Dublin Book Festival starts today and I wish I lived in Dublin!
But, for now I will have to make do with a Sunday trip to the city! Am hoping to catch Niall De Burca of storytelling.ie, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne and Mary Costello. I am ultra excited as it will be the first time I will have heard Nuala and Mary read. These 3 women all together represent my top three female Irish short story writers in my library! I was blown away by Mary Costello’s The China Factory so I will bring it and Mother America along to get them signed.
Here’s my review of Nuala Ni Chonchuir’s latest short story collection. Nuala is reading at the Dublin Book Festival this year and her book is rather good!
This was my first book from Nuala that I had read. I have came across Nuala through her blog and at various literary readings in the last while. She is incredibly generous with her time and comments on readers’ blogs. Now, it’s my turn to be generous with my comments and time.
Mother America is quite a female book. We can see that from the title and most of the stories focus in on women, mothers, sisters and wives. Having said that, it doesn’t prevent Nuala from writing brilliant narratives from a male perspective either. The short story collection opens with Peach which is written from a male perspective. Its opening line demands your attention
There was a pregnant woman getting drunk in the back lounger.
Dearie me. I was ready immediately with my judgements on this woman who turns out to be quite a tragic lady in the end. This story will hit you with the rawness of feeling and pity you feel for the two main protagonists.
Nuala’s stories range from the really short type like The Egg Pyramid;a story that uses the story of the Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. It focusses on Diego’s and his infidelity with Frida’s sister Cristina. It uses this as a comparison with the woman in the story and her sister. Crushing stuff in very few words.
Letters is one of those really good short stories where you have so many questions to ask about the characters within it. The story opens with a mother opening her son’s letter. We find out this woman relocated to America for her son but has been effectively dumped and left there to do battle with a country she feels like an alien in. Nuala creates a believable character and made me feel rather angry at her son!
Nuala is also brilliant at creating stories from the past. Triangle boy, Moongaxer, Scullion and My name is William Clongallen all speak of women from the past but they all tell of themes of infidelity, love identity and women’s struggles. Universal themes that can be found throughout all of her stories.
The great thing about this book is that you can pick it up, read one story and think about it for a few days before you delve into another. Or you can read it all in one go!
All of the stories are delightful and capture that important moment of life that a good short story should and then rising to a satisfying conclusion. The stories never get too long or tedious. some are only of a few pages, which is great to see flash fiction taking its rightful place in the short story collection.
The Irish Book Awards are being hosted this year in the R.D.S with a Gala Dinner award ceremony on 22nd November. They will also be screened on RTE.
The most exciting thing about this is that there are many excellent short story anthologies nominated to win this year. The Eason novel of the year contains 3 out of 6 short story collections. One of them is Kevin Barry! Can he possibly win an more awards? Oh, I think so.
Vote, Kevin! I’d also like to force/encourage you to vote for Mary Costello “The China Factory” for best newcomer and Tana French in two other categories. But, whether you vote or not, you really have to read some of the books on these lists.
As part of their ongoing commitment to Kilkenny writers, Kilkenny County Council Arts Office and Library Service are announcing their Autumn/Winter 2012 Writers’ Workshops.
A course in creative prose under the tutelage of writer Ken Bourke will take place at the City Library on John’s Quay on October 10. It will run every Wednesday from 6pm to 8pm until December 5. Over the eight weeks, participants will have the opportunity to develop their prose-writing skills in a relaxed atmosphere. They will be encouraged to identify their writing objectives in terms of how, where, what and when they will write. All forms of prose writing, from the short story to the novel, will be explored, and the focus and objectives of the workshop will be tailored to the needs of the participants. All levels of experience are welcome: the diversity of the group will be one of our key resources, but numbers will be limited to encourage full participation by all present. Ken Bourke has been a professional writer for over twenty years and is an experienced facilitator who has worked with a wide range of groups.
Poet Derek Coyle will also facilliate a poetry course which will start on October 9 at Thomastown library and will run until December 4. It will run from 6pm to 8pm. Participants will look carefully at the craft of writing poems and learn some new words and techniques so that they can become more confident readers, and writers, of poetry. Along the way participants will look at a selection of poems by leading contemporary Irish poets: Paula Meehan, Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Ciaran Carson, Justin Quinn, and Eavan Boland. Participants will learn about the poetic line, basic forms of contemporary poetry like the couplet and the quatrain, and by the end of the course participants will have used this knowledge to build a contemporary sonnet. The workshop will examine lots of ways to get started, from writing poems about paintings, poems about objects, working on versions of poetry in translation, and even horoscopes. Along the way participants will enjoy poems by major international contemporaries, like Derek Walcott, Mark Strand, Thom Gunn, Ruth Padel and Louise Gluck, to name but a few.
Derek Coyle lectures in English Literature and Irish Studies at Carlow College. He has published poems and reviews in The SHOp, Ceide, The Texas Literary Review, and The Irish Literary Supplement. Recently, he has had poems published in Mexico, in Cuadrivio, in their Irish issue. He has been shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award (2010), and the Bradshaw Prize (2011).
The deadline for bookings is October 5. Participants are expected to sign up and commit to the eight weeks of their chosen course. There is a nominal fee of €10 to secure you place in the course. The workshops will run over a nine week period from the week starting October 8 to December 3. There will be no workshop on the week of the October 29.
Places are limited to 12 participants per course so please book early to secure your place. These workshops are open to Kilkenny writers only. To secure a place on the above courses please contact the Arts Office on 056 7794133/ 056 7794138 or email kaya.brennan@kilkennycoco.ie
I was most excited about hearing Kevin Barry read again. I don’t want to sound like crazy lady from “Misery” film but I am officially the number one Kevin Barry fan. I get very annoyed when I see someone else having the cheek to read his books and even worse when they dare to comment on his writing.
Okay, I am exaggerating slightly but you get the idea. Kevin Barry rocks.
He was up first and he read a short story from Dark lies the island( you have to put this on your Christmas list-now!). This story is set in Gort and about a man called Evan who ends up sleeping in a caravan owned by a strange man who likes kicking staircases and two sisters that like the strange man who kicks staircases. The sisters also have an array of skin haired-lice ridden children running about the place looking “crazed”. Things gets stranger and darker as the story goes on when Evan is locked in the caravan and ends up trying to survive on a tin of Campbells’ tomato soup. I won’t spoil the ending for you but it is very jumpy. Kevin reads with drama and devilment, which kinda reminds me of Eddie Lenihan. Remember him? No, Kevin doesn’t look like him at all but he sounds like him somewhat! I always wonder what the crowd will make of Kevin as his stories are not for the fainthearted and are quite naughty. They seemed to enjoy and laugh at the right moments and anyway, they all paid to see him so they should know what he is like.
Will Boast came on after Kevin, reading from his short story collection Power Ballads, which I haven’t read and probably won’t. Reasons being that I have a heap of books to read and I don’t really “get” American short stories. Yet. I might one day and maybe, then I will feast on his stories. Also, I found it hard to listen as really, Kevin should have read another and the moment was spoiled for me. They both read very differently and their voice and style are completely different and hard to put together. But, there seemed to be a lot of Will Boast fans as well.
I briefly said hello to Kevin before he read and he tells me he is busy, busy writing! Great or I might have to lock you up in my house and buy you a typewriter and instruct you to get the sequel to City of Bohane finished quickly. I probably wouldn’t hurt his legs though. He has to be able to walk. But, only if he behaved himself.
After Bantry, Cork short story festival, Penfest Carlow, I was feeling a bit down and concerned.
Concerned that the next round of literary festivals wouldn’t start again till next spring but Dublin Book Festival has announced their programme will be ready to go in November!
Something to excite about, life is good but better with books. They haven’t released the programme yet but when they do I will be the first(or second) to let you know what is worth a look.
Back in 2000, someone in the Munster Literature Centre had an idea.
They wanted to organise an event to worship at the altar of the short story form. They dubbed it the “Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival” It was a great success but that was not good enough, no, it wasn’t. In 2002, the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize was introduced. To top things off, in 2005 the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award was added to the festival’s greatness.
2012 was to be my first visit to this festival and I didn’t need an excuse to return to Cork City! I booked in for all the events on Saturday apart from John Banville. If you have read my post on writing.ie here on John Banville’s reading at Huntington Castle, you might see why I declined to attend. Next time, John, maybe.
My Mother she killed me, my father he ate me:Readings and discussion from Kate Bernheimer’s new book of the same title.
All the events I attended were held in the stunning building of Triskel Christ Church.
The first reading I attended was My Mother she killed me, my father he ate me, a reading on the place of fairytales in adult reading, which was being chaired by Gearóid Ó Crualaoich, former Head of Folklore and Ethnology at UCC( amongst many other things!)
We were treated to a brilliant reading of a re-imagining of the Russian fairytale of Baba Yaga. See description here. The lady who read, whose name I did not get, was hilarious. She used a range of child-like voice, Cork and Kerry slurs with an occasional posh gentleman for the villain. A great start.
Next up was Kate herself who spoke about her constant love and commitment to the fairytale. I wanted to ask her what her favourite fairy-tale was but I guess she gets asked that a lot. She must have pre-empted this question as she told us that she has n favourite, she loves them all. Aw.
Kate Bernheimer-she likes her fairytalesDiscussion on the fairytale
After Kate, came Ilya Kaminsky. He has published many poetry collections, the most well-known being Dancing in Odessa. He reads in a distinctively mesmerising style, full of emotion and in a “Eastern European Shamansitic” way. He had his story projected behind him which was very helpful to the visual learners. It can be hard to simply listen! Teachers, take note! Ilya is a unique reader, people say it’s because English is not his first language or because he is deaf but I think it’s because he is simply Ilya and he will always read this way, with passion and drama, the way good writing deserves. It’s courageous as there are quite set reading styles out there.
Ilya Kaminsky-original wordsmith
Then Gearóid panelled a question and answer discussion type affair. To be honest, I could have listened to this man all day. His life time research project has been in the area of the traditional narrative. More, more!
I treated myself to a copy of Kate’s book afterwards. It contains 40(41, Kate tells us!) re-imagined stories inspired loosely and non-loosely by a fairy-tale that Kate had given to the author. There’s a couple of Irish fairy-tales and all the old favourites of Rumplestiskin, Snow White, Blue Beard. The author include Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Lydia Millet and many more. When I finish, I will do a review on it!
Kate was at the festival giving a workshop on the fairy-tale, I would have loved to have taken part but they were held during the week. I really enjoyed this reading and was also looking forward to my personal highlight: Kevin Barry. My review on his reading is coming up next in Part 2. Hope you can wait!
I meant to say that I was shortlisted last week for the “Best personal blog” award at the Blog Awards Ireland coming up in Naas next month.
Thanks to all my fans and people who love me and nominated me to begin with but thanks to the very cool judge at the Blog Awards Ireland who knows a good personal blog when he/she sees one!
The writing group that I am in, Carlow Writers Co-operative were given the honour of closing the annual Penfest Festival in Carlow Town last Sunday.
Members read new pieces of work in the GB Shaw Room in Carlow Town Library. There was a mix of prose and poetry, which was well received by the audience.
I read a short story which was strongly influenced by the Rose of Tralee and Bad teacher. You will have to wait!
Dublin Book Festival starts today and I wish I lived in Dublin!
