Me. Writing. Stuff.
Simon is reading along with Stephanie Conn for the Doire Press evening in the Crescent Arts Centre at the Belfast Book Festival. It is on the Tuesday, 14th June.
We(Mum, M-boy) are all heading to the city for a few nights. Am hoping to catch something short story related and see some of the city and visit the famous No Alibis Bookshop.
I
Festival of Writing and Ideas in Borris 2016: Best talks to go to on the Sunday
From the 10-12th June, the amazingly lovely and pretty Festival of Writing and Ideas will be launched on the very pretty town of Borris in Co. Carlow.
I’ve been to many, many lit festivals and Borris is absolutely in the top two to visit in Ireland. (Bantry is the runner-up this year, IMO) The FOWI (Festival of Writing and Ideas) 2016 is in its 5th year. We have been to every single one, the first was small but so nice and this year it is big but absolutely keeping its edge and uniqueness. It is spreading into the town/village this year with some events taking part in pubs and the Step House Hotel. Brilliant move.
I am going to name-check a few events that you really should make an effort to go see if you are in the area of Carlow on the Sunday, 12th of June 2016. I have also a small article on what to see on the Saturday on the blog.
Early start at 11 with the Granta New Irish Writing editors along with Sara Baume, Lucy Caldwell and Donal Ryan in the chapel. I am really enjoying this magazine at the moment so this talk should be good.
You will have about half an hour to breathe, drink coffee, eat sweet things and then saunter over to the Book Tent where Tom Morris has a curated reading hour with Claire-Louise Bennett, Gavin Corbett, Lisa Mc Inerney, Deborah Levy and Rivka Gachen. Lisa has just won the Bailey Prize and Deborah Levy just rocks along with Tom’s wonderful short story collection, this is going to be most excellent. Get in there and buy some books after!
Don’t leave the Book tent though as there is a @Two poets@ event with Simon Lewis reading from his just launched poetry collection, Jewtown and American poet, Rachael Mennes will respond. Should be interesting. Both of these events are free.
At 1:50, in the Bookshop there is a reading from the guys at the Long Gaze Back anthology with Sinead Gleason.
Throughout the day, you will have lots of book signings in the Book Tent so it is the place to gaze at authors from afar trying not to look like a stalker!
At 3:30, Donal Ryan will talk to Vincent Woods about his craft and the boundaries between traveller and mainstream society. I’ve read a short piece of Donal’s upcoming novel and it is going to be great.
These are my tips for the Sunday. You can choose to ignore me and just sit in the grass and frolic and saunter around Borris House. I’m easy like that.
Festival of Writing and Ideas in Borris 2016: Best talks to go to on the Saturday
From the 10-12th June, the amazingly lovely and pretty Festival of Writing and Ideas will be launched on the very pretty town of Borris in Co. Carlow.
I’ve been to many, many lit festivals and Borris is absolutely in the top two to visit in Ireland. (Bantry is the runner-up this year, IMO) The FOWI(Festival of Writing and Ideas) 2016 is in its 5th year. We have been to every single one, the first was small but so nice and this year it is big but absolutely keeping its edge and uniqueness. It is spreading into the town/village this year with some events taking part in pubs and the Step House Hotel. Brilliant move.
I am going to name-check a few events that you really should make an effort to go see if you are in the area of Carlow on the weekend of 10th to the 12th of June 2016.
The top event that you must, must, must see is Beowulf. This is a live theatre, one-man performance by Bryan Burroughs. I saw this last year in Visual in Carlow. I had heard so much about it and it excelled my expectations. It will blow your away, make you cry,cry, cry and laugh and be in awe of the actor that is Bryan Burroughs. He writes, produces and performs in this play based on the story of Beowulf but with a modern, universal twist. It received top play in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and New York Times rated it 5 stars out of 5. It sells out wherever it goes and I actually think it might be too late for you to even see this! It is on Sat, 11th June at 7 pm in the Hennessy Stage in Granary. Go now and book.
Next up, let me go back to the Friday, 10th June, my tips there are the reading by Simon Callow of Seamas Heaney Aeneid VI, it is accompanied by uileann piper, David Power who previsouly performed with Heaney. Probably booked out already!
Saturday, 11th June again and plenty to see. The day tickets are sold out so book tickets individually. I can only ever do 2-3 readings in a day at Borris as I like to browse the book tent and drink coffee and sample the food there. 11 o’ clock in the Ballroom, and we have an interesting title Successful writing is a slow, daily meticulous form of mental illness with Joseph O’ Connor and Sinead Gleeson. At the same time in the Granary we have Life Changing adventures with Rob Penn and Andy Middleton. The conversations at Borris between authors and seemingly not authors like Andy Middleton are always engaging and much more interesting than your stock Q and A with “So, tell us about your writing process?” etc.
At 12:30 in the Ballroom, we have the brilliance that is Claire Kilroy, Danielle McLaughlin and Ayelet Waldman. They will chat about literature and it being about sex and not having children. I am there. At the talk, I mean…
Straight after at 2:00 we have Deborah Levy, Claire-Louise Bennett and Rob Doyle all talk about a day in the life of a book. Deborah Levy was in Borris last year and I really enjoyed listening to her, she is a quirky short story writer so check these three out.
You might have time to relax for an hour or two, grab some lunch or saunter around the village or frolic with the children in the meadows(TM-Simon Lewis) as the next interesting talk is at 5 with 3 events running at the same time! We have Kate Tempest who is a poet, rapper and novelist. Impressive. Also, have Sara Baume, Donal Ryan and Luke Brown(Editor of Granta:New Irish Writing Magazine) talk about the Granta Irish issue. Donal Ryan is a great reader, writer and gives most excellent answers so go for that alone. The third talk that is on that time is 5 X 15:5 speakers, 15 minutes each. I am going to say to go to this one if you have to pick as the speakers are all totally diverse and intriguing. Love this format. Deborah Levy talks about David Bowie, Viv Albertine talks about fatherless girls, Ayelet Waldman talks on LSD microdosing so it sure to be fun, fun, fun!
Lastly at 6:30 and this is the highlights (as it is very late for a Rozzie and a husband and a young boy to be out and about) is Kevin Barry and Mariella Frostrup. I know, you are sick of me saying go see Kevin Barry.
Go, see Kevin Barry.
That is my lot for Saturday. Next post will be on what you can go see on the Sunday, 12th June. Come back then. You know you wanna.
Feeding the wild writer:Colm Keegan at Mountains to Sea Festival.
I attended a short workshop with Colm Keegan last weekend at the DLR LExicon in Dun Laoghaire for the Mountains to Sea Festival. It was a packed workshop, over 18 people but Colm handled and facilitated it well. I have read some of Colm’s short fiction and poetry and really liked his style and writing. He is also a very cool performance poet as well and has great things said about his classes so I was looking forward to it.
We looked at some different examples of what he thinks is wild writing. First, we looked at Chuck Palahniuk who is most famous for writing Fight Club. We read an excerpt from his short story/fiction type novel, Haunted. Certainly, we have full-on themes and ideas in this piece and the class got into a discussion on taboos. We explored the fact that there are many Huge taboos in writing that can shock readers but it is often the small, quiet taboos that no one likes to admit to speaking about that need airing.
After reading a piece from Dave Lordan’s First Book of Frags, we took part in a series of writing exercises. We wrote about something we had thought about in the last 24 hours, week and just now! It was good to write without censoring or stopping myself to edit. Colm added a simple piece of advice-write everyday and don’t edit or critique the writing. It could be complete rubbish or badly written and it may often not go anywhere. This type of free writing brings up creative connections and associations which can lead to a writing flow.
The workshop was full of cool people tha I would have liked more time to get to know and it was brilliant to get recommendations on new reads as well as simple, honest writing advice. Colm is very encouraging and makes it all look very easy!
The workshop flew by! At two hours, I feel I have only started to see what a good teacher Colm is. I am definitely going to look out for his day workshops and retreats. His blog can be found here along with information of the workshops he is running. http://uiscebot.wix.com/colm-keegan#!kingfisher-writers-retreat/c23we
Alison from the Summer Writing Insitute in NUI, Maynooth sent me information about the TWO summer courses for educators in writing this summer. I was accepted onto the week-long course last year and it was the best professional development as a teacher I have attended!
It is going to be taking place in TWO venues this year-Maynooth and Donegal. If you are interested in teaching writing, please send your application to Alison at writingcentre@nuim.ie and find out more details at http://muwritingcentre.
The three of us headed off to the annual Spring Poetry Festival in Cork last week. Simon is the biggest attendee of poetry events but I usually go along to soak up the atmosphere and browse in a few select bookshops in the capital!
Simon was reading at the Gregory O’ Donoghue readings this year along with Rosamund Taylor, a poet I had met in Bantry a few years ago. I obviously had to bring the BOY in with me to hear his father read but the BOY decided to sing Twinkle, Twinkle while the poets read. This was not cool despite everyone being very nice about it. We abandoned the readings and adventured the city.
The next time we go, Emrys might be less singy but more walky so who knows if we will ever get to sit in a poetry reading with him. One day. But, it is all good.
I had one day and night at the recent International Short Story Festival in Cork so I chose the Wednesday. I arrived down and headed straight for coffee and a scone over a short story in the English Market cafe upstairs.
Then, it was off to the Quay C0-op, a massive Health Food type Vegan joint which has been in Cork in years and I had never heard of! I was due to meet the lovely Madeleine D’Arcy to chat about her debut short story collection, Waiting for the bullet and have a spot of lunch.
Here is the podcast. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ab4u2x1tyqevc0o/madeleine.mp3?dl=0
I am so excited! I missed last year’s Short Story festival in Cork due to a little baby boy being only 3 weeks old! But, this year, he is bigger and I am getting sleep, we have a routine and my husband is very kind.
I am off to Cork for a day and a night. I am meeting up with Madeleine D’Arcy to chat to her about writing and stuff. Going to get to Deirdre Brennan’s reading, Danielle Mac Laughlin and Tom Morris and I will spend obscene amounts of money on short fiction. There will also be a dinner of tapas at some stage with an old friend who also loves short stories.
Life is the best, you know.
Another brilliant weekend for new and emerging writers in Carlow Library, all set up by John Shorthall, Librarian.
The launch was on Friday night, Simon Lewis, my husband opened the festival with some reasonable, modest and motivating tips on writing. He was followed by the newest creative writing group in Carlow and a group of young adult that John worked with over the last few months. I taught some of these YAs a year ago and they have really developed as young writers. Very proud!
Elizabeth Reapy (former editor of excellent litmag, Wordlegs) was teaching a class on writing with the young adults on the Saturday so we had the chance to catch up for a lunch date. Elizabeth is forging away at her own writing career as a novelist and working in the Salmon Poetry publishing company in Clare. Always good to hear that good people and good writers are getting on well! She is also a fellow Mayo woman so I like her even more!
Sunday was a 2 hour “chat” with Lisa Frank and John Walsh(Doire Press), John MacKenna and Paul O’ Reilly(both with new collections published with Doire). Really honest and interesting debate and tips. It was lovely to speak properly with John, Paul and Lisa. Lisa is great, mostly because we share the same sort of tastes in short stories!
I am officially tired and my day job starts back tomorrow, teaching!
The general public was invited into the Carlow Arts Festival Offices yesterday for a chat, tea, food etc. There were lots of people with lots of things to say!
Cornelia Mc Carthy, the Chair of the Board of the Festival facilitated a lively and encouraging debate on where the Festival needs to improve. As with all open forums, things can get bogged down in what needs to improve and I hope the Board can remember the positive things that were said as well.
I am very much looking forward to helping, discussing and attending the 2016 Carlow Arts Festival. You should too.
The mission statement of the festival is that:
aspires to foster culture in all its forms and to promote the growth of visual art, drama, entertainment, literature, music and dance and to advance education in the arts; to reimagine a Carlow which appeals to domestic and international cultural visitors, to offer a diverse range of artistic experiences and activities in both town and county, and to produce work that is not replicated elsewhere.
I am focussing on the words culture in all forms, advance education in the arts, reimagine Carlow, domestic and international cultural visitors, diverse range of experiences& activities in the town and the country and without replication elsewhere.
These are HUGE aims! We need to keep these in mind so much so that they should be printed out at the front of the office and left there as a reminder for all of what the festival aspires to.