Along with Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máirtin Ó Direáin she is ‘one of a trinity of poets who revolutionised Irish language poetry in the 1940 and 50s.’  Louis de Paor

Listowel Writers’ Week is honoured and delighted to be hosting a Bi-lingual Celebration & Tribute to the Work of a woman who has been described as ‘the most significant writer from Kerry in the past 100 years’ – Máire Mhac an tSaoi. The event will take place on Saturday 1 June at 7.30pm at The Listowel Arms Hotel, and forms part of our Gathering strand of events.

The Celebration & Tribute will be facilitated by Louis de Paor, Director of the Centre of Irish Studies at NUI, along with poets Biddy Jenkinson, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Gabriel Fitzmaurice.  A number of dramatic readings from Máire’s authobiography, will be read by Marina Ní Dhubhain, and Marina’s daughter, Siobhán (13) – a sean nós singer – will sing ‘Le Coinnle na nAingeal.’

Máire will be in attendance and will launch her new book Marbhnaí Duino at the event. “The Duineser Elegien by Rainer Maria Rilke is one of the most important long poems written in Europe in the last century, a masterpiece written by the poet as he approached his final years, dealing with questions of life, death and eternity, and which has often been compared to TS Eliot’s Wasteland.

“Rilke’s poem has found a suitable translator in Máire Mhac an tSaoi, one of the country’s foremost poets. Máire Mhac an tSaoi has been working on an Irish translation from the German for many years now, and, not only does her work show the expanse and ambition of the German poem, it also succeeds in shocking the vocabulary of Irish poetry in a way that shows once more her mastery of language and imagination. Irish readers are indebted to her for her translation of one of the most powerful poems in Modern European literature.

“Tá Marbhnaí Duino le Rainer Maria Rilke ar cheann de na dánta fada is tábhachtaí dar scríobhadh san Eoraip sa chéad seo caite, máistirshaothar diamhair a scríobh an ?le Gearmánach i dtreo dheireadh a shaoil, a dhíríonn ar cheisteanna móra faoin mbeatha dhaonna a chaitear faoi scáil na síoraíochta. Leis an tionchar a bhí aige ar fhilí eile i dteangacha éagsúla agus an tslí go gcuireann Rilke cruth ?líochta ar chás agus ar chorrabhuais an duine sa saol nua-aimseartha, tá an bundán Gearmáinise curtha i gcomparáid le ‘The Wasteland’ le TS Eliot.

 ”Tá aistritheoir a dhiongbhála aimsithe ag Rilke i Máire Mhac an tSaoi. Tá sí ag obair ar leagan Gaeilge de na marbhnaí le blianta fada agus an saothar iomlán aistrithe go Gaeilge anois aici. Ní hamháin go léiríonn an leagan seo acmhainn agus uaillmhian an bhundáin Ghearmáinise, baineann sé geit chomh maith as friotal ?líochta na Gaeilge ar shlí a chruthaíonn arís mórchumas teangan agus samhlaíochta Mháire Mhac an tSaoi. Éirinn le céad bliain anuas.

“Tabharfaidh an t-aistriúchán seo deis nua do scoláirí dul i ngleic lena saothar agus cuir?dh sé go mór lenár dtuiscint ar fhilíocht na nGael i gcomhthéacs idirnáisiúnta.  Go deimhin, cuid de na ceisteanna céanna faoi chaidreamh agus chreideamh, beatha agus bás, atá chomh láidir sin i mórdhán Rilke, tá siad á gcíoradh ina cuid dánta déanacha féin sa tslí go gclosimid macalla beo a glóir féin ag labhairt i nguth maorga an fhile mhairbh ón nGearmáin.”

Now 91 years old, Máire Mhac an tSaoi is, without doubt, one of the most acclaimed and respected Irish language scholars, poets, writers and academics of Modern Irish.  Her other work includes the poetry collections, Codladh an Ghalscígh (1956), Margadh na Saoire agus Véarsaí Eile (1973), Shoa agus Dánte Eile (1999) as well as the work of scholarship Dhá Scéal Artúraíochta (1946), the novella A Bhean Óg Ón (2001) and her autobiography The Same Age as the State (2003). Seamus Heaney said of her autobioghraphy, “There is truth to experience here, a forthrightness about passion and transgression that is thrilling and exemplary.”

Born Máire MacEntee in Dublin in 1922, her father, Seán MacEntee was a founding member of Fianna Fáil and a participant of the Easter Rising. Her mother was a teacher and Irish republican. Máire married the politician, writer and historian Conor Cruise O’Brien in 1962 and spent much of her married life in America and Africa.  She has said of her relatively late marriage at 40, “I wanted to marry, but in those days, the aphorism was that clever girls were difficult to marry.”

She attributes her reputation for revolutionising Irish poetry in the 1940, 50s and 60s as much from her treatment of love in her poems as from her treatment of the form. “I was very lucky to write in Irish,” she has said. “If I had used the word ‘bed’ in a love poem in English, it would never have been published, but nobody reads what you write in Irish, or very few people do, and they’re not likely to be shocked.”

John Jordan, writing in the Irish Times on 23 February 1957 said:  “Others, more competent than myself have commented on Miss Mhac an tSaoi’s technical accomplishment and her sympathy with the genius of the Irish language. Miss Mhac an tSaoi has a poetic voice with its own unmistakable timbre, and what she has to say adds up to an unrigged vision.  There is no trace in her work of synthetic emotion.  She is a lyrical analyst of the stresses laid by time and human incapacity on love and friendship in their growth, blossoming and withering.

Her profound tragic sense teaches her that human relationships, whether casual and brief or deeply rooted, are doomed to perish, she does not reject them on that account. [Her] poems are crystallisations of the mingled emotions of gratitude for the privilege of having known human beings.  Underlying, serving this gratitude, there is an impersonal compassion for her subjects: they cannot remain as she has seen and known them, but must travel on to their common unspectaculart destinies dála cháich.

She is a prober of the condition of love, and no living Irish poet has brought more honesty and insight to the subject. [Her] quatrains are unquestionably the finest sequence of their kind written in Irish since the efforts to create in the revived language began.”

 For more information or to book this event, please click on the following link Máire Mhac an tSaoi          

 Alison Moore will be joining us for an interview and reading on Friday 31 May at 2.15pm at St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre. Her novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012, and The Pre-War House and Other Stories was nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2013.

Born in Manchester in 1971, Alison Moore lives in a village near Nottingham with her husband Dan and son Arthur. She is a member of Nottingham Writers’ Studio and an honorary lecturer in the School of English at Nottingham University

The Lighthouse is described as ‘deliciously unsettling… our sense of inevitable disaster becomes almost unbearable,’  by Jenn Ashworth in The Guardian.

Alison took some time to be interviewed for our Blog last week.                 

JG.  Your path to literary acclaim is an inspiration to all aspiring writers. In 2009, you had a baby, left your PA job and started to write your debut novel The Lighthouse, which was subsequently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. How did you feel when you heard the news?

AM. I was in the playpark with my son when the nominees were announced. My husband came down on his bike to tell me my name was on the longlist. I was simultaneously deliriously excited and totally numb – it was like he was talking to me through a thick wall of glass. Then he said he was just going home to check… And of course I was still out with my little boy so then it was straight back to buying pretend ice-creams from his kiosk under the slide.

JG.  It’s a story about a man separated from his wife, who goes on a walking holiday. Where did your main character Furth, come from?

AM.  I saw a scene in my head: a man sitting in a woman’s kitchen, but the woman’s upstairs and doesn’t know he’s there, although she did used to know him. So I was getting a sense of this man obsessed with a woman from his past, his trying to return to this person and a place. In 2007, my husband and I had been on a circular walking holiday and that seemed a perfect setting for this story.

 JG.  How much of the novel did you know before you started?

AM.  Once I wrote the beginning, where Futh is on the ferry, I found I knew what the final chapter would be, and that informed the penultimate chapter. But I didn’t know quite what happened in between, which suited me – I like to take the journey alongside my characters.

 JG.  Your work previous to The Lighthouse was a selection of stories, shortlisted for numerous awards. Do you have a preference for the novel or the short form?

AM.  I don’t have a preference – I see them all as stories, some short, one or two a good deal longer. My approach is not that different, even though the overall experience is. I’ve written short stories since finishing The Lighthouse and I’ve also begun a second novel.

JG.  Your recently published short story collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories, have been variously described as ‘sinister’ and ‘unsettling.’ Where does your inspiration come from?

AM.  In a broad sense, probably from everything I’ve ever read. More specifically, stories can start in so many unexpected ways, from a vivid mental image – which has happened with short stories as well as The Lighthouse – or in one case an idea for a title popped into my head and the story followed. One of the earlier stories came almost fully formed while I was walking through some woods with my dad. The Pre-War House, in which pregnancy features, was written during the last month of my pregnancy. Some of the darker stories have been inspired by being invited to submit a story to a particular publication.

JG.  Who would you say are your greatest literary influences?

AM.  I think literature got under my skin thanks to LM Montgomery and Dickens.  Writers I read in my teens or twenties and still read now include Ian McEwan, Graham Swift, Graham Greene and Kurt Vonnegut. More recently, I’ve discovered Shirley Jackson, Flannery O’Connor and Lorrie Moore, amongst others.

 JG.  What are you reading at the moment?

AM.  Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. I seem to be alternating old and new at the moment. I just reread Wuthering Heights and next I’ve got Women in Love lined up and then May We Be Forgiven by AM Homes.

 JG.  Is there any time of the day that’s best for you to write?

AM. I write whenever I can, whether my window that day is in the morning or whether I find I’m writing at midnight.

 JG.  You lecture in the School of English at Nottingham University.  How do you balance your teaching and your writing life?

AM.  I’m an honorary lecturer, which means I’m just invited to give talks from time to time. The real balancing act in my life is between family and writing. When Arthur was little it was simple – when he was awake it was his time; when he was asleep it was writing time (or reading/sleeping/film time). After the Man Booker Prize nomination, that went out of the window, but by then he was three and about to start pre-school, so now I have that chunk of time two mornings a week. Also, we do long distance events as a family, so Arthur’s seen some of the venues in which I’ve done events, and he’s been to playparks and cities he wouldn’t have been to otherwise, and he’ll have a long weekend by the sea in Ireland thanks to Listowel Writers’ Week!

JG.  Do you have any advice for our emerging writers at Listowel Writers’ Week?

AM.  I aim to make some progress every day with what I’m working on, however little, just to keep it all ticking along. The only advice I always give is to read a lot, but I think a writer would be doing that anyway.

For more information or to book this event please click the following link  Alison Moore

In addition to our usual packed and varied programme, Listowel Writers’ Week is delighted to be hosting a number of additional events this year to celebrate The Gathering. One of these is The Irish-American Short Story and Poetry, which will take place on Sunday 2 June at 5.30pm at St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre. This event is an absolute ‘must-do’ for all lovers of the short story and of poetry, and will be presented in the form of two short lectures.

Victoria Kennefick will present her lecture – Gathering Together the Real Story: How the Short Story Crossed the Atlantic (and back again!) She completed her PhD in Literature in University College Cork in 2009 on the transnational connection between Frank O’Connor and Flannery O’Connor. A recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship in 2007, she has lectured in the School of English, UCC, Georgia College & State University and Dublin City University.

Victoria introduces herself below:

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.  Flannery O’Connor

Join me on this personal, literary and transatlantic journey between the South of Ireland and the American South, meeting familiar literary faces in unexpected places to discover, that even before the internet, literature provided a means for writers and readers alike to transcend their local communities and experience the true nature of the human condition, all told in the few pages of a short story.

This informal talk will explore a number of issues relating to the Irish and American short story.  How does the short story straddle the literary, cultural and physical space between Ireland and America?  Does it provide us with an insight into cultural and literary spheres of influence in a time before text messages, Twitter and Facebook?

As a form known for its brevity and genre-defying nature, the short story is ideally suited as a mode of transatlantic engagement.  But when did this reciprocity begin and why?  And what does it mean in relation to writers we have long-defined, and dare I say it, pigeon-holed, as ‘Irish’ or ‘American’?  Does it benefit our Irish national literature to consider it as possibly global, rather than entirely local?  As Flannery O’Connor says, “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.”

In this, the year of The Gathering, it is timely to discuss these questions, particularly as the short story grows in popularity in a world of instant multimedia.  One could say it has been specifically designed to be portable, fast and accessible! 

I aim to explore this fascinating aspect of the short story, and discuss the complex literary relationships and friendships, that formed as a result of its portability, between writers like Cork-born Frank O’Connor and writer of the American South, Flannery O’Connor, and between Elizabeth Bowen and Eudora Welty, amongst others.

Nothing can happen nowhere. The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it. Elizabeth Bowen

Daniel Tobin will present his lecture – A Travelling Tradition. Daniel is the Interim Dean of the School of the Arts at Emerson College in Boston and is the author of 5 books of poems and a book of essays, Awake in America.

Daniel introduces himself below:

The apartment building where I grew up in Brooklyn during the ‘60s and 70s had much in common with the kind of close-knit Irish townland from which my grandmother emigrated in 1913. Tucked just beyond the entry on the first floor landing, her small one bedroom flat was the first stop for virtually everyone coming home from work, as well as family and friends from nearby neighbourhoods—many of them also immigrants from townlands outside Balinrobe or Claremorris.

Over the years her kitchen became a New World hearth, and my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, my brother and I, and the crowd of neighbours, gathered there daily for talk and tea or a quiet drink. Sometimes a man named John Gibbons, an accordion propped on his wooden leg, would play and sing. Little wonder I identified as Irish, though born in America, the same way my friends in the schoolyard also born in America identified as Syrian or Lebanese or Italian, our nationalities bandied like favourite sports teams in the school yard.

Yet all that past carried surprisingly little charge during my years in academic life, until a colleague recommended I write the entry on Irish American poetry for an encyclopaedia.

Beginning the research for this relatively brief entry was very like dipping my toe into the ocean and discovering the ledge underneath was much steeper than expected. I couldn’t wade out, and the waters were teeming with life.

Soon I found myself swept up into the current, swimming out, and what was to be something of an aside turned into a fifteen-year project culminating first in The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, then Light in Hand: The Selected Early Poems of Lola Ridge, and finally Awake in America. 

For more information or to book this event, please click the following link Irish-American Event

The son of a doctor, Andrew Miller grew up looking at the “funny, blurry pictures of boys with terrible deformities” in his father’s medical journals.  It’s probably no great surprise then that he has admitted to a morbid fascination with death and decay.  Andrew will be joining us on Saturday 1 June at 6.30pm at  St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre for an interview & reading.

Born in Bristol, Andrew moved with his mother, stepfather and older brother to Bath when his parents split up, and says this “vaguely shabby” city probably influenced his interest in the 18^th century. A dreamy boy, he was bullied at school and failed his 11-plus, eventually leaving with one A-level in English.  It was around this time, having read DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow for a second time, that he realised he wanted to be a writer, and at 22, an essay on Lawrence won him a place at Middlesex Polytechnic.  After teaching English as a foreign language for a number of years he went on to study creative writing on the highly-regarded University of East Anglia’s creative writing course.

Incredibly, after such an inauspicious early start, his debut novel, Ingenious Pain, won not only the 1999 IMPAC Award, but the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Premio Grinzane Cavour in Italy, and confirmed his talent as a writer. Further literary success followed for Oxygen, which was shortlisted for both the Booker and Whitbread Awards in 2001.

His latest novel, Pure, scooped the 2011 Costa Book of the Year and has been shortlisted for the 2013 IMPAC Award.  Set in Paris in 1785, the young Jean-Baptiste Baratte has been charged with demolishing its oldest, overflowing cemetery.  Think bone, grave-dirt, mummified corpses and chanting priests.  Throw in rape, suicide and sudden death and mix it with friendship, love and desire and you get a taste of what this novel is about.

However, there is nothing gratuitous about Miller’s work and Pure is described as “honed and unadorned prose… charming and elegant… about the beauty of the ordinary and how to live one’s life with integrity.”

Andrew Miller took some time to be interviewed for our Blog last week.

JG.   Your recent novel, Pure, has been nominated for the 2013 IMPAC Award.  Your first novel Ingenious Pain, also set in the 18^th century, won the IMPAC in 1999.  How do you feel about having your work so thoroughly validated?

AM.   The IMPAC is one of the very few genuinely international prizes. I’m delighted to have come to their attention again.

JG. The novel centres around its protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, who is tasked with the removal of Les Innocents Cemetery in 18^th century Paris.  Is the cemetery a metaphor for something else?

AM.   All fiction is metaphor. That said, the cemetery is a cemetery.

JG.   One of Pure’s themes is death, and you have been quoted as saying that “after the age of forty-something death is a taste in your mouth, and never goes away again.” Is there any hope for us?

AM.   Hope for us in the sense that at least a couple of us might get out of here alive? None.

JG.  You have said that France has always fascinated you. Why so?

AM.   I inherited (mostly from my mother) the idea that France is a place where life might be more beautiful and interesting than in most other places. This is probably half right.

JG.  You have described writing a novel as a process of ‘modeling.’ Do you redraft as you go along, or do you just keep writing an initial first draft without any edits?

AM.  I write a good chunk and work it up to the point where I feel I have something rather than nothing. Then I write another chunk.

JG.  Who were your early literary influences?

AM.  Rosemary Sutcliffe, Noggin the Nog, Tintin and Alastair Maclean.

JG.  What are you reading at the moment?

AM.  Kathleen Jamie’s new book of poems and Bolano’s Antwerp.

JG.  Do you have any words of wisdom for our emerging writers here at Listowel Writers’ Week?

AM.  Eyes open, heart open, feet on the ground.

For more information and/or to book Andrew Miller please click on the following link Andrew Miller

Michael Gallagher, a native of Achill Island, will launch his book Stick on Stone on Friday 31 May 2013 at 1.30pm at The Plaza Centre. Sue Hubbard will also launch her book the forgetting and remembering of air at this event, which is Free of Charge.

Michael worked in London for forty years, before retiring to Listowel in 1999. His prose, poetry, haiku and songs  have been published in Ireland and throughout Europe, America, Australia, Nepal, India, Thailand, Japan and Canada and translated into Croatian, Japanese, Dutch, German and Chinese.

Michael has won many awards for his poetry and he was short listed for the Hennessy Award in 2011. He edits the online literary journal http://issuu.com/thefirstcut and is a founder member of Listowel’s Seanchai Writers’ Group.

Michael (pictured right) talks about his life and his writing below:

Roads Taken

I was born on Achill Island in 1941, at a time when emigration from Achill, and indeed, the whole western seaboard of Ireland, was the norm. It was no surprise then, that in 1960 I found myself digging holes in London, a city that was to be my home for the next 40 years.

In the course of those 40 years, I gradually worked my way up to the position of construction manager. I married a Kerry woman, had four kids and worked hard, often seven days a week. Then, out of the blue, I was offered a job as resident engineer at Castlebar Hospital. For the next ten years, I travelled all over Ireland in that capacity, basically being paid to enjoy the scenery. We eventually settled in Renagown, a townland about ten miles from Listowel.

Life in Renagown was good after living in London. There were mountains, forests, rivers and a local pub, which was the hub of the community.  I was more or less my own boss in so far as I could choose which part of Ireland I would head off for each morning, and much of my early poetry was about the landscape and nature.

If something attracted my attention, I would pull in and take some notes or a photograph then work on it as I drove along. Or I might turn in to a forest track or drive up a mountain side, have some lunch, and just absorb the wonder of the surroundings.

Paddy Bushe facilitated a poetry workshop in Listowel in the Autumn of 2003 and from that  workshop emerged the Seanchai Writers’ Group, which has been very important to all of us in terms of encouragement, camaraderie and constructive criticism. 

I retired in 2009 and I am grateful that writing has filled the inevitable gap that ensued. Throughout my working life, I had seen many friends fade away after retiring. Also, it was about this time that the politicians decided to throttle the life out of rural communities. First, they introduced the smoking ban, then tightened up on the drink driving laws.

 All of a sudden, rural pubs were emptied and a vital source of coherence in the community was sundered. I am fortunate in having an outlet, but many others in my age group are not so lucky, being condemned to lonely lives at the end of hushed boreens.

During my 40 years in London, I scarcely opened a book, although I was an avid reader of the ‘quality’ newspapers.  I do remember coming across a poem  called Canticle. It impressed me so much at the time that I cut it out and it remained in my wallet for many years. It was the first time I realised that poetry did not have to rhyme, could use ugly words and even words that were not in a dictionary.

Many years later, I met the author of Canticle at Listowel Writers’ Week and only then realised that I used see him at Mass in Achill fifty years earlier. It was John F Deane and he was equally amazed when I recited Canticle there and then. The two Islanders enjoyed a few  friendly pints in the Listowel Arms Hotel that night.

After retirement, my poetry began to change and become more introspective. Rather than describing nature, I wrote about Man and his Wars, his wanton destruction of the environment, his selfishness. I wrote a series of poems comparing man’s behaviour to that of other creatures, especially birds. Not all that strange, really, once we accept that we all came from the same blob of jelly at some stage in the distant past. Other recurring themes in my poetry are politics, social justice, society’s disrespect for women, religion, the Achill of my youth and the Renagown of today.

The one thing that I found difficult to write about was my time in England.  Then I discovered the wonderful Bernard O’Donoghue. His pen pictures of life there helped unlock that particular door.  I have always felt that emigration was (and is) a form of betrayal visited on us by an establishment that was quiet happy to see us go. The poets who have written the blurbs for Stick on Stone, all of whom have been important in my validation as a poet, have indicated that they see me as the ‘voice of the emigrant’, and I feel honoured that  such distinguished writers would think of me as such.

Would I be a writer if I had stayed in Ireland? I do not know. I do know that I would not be writing had I remained in England – it just would not have fitted in with my lifestyle. I also know that my poetry would be much poorer without the richness of my experience as an emigrant.

We look forward to welcoming Dublin born, award-winning writer, Emma Donoghue to Listowel Writers’ Week on Friday 31 May at 1pm at The Arms Hotel, for an interview and reading.  Emma gained a first-class honours degree from UCD and a PhD from Cambridge, and is a novelist, playwright and literary historian.   Probably best known for Room (2011), her award winning novel inspired by the Austrian Fritzl case, she is now back with Astray; a collection of short stories about emigrants, drifters, slaves and taboo-breakers, scrabbling to survive on the margins of society in the New World.   Astray transports the reader from puritan Massachusetts to revolutionary New Jersey, from antebellum Louisiana to a 1960s Toronto highway, lighting up four centuries of wanderings that have profound echoes in the present.

Using the “fiction-springboarding-from-fact method” that she developed for her collection The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (2002), but focusing on North America and the theme of life-changing journeys, Astray, she admits, is an oddly autobiographical book.  Having emigrated twice, Emma has a stake in these storylines. She explains that the working title of the collection was Strays (a genealogical term for people who end up far from home), but that sounded a bit too much like “mangy puppies”, so she finally settled on Astray, “which has wonderful connotations of being a bit ‘astray in the head’, as we say in Ireland.”

Emma took some time out to be interviewed for our Blog last week.

JG.  After a steady, productive literary career from the age of twenty-three, you were suddenly catapulted into the limelight with your novel ROOM. Describe what that was like.

ED.  For a couple of years it made things very hectic; exciting, in many ways, but also frustrating because publicity ate up my writing time. I’m often asked if ROOM changed my life: I’d have to say no.  For twenty years I’ve been in the gloriously fortunate position of writing whatever I like and earning a living from it. ROOM didn’t change that.  It just won me lots of new readers, which is wonderful; the same old landscape, but extra sunshine.

JG.  Apart from ROOM, you’re probably best known for your historical fiction. Would you say historical fiction is your preferred form?

ED.  No, I enjoy telling stories from a variety of times in a variety of ways. And in fact contemporary fiction lets me be funnier.

JG.  Your latest book, Astray, is a collection of short stories based on actual events and set in the early days of the New World. Its characters are all misfits of some description. Where do you get your inspiration from to write about certain characters?

ED.  Astray draws not only on wonderful primary sources such as newspaper articles, diaries and letters (to give just one example – the loving, bickering correspondence of Jane and Henry Johnson, emigrants from Antrim to Quebec in 1849) but, just as importantly, on the secondary research of multitudes of historians.  Keeping the past alive is always a collaborative business, and oddly enough the Internet – which we thought would be all about modernity – has proved to be a great boon to antiquarianism.

JG.  You are also a playwright. The Talk of the Town, which premiered in Dublin last year, was inspired by Maeve Brennan, (the tragic Irish short story writer and journalist who descended into madness in New York). What inspired you to write about her?

ED.  Brennan’s short stories and journalism are immensely powerful and evocative of her two contrasting worlds, Ireland and Manhattan; it was the immense but restrained emotion in her prose that made me long to put her on stage.

JG.  Does your reading affect what you write?

ED.  Yes, but not immediately.  I’d say I’m as shaped by what I read at the age of nine as by what I read this morning.

JG.  What are you reading at the moment?

ED.  Pamela Greenberg’s translation of the Psalms; Frank McGuinness’s play The Match Box; Zadie Smith’s NW.

JG.  Do you always start a story at the beginning or do you work backwards?

ED.  I start by planning the whole thing; if that sounds like a cold word, let’s call it ‘dreaming up’ the story.  I need to know what’ll happen on the last page before I write the first, so I can figure out how to get there. My easiest gift is for dialogue, I’d say, and I’m not a natural plotter, so I need to mull over my storylines a great deal to spot the gaps and longueurs and get rid of them.

JG.  You were born in Dublin and live in Canada.  What would you say you like most about living in Canada?

ED.  Civility.  It’s a notoriously polite place, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

To book Emma Donoghue’s event, please click here Emma Donoghue

Listowel Writers’ Week is very pleased to introduce an exciting and innovative feature to the festival this year in the form of a New Writers’ Salon, which will showcase some of the best and most exciting new writers in Ireland today.  This informal event will take place on two evenings – Friday 31^st May and Saturday 1^st June in Scribes Coffee House at 8pm, and is the brainchild of Noel O’Regan, who joined our literary Team in 2012.  Noel has been instrumental in organising the Salon, and is himself a published, award-winning writer.  Holding fast to the festival’s long-held tradition of encouraging emerging writers, there will be an open-mic session on both evenings. A resident editor and agent will also be on hand to answer your questions and offer guidance in getting your work published. This event is Free of Charge – no need to book – just pop in and say hello.

Three of our featured writers introduce themselves below:

Elizabeth (EM) Reapy

“To be featured at Listowel Writers’ Week New Writers’ Salon with some of Ireland’s top new writers is an honour,” Elizabeth says.  “Kerry is a beautiful place and Listowel Writers’ Week, a leading writers’ festival, so I predict much inspiration, interesting conversation and a massive amount of craic. Really looking forward to it all.” 

Elizabeth is from Claremorris and has an MA in Creative Writing from Queen’s University Belfast. After graduating, she set up www.wordlegs.com with Cathal Sherlock to encourage and promote young and emerging Irish writers.

“Since then, we’ve had many real world ventures and readings; two ebooks and a print book –  in association with Doire Press – wordlegs presents: 30 under 30 – A Selection of Short Fiction by 30 Young Irish Writers.  Chosen as one of Joseph O’Connor’s Top Titles of 2012, it was also selected as ‘Paperback of the Week’ by The Irish Times in March 2013. We’re very proud of it.

“My own writing has been published nationally and internationally and I’ve got a short script in production with Barley Films.  In 2012, Mayo Arts Council awarded me a residency at Annaghmakerrig. From there I was chosen as Tyrone Guthrie’s Exchange Irish Writer to Varuna Writers’ House in Sydney.  I was also showcased at the Australian Young Writers’ Festival in NSW. While in Australia, I set up a young and emerging Irish writers’ festival, Shore, www.facebook.com/shorewritersfestival which took place in Enniscrone in November.

“Listowel Writers’ Week Chairman, Séan Lyons, performed some of his outrageously funny poetry at the Saturday Open Mic sessions there, and I must thank the organizers of Listowel Writers’ Week for their generous support and advice on how to get a festival off the ground.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a 2013 Arts Council Literature Bursary to complete my debut collection of short stories, all themed around the new wave of Irish immigrants in Australia. One of these short stories is also being translated to screen. As well as this, I’m redrafting another feature length script set around John Lennon’s hippie island in Mayo.

Elizabeth admits she’s obsessed with writing but studies the short story mostly, listing Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, Roddy Doyle, Claire Keegan, Annie Proulx, Junot Diaz, Aravind Adiga, Roald Dahl, Ernest Hemingway, Stuart Dybek and Dagoberto Gilb among her favourites. Her absolute favourite writer is Denis Johnson. “His sentences are so bare, clear and yet so meaningful, I’m fascinated by his unpretentious storytelling,” she says.

She also reads scripts fanatically and is a big fan of anything Mark O’Halloran writes. “Recently, I found Mary Costello’s collection The China Factory, and Gerard Barrett’s screenplay Pilgrim Hill, to be powerfully written and very affecting pieces of work.”

Brian Kirk

“I’m delighted to be invited to take part in the New Writers’ Salon at this year’s Listowel Writers’ Week. I’ve never attended the festival before, but have heard great reports from fellow writers over the years,” Brian says. “Apart from reading my own short fiction, I’m looking forward to soaking up the atmosphere at many of the events. I hope to see Thomas Keneally and also Dermot Bolger, a writer who gave me great support and encouragement when I was starting out.”

Based in Dublin, Brian writes short fiction, poetry, plays and novels. His nominations include being shortlisted twice for both the Hennessy New Irish Writer Awards for fiction and the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Award. He also won the inaugural Writing Spirit Award for his story, Perpetuity, and was a featured reader at The Lonely Voice platform for new short story writers at the Irish Writers’ Centre.

“My stories and poems have appeared in a number of publications including Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, Revival, Southword, Burning Bush 2, Boyne Berries, Wordlegs, Long Story Short Literary Journal, Bare Hands Poetry and The First Cut. The Girl in the Window features in Sharp Sticks, Driven Nails; an anthology of new stories, edited by Philip O’Ceallaigh and published by The Stinging Fly Press.”

Brian’s one act play And the Word was Made Flesh was runner up in the “From Page to Stage” playwriting competition run by Dublin Public Libraries and Story was shortlisted for the PJ O’Connor Award 2011 with RTE Radio Drama Department. He is delighted to be selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series this year, and is currently seeking a publisher for his first novel Winter Journey.

“Unfortunately I may not be able to make it to the launch of Michael Gallagher’s first collection, Stick on Stone on Friday 31^st May at The Plaza Centre, but I hope to get my hands on a copy and maybe have a drink with the man himself later on.”

“Listowel Writers’ Week should be commended for the inclusion of the New Writers’ Salon. It’s a great enhancement to the usual “big names” you get at literary festivals, allowing relatively new authors exposure to new readers and vice versa.”

Eimear Ryan

“This will be my first time at Writers’ Week. I don’t think I’ve been in Kerry since I was in the Gaeltacht, so it’s a long overdue visit,” Eimear says. “I’m especially looking forward to seeing Colum McCann, Emma Donoghue and Andrew Miller. I was thrilled when Noel O’Regan asked me to read at the New Writers’ Salon. It’s very exciting for a young, unpublished writer to be given a platform at a festival as big as Listowel. I’m excited about the crowd I’m reading with too – I know everyone’s work and think Noel has gathered together a diverse and talented group. It should be fun.

Eimeir, who comes from Co. Tipperary, holds an M Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin.  She has had her short fiction published in New Irish Writing, The Stinging Fly and The Irish Times, and is forthcoming in Five Dials and Town & Country: New Irish Short Stories. She is the recipient of the Hennessy First Fiction Award, the Sean Dunne Young Writers’ Award, the Over the Edge New Writer Award and an Arts Council bursary.

“I discovered short fiction when I was 21. I took a creative writing class during a semester abroad at Boston University. Besides workshopping each other’s work, we read classic stories from a huge anthology called The Art of the Tale, which was where I first encountered the big shots of short fiction – Chekhov, Capote, Hemingway, Carver. I remember reading The Doll Queen by Carlos Fuentes for that class and being really disturbed by it, which brought home to me how gut-punchingly powerful short fiction can be. Our reading seemed to be pretty male-dominated, though, so I went out and bought books by several American female short story writers – Karen Russell, Lorrie Moore, Miranda July and Amy Hempel. They all manage to be devastating and hilarious at the same time. They’re big inspirations.

“My favourite Irish writers include Kevin Barry, Claire Kilroy, Anne Enright, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Paul Murray and Kevin Power.  All quite distinct,but all able to tackle deep, dark subjects with wryness, levity and great observations. I like writers that know how to employ divilment.

“I’m currently reading Laurent Binet’s HHhH. The subject matter – the assassination of Heydrich in Prague – is fascinating, but the semi-autobiographical format is what makes it. I’ve never read anything quite like it. I always have an audiobook on the go as well. At the moment I’m listening to Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I’m a big fan of mysteries – I recently read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and loved it so much I devoured her other two books straightaway. I’ve discovered that if Stephen King blurbs a book, I’ll probably like it. He hasn’t steered me wrong yet.”

Award-winning novelist and playwright, Lucy Caldwell, will be joining us for an interview and reading on Thursday 30^th May at 3.30pm at St. John’s Theatre & Arts Centre. She is also one of our 5 shortlisted nominees for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award 2013 with her third novel, All The Beggars Riding, which was serialised on Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4  and chosen as both Irish Waterstone’s Book of the Month and Eason’s Bookclub Choice.

Belfast born Lucy read English at Queens’ College, Cambridge and is a graduate of Goldsmith’s MA in Creative & Life Writing. Her other novels are Where They Were Missed (2006) and The Meeting Point (2011). In 2011 Lucy was awarded the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for her body of work to date. Her stage plays, Leaves, Guardians, Notes to Future Self, and radio dramas, Girl From Mars and Avenues of Eternal Peace have won numerous awards, including the George Devine Award and the Imison Award.

JG. Congratulations on being one of the five shortlisted writers for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award. What does this mean to you?

LC. Thank you!  I’ve wanted to come to Listowel Writers’ Week since before I even wrote my first novel, and to come as a shortlistee for the Kerry Group Award is just fantastic. Writing All the Beggars Riding left me completely eviscerated – it seemed to take everything I had, and more. Perhaps every novel feels like the last or the only real one you’ll write, but I felt it more keenly with this than with either of my previous two, and the exhaustion has taken a lot longer to lift than I anticipated. So it means more than I can say to have it read and recognised in this way.

JG. This is your first visit to Listowel Writers’ Week. What are you most looking forward to?

LC. Besides – of course – the chance to hear admired writers and discover new ones, I can’t wait for the music and merry-making, and most of all the magical conversations over a pint after hours, I’ve heard Listowel is legendary for that.

JG. All the Beggars Riding is a heartbreaking story of a woman confronting and trying to make sense of her past.  Can you tell us something of the background to the story?

LC. A few years ago, just after my first novel was published and before I’d even begun my second, I had a dream about a surgeon who led a double-life.  It was such a vivid and startling dream that I wrote it down, and it stayed with me for years.  I wasn’t looking for new ideas at the time – I was immersed in the world of my second novel – but I found myself idly collecting stories about men who led double lives or had second families, or mistresses who have their lover’s baby.  I’d rip them out of old magazines at the hairdresser’s, or from newspapers, and suddenly I realised I had a whole shoebox of them.  Then, at book readings or workshops, I started mentioning that I was interested in second families and double lives, and the number of people who’d come up to me and offer their stories was surprising.  I started to think about how you would go about telling such a story, and telling it well; not sensationalising it.  Even more interesting than the passion of the love affair is the sheer banality of maintaining a double life for so many years, the quantity of lies and half-lies you have to generate to feed the need of the deception.  It beggars belief…  I chose to write the book from the perspective of the surgeon’s illegitimate daughter, grown-up, because it meant that she too could be trying to understand; what her parents did, and how, and why.  It also allowed me to look at the consequences of the double life, and not just the fact of the it.  The proverb “the children of lovers are orphans” was playing round in my head as I wrote…

JG. Part memoir, part historical fiction and part personal account, the narrator sets about writing her memoir, inspired by a creative writing class. How do you manage this blending of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction?’

LC. The books I kept coming back to as I was writing Beggars were all writings that blur or blend or question the nature of factual versus fictional ‘truth’ – like Coetzee’s masterpiece Summertime, or Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.  I was also thinking of the line by the Danish writer Karen Blixen, “all sorrows can be borne if they can be told”, and about how what’s important isn’t, or isn’t just, the story itself, but rather the telling of it.  A book that affected me very deeply when I first read it at university was the young South African journalist Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull, her account of covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.  At first she writes factually, transcribing people’s stories, but as the hearings go on her prose starts to buckle and fracture under the pressure, and it becomes very personal, and at times breaks down into fragments and unfinished sentences, or even attempted lines of her own poetry.  It’s fundamentally about the power of narrative, and the struggle between telling a story or being told by that story.  The narrator of Beggars is of course fictional, but I needed her story to feel real, and so I wove through references to real or thinly veiled people and places and events – starting with a version of the Russian journalist Svetlana Alexeivich’s interviews with Chernobyl survivors, which is one of the most moving narratives I’ve ever read – and incorporating meticulously researched details about place and time, most of all Belfast.  Lara’s voice is very stilting and hesitant as the book begins, and that was important; she gains in confidence and fluency as she writes.  I wanted to avoid, too, perfectly lyrical flights of memory, because that’s not what memory’s like.  I wanted the book to be a testament to the power of telling your own story – and in a funny way that might be intelligible only to me, it felt like my writing autobiography, too, packed full of the writers (MacNeice, Plath, Alexeivich, Van Morrison, and others more elliptically referenced) who’ve been most important to me.  It isn’t factually true, but it felt like the truest book I’ve written.

JG. Your first work of fiction was a play The River, performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  Can you tell us something of the different dynamics involved in writing a novel and a stage play? Do you have a preference for either form?

LC. They’re completely different forms, and the more I work in both of them, the more I respect and understand that, and the harder it gets to make the wrench from one to the other.  Novels, or at least the sort of novels I write, are more interior, reflective, descriptive – all of the things that are lifeless on stage.  Drama, it seems to me, is about action, and about subtext: it’s not what people are thinking or feeling so much as what they’re doing, whether or not they’re fully cognizant of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.  Even the most beautiful writing will be cold and dead on stage if it doesn’t have that charge.  Writing plays definitely helps novels, because it helps you to structure them more tautly by envisaging them in parts, acts, scenes.  I’m not sure what novel-writing gives to plays – but perhaps that’s because I’m currently trying to make the switch back to drama and finding it hard.  Nor do I have an answer about which form I prefer; I love the intimacy and secrecy of having the whole world of a novel inside you, but the noisy conflicted collaboration with actors and director and designers when you’re working on a play is really thrilling.

JG. You were born in Belfast, but studied at Cambridge and now live in London with your husband. Would you say Belfast inspires your writing or is there a mixture?

LC. I consider myself very much a Belfast writer; my writing seems to come from and be inspired by Belfast at a very fundamental level.  It’s something I’m only learning the more I write.  Although we live in London, I travel back and forth between the two places and keeping that connection alive and vital is increasingly important.

JG. You are senior lecturer on the MA Creative Writing course at City University London. What aspects of teaching do you most enjoy? How do you balance your writing life with teaching?

LC. I never intended to be a teacher of writing, but you find that once you’ve published a book, people ask you to do a workshop here, help out on a writing course there, and I found – to my surprise – that I really enjoyed it.  I’m uneasy about the idea of being a teacher, because – unlike a more finite discipline – it’s not as if there are any hard-and-fast rules to writing, nor is it the case that once you’ve written a novel, you suddenly know how to do it and can hand down your methods from on high.  But you can explore techniques together – so much of “teaching” writing is actually communal close reading.  I love taking an aspect of writing – child narrators, say – and, with my students, working out: how does Joyce grow his narrator up from babyhood to schoolboy in that virtuosic page and a half?  Word by word, line by line, what is he doing, and how does he do it?  How does Roddy Doyle create the breathless effect of a ten-year-old narrating?  How does Seamus Deane attempt to capture what memory feels like to a child, or how does Henry James create Maisie’s consciousness?  What tense are they using, what point of view?  How might you learn from it?  My MA students tend to be on the receiving end of what’s obsessing me at any given time: for a while when I was writing Beggars it was Zadie Smith’s essay on “Two Paths for the Novel” and the artifice of memory as it’s so often presented in lyrical fiction, and the differences between fiction and memoir, and the question of how to write truly.  So my writing life doesn’t seem that separate or distinct from my own writing.

JG. Here at Listowel Writers’ Week we have a broad range of Literary Workshops which take place during the festival. Do you think you might like to direct one of our workshops in the future?

LC. I’d be delighted.  There’s something very heady and intoxicating about a week’s intensive workshops in an atmosphere like Writers’ Week.  You always come away as exhilarated as you are exhausted.  When you’re taking workshops – as a leader or participant – you’re somehow right at the heart of things.

JG. What advice would you give our emerging writers at Listowel Writers’ Week 2013?

LC. Stay up half the night having passionate discussions about writing.  Buy too many books.  Have that extra drink and throw yourself open to the possibility of new lovers, new friends, new ways of seeing.

JG.  Thanks very much Lucy.  We hope you enjoy the festival as much as we look forward to welcoming you.

To book Lucy Caldwell’s event, please click here Lucy Caldwell

Robin Dunbar, anthropologist and Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at  the University of Oxford will  be joining us at 3.30pm on Friday 31 May at The Arms Hotel to explore a subject close to all our hearts – the psychology of romantic love. How and why do we fall in love?  He will also discuss his now famous “Dunbar’s Number,” (approximately 150) which is a measurement of the “cognitive limit”  of people we can maintain stable relationships with. While he’s long been an influential scholar, the Silicon Valley programmers who build social network sites such as Facebook are now looking to Dunbar’s ideas in an attempt to enhance the social dynamics of the online world.  Path, a mobile photo-sharing and messaging service is built explicitly on his theory, limiting its users to 150 friends.

I asked Robin about his fascinating theory and what it means for us in these times of increasing mobile technology and internet usage.

JG: Firstly, what exactly is evolutionary anthropology?

RD. The study of humans from an evolutionary point of view – our physical evolution from our common ancestor with the great apes 6 million years ago, human behaviour in an evolutionary context, human genetics.

JG. What makes us different from the apes and other animals?

RD. I think two thinks are critical – the ability to tell stories and, for better or worse, religion – both require us to be able to imagine a world that isn’t the one we physically inhabit, and that is something no other animals can do, because it requires psychological abilities that only a species with a brain as big as ours can do… so we are genuinely unique in this respect.

JG. You have famously said that 150 is the “cognitive limit” of the number of people with whom we can have meaningful relationships with. How did you come up with this number?

RD. We predicted it from an equation relating social group size and brain size in primates (monkeys and apes) by plugging human brain size into the equation.

JG. What about Facebook and Twitter? Should we limit ourselves to only 150 friends? This seems like a small number.

RD. Facebook has muddied the waters by labelling anyone you sign up as a “friend”, whether you know them or not. Friendships (which includes family) are relationships that have history and involve reciprocity and obligations; out beyond that we have acquaintances (people you know but wouldn’t necessarily invite home). All people are doing on facebook is adding in people whom we would count as acquaintances in everyday life.  That said, when Facebook did a complete trawl of their own database, the average number of friends was almost exactly 150 (with a most frequent number around 120-130) – in other words, most people sign up people they know in real life, but there is a long tail to the right where A FEW(!) people have very large numbers (more than 200). These are mostly professional users (poets, signers, bands, journalists) using it as a cheap fan club, with some boys in the middle (with say 200 -500 friends) who haven’t quite learned that friendship is more than just clicking ‘yes.’ Twitter is different, in that it is more like a lighthouse flashing away, whether a ship is passing or not; following isn’t a relationship (i.e. the twitterer doesn’t know who you are). However, recently someone did an analysis of twitter exchanges (i.e. followers of a particular account who send messages to each other within the account): these form a community of 100-200 individual typically.

JG. What about cyberbullying? A major problem which has emerged over the last few years, driving some children and adults to commit suicide. Do you think the lack of face-to-face contact is a factor in this and is it having a negative impact on our social relationships?

RD. Seriously bad problem. It’s a bit like road rage. In real life, seeing the whites of the eyes puts a break on hasty over-reaction, but when you are isolated from the person (i.e. in a car or on the internet) you don’t have that natural brake pedal to inhibit you.

JG. Can a person have a meaningful relationship with people they only converse with online?

RD. Yes and no. Online is not really that different to the pub, except that you can’t see the whites of the eyes. Your initial conversation in both is a kind of opening gambit, putting out feelers to see what the other person is like. If this ticks enough boxes, then you up the ante and see if it still works. There is no reason why you HAVE to do that face-to-face, but we aren’t sure that you can create lasting relationships if you don’t eventually meet up. Online relationships can develop into deep friendships, but there is always the risk that the person at the other end is putting on a persona, and isn’t who you think they are – which is why scams work. Once you have convinced yourself that they are the person you have created in your imagination, it is very difficult to undo that (which is why romantic scams on the internet work so well).

JG. Speaking of romantic relationships, do you think it’s a good idea to search for your perfect partner on online dating websites?

RD. Once upon a time, the village matchmaker or your friends and relations found you a partner, but that’s less easy these days given that we are so mobile. So the internet is an option. The only downside is that one just has to be more careful of scammers than one would have to be in everyday life. This is partly our fault: when we fall in love, we create a virtual image of the loved one, and that is crucial to allowing us to be persistent enough to get them to take an interest. We do the same on the internet, but we don’t have a reality check at the critical moment, and, as scammers are VERY careful to ensure, by the time we do meet them we are so hooked that Armagedon wouldn’t make us believe that our image isn’t the reality, no matter what reality says.

To book Robin Dunbar click here Robin Dunbar

Here at Listowel Writers’ Week we recognise that the future of the festival rests ultimately in the hands of our young people and children and in recognition of this fact, we’ve been putting all our efforts into developing the Children’s programme of events over the past few years. This year, for the first time, we’re thrilled to present a separate stand-alone Children’s Brochure. It looks fabulous, it’s colourful and it’s exciting! But more importantly, it’s packed full of stimulating and fun-filled events for children of all ages. Starring in this year’s line-up will be Sarah Webb, who will step back into Jane Austen’s time and host a “dress-up” mother & daughter afternoon.  Darren Shan, one of the country’s best known children’s authors will be in the Big Top on Sunday 2nd June, and always guarantees a super performance. There will be workshops given by Roisin Meaney, Alice D’Arcy and Lisa Fingleton on bookmaking, animation and creative writing. There will be treasure hunts, teddy bear picnics, circus performances and more - all of which will keep the little people entertained for the duration of the festival.

Here’s a taster of what’s in store:

Storytelling with Wendy Brosnahan and Hellen Bernard (Ages: 3-5 year olds)

Listowel’s unique Lartigue Monorail will be transformed by Wendy Brosnahan and Hellen Bernard and become “Larry Lartigue” for delightful creative stories about the life of this unique little train.

Baby Boogie (Ages: 1-4 year olds)

 45 minutes of high energy music, singing and movement for parents and their young children with nursery rhymes, musical instruments and songs.

CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory’s Stardome  (Suitable for all ages)

A mobile, inflatable Planetarium brings the night sky to you! As the night sky is lit up overhead, look up and be  transported to infinity and beyond. Shows run every hour – on the hour.

Book Launch by Maria Burke

 Maria lives in Cork with her husband and eleven year old son. She’s a writer, radio presenter and artist. Her love of storytelling started when she was working as a primary school teacher.  This is Maria’s first novel and the first in the Ark of Dun Ruah series. Her next book, Protectors of the Flame will be published in September 2013.

Bookmaking with the Happy Artist (Ages: 8-10 year olds)

Stimulating and fun creative opportunities for all ages to enjoy. Bookmaking, drawing, photography, animation and film.

Teddy Bear’s Picnic (Suitable for all ages)

 A fun get-together for children who enjoy books and reading. The Kerry School of Music Orchestra will provide entertainment and special guest Roisin Meaney will read from some favourite characters from the magical world of books.

 My Big Fat Bug Wedding

Celebrate diversity, with a musical tale of the wedding of a Chinese firefly to an Irish grasshopper, narrated by Charles Darwin.  This unique, colourful and fun show for all the family is performed by the Kerry-based IO Disability Arts Collective Disability Arts Group.

Ricky the Rapper (Ages: 11-13 year olds)

Ricky has been rapping for the past two years and writes songs about life events and how he got bullied as a child.  He’s 17 years old.

Interactive Writing Workshop with Author Sarah Webb (Ages: 10 – 16 year olds)

Literary Treasure Hunt with Billy Keane (Suitable for all ages)

Big Top Ghosties & Vampire Day with guests including bestselling children’s author Darren Shan

Operation Education is a new Listowel Writers’ Week Initiative which aims to create an entertaining, stimulating, second level programme in the convivial and fun setting of a world class literary festival and will feature the following:

•  Meet and Mingle with John Montague & Kevin McDermott

• The Freedom of Writing with Dave Lordan

O’ Laighleis Live with Ré Ó Laighléis (left)

• Inside the Teenage Mind with Deirdre Sullivan & Geraldine Meade

Calling all Second Level Teachers. Register you school today for Ireland’s first National Interactive Book Club to be launched in September 3013 by Minister for the Arts, Heritage & Gaeltacht Affairs, Jimmy Deenihan. Kick-starting in early October, the first book will be Holes by Louis Sachar.

In an imaginative collaboration with Fighting Words, Listowel Writers’ Week will host a series of Creative Writing Workshops in the atmospheric surroundings of the Cinemobile. Fighting Words is a creative writing centre established by Roddy Doyle and Sean Love.

Visit Operation Education link on www.writersweek.ie to check out our LIVE Unplugged interviews with child and teen authors.

For full details of these and all our children’s events click here Children’s Programme