of you who don't subscribe a) sort that out, and b) here's the link to Issue 25. Brand new stories in it from Lydia Davis, Mike McCormack, D.W. Wilson, Kevin Barry and me. Poetry from Joe Dunthorne and Patrick Cotter. The issue is free gratis as always.

As a Five Dials fan it is a true thrill for me to feature between its covers. Issue two of the Cork edition will feature stories from Tania Hershman among others. Can't wait :)

AFTER FLAT LAKE ’08 – REVIEW # 1

So we drove though torrential rain to Hilton Park in Monaghan for the Flat Lake Literary and Arts Festival, were only misled (by 20 miles) by one signpost, and didn’t even have to pitch our tent: the kindly organisers had already pitched one for us! The rain did not stop all day Saturday but the atmosphere was relaxed, the people friendly, and so we dove in and enjoyed sitting on bales of hay, being entertained in a motley of tented venues, like the Hilton Palladium and the Post-Lounge Tent of Sentimentalism, and the Butty Barn.

First stop for us was Dónal O’Kelly’s madly energetic one-hander ‘Who Am I? What Am I Doing Here?’ (with Trevor Knight on music) where O’Kelly morphs from wound-up Dublin entrepreneur, to deportee to Oz, to a Leitrim doctor trapped in a grim Africa. O’Kelly sucks you quickly into each evolving character and the piece moves from madcap to serious in a blink. Very enjoyable.

One of the biggest crowds we saw at the festival turned up for Séamus Heaney’s reading in the big-top. He was his usual gentle, humble self and he took the theme of learning for his reading. He talked about influences – something I’m very interested in because I’m not sure what I believe about ‘influence’ – citing GM Hopkins, Wordsworth and Kavanagh, but he also talked about being influenced by the ‘magical energy’ surrounding him and his contemporaries in the 1960’s: his wife Marie, Michael Longley, the Simmons et al. He read several of his translations of poems attributed to Saint Colmcille and two poems about his father: ‘Lick the Pencil’ and ‘The Harvest Bow’. Séamus said his Da rarely spoke. ‘I think,’ he said, 'he believed speech was a kind of affectation.’ He read ‘Mid-term Break’ to us, a poem that always makes me well up. It was powerful.

Paul Brady gave a fantastic performance to a very appreciative crowd later on in the Butty Barn and his songs brought back lots of good memories from my twenties. Fantastic. The roof nearly lifted when he did ‘Arthur McBride’.

Early on Sunday – after a sleepless night in a cold tent – we toddled along to hear Ailbhe Slevin and Mike McCormack in the Butty Barn. I wasn’t familiar with Ailbhe’s work – she read from an as yet unpublished novel Quickening. It has an intriguing storyline involving a mother who may or may not have lost her memory. Mike read from his novel Notes from a Coma – the part where Anthony goes to Romania to buy JJ from the orphanage. The theme of children worked well between the two readers and both of them read extraordinarily well.

More anon, otherwise no-one will be moved to read this post until the end!

John McGahern Yearbook

The John McGahern Yearbook, Volume 1 edited by Dr. John Kenny is now available.

To order, you send your name and address with cheque/postal order/bank draft to The John McGahern Yearbook, Summer School Office, NUI Galway or e-mail fiona.dwyer nuigalway.ie [There is no charge for postage and packing.]

The Leitrim Observer noted that “the highlight of the book is the inclusion of the ‘After McGahern’ contribution, Mike McCormack was chosen as this year’s writer. The organisers of the year book decided that in order to keep McGahern's influence alive after his death, a specially commissioned original short story should be included which would be prefaced by the writers reflections on their encounter with John McGahern's work. McCormack's story entitled ‘There are things we know', has it's roots in the McGahern style with it's sparse but exact use of adjectives and it's emphasis on the unsaid.”

I only hope that Mike includes this new story in his next collection, as the McGahern book costs €50. Eek.