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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.
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| Writers rocking stripes: Myself and Helena Nolan before Yvonne Cassidy's reading (Juno in the back) |
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| Yvonne Cassidy signing after her reading |
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| Mary Costello reading from The China Factory |
