23-30 April, 2017 - www.cuirt.ie - Cúirt International Festival of Literature
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23-30 April, 2017
www.cuirt.ie
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Welcome to Cúirt Contents
International Festival
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
of Literature
Official Opening 6 Début Panel 29
Cúirt Table Quiz 6 Conor O’Callaghan & A. L. Kennedy 30
Anne Kennedy Writers’ Salon and Residency 7 Digital Literature & Art:
www.cuirt.ie
In Person: World Poets 8 Interface as Creative Device 30
The 2017 Cúirt Festival aims to Launch: Song of Songs 2.0 8 Damon Galgut & Eimear McBride 31
excite and engage its audience and Seisiúin na Cúirte 9 Elaine Feeney & Josh Idehen 32
provide a platform for some of the Fruition 9 Claire-Louise Bennett & Mia Gallagher 33
most innovative and loved writers Found in Translation? Songs from a room: My Fellow Sponges 34
across venues in Galway City and France, Ireland and the legacy of Michel Déon 11 An Focal: Grá 35
County. Launch of Horseman, Pass by! 11 Dermot Healy: Writing the Sky 36
Each year the festival continues to grow: this year Film: Un taxi mauve / The Purple Taxi 11 Claire Hennessy, Shirley Anne McMillian
we are proud to introduce LABS as Gaeilge, a day of
Frédéric Vitoux 11 & Dave Rudden 37
workshops for children through Irish. There are two new
masterclasses in sports writing and writing for a young Launch: Rise 12 Jay Griffiths, Richard Hamblyn,
adult audience. The Anne Kennedy Memorial Lecture has
evolved to become a mentored residency, platforming Calasanctius College Book Launch 12 Gaia Vince & Paul Kingsnorth 38
and nurturing emerging poets. While growing bigger we The Sacrificial Wind 13 An interview with Rick O’Shea 39
still nurture our roots. Poetry readings open and close
the Town Hall Theatre programme. Established and Consensual 13 Sophie Hannah & Denise Mina 40
début writers are presented side by side. Cúirt/Over the Edge New Writing Showcase 14 Stephen Burt, Theresa Muñoz & Jacob Polley 41
On behalf of the Galway Arts Centre Board of Directors ROPES Launch 15 City Lit Talks Back 41
and the Cúirt team, we would like to thank all of the
Persona 15 Simon Armitage & Terrance Hayes 42
participating writers, the funding bodies, sponsors and
the Cúirt audience in city and county, in schools and David Butler, Yrsa Daley-Ward & Kerrie O’Brien 16 Bardic Brunch 43
theatres, in kitchens and libraries. It is the dedication of
Martina Evans, Vona Groarke & Mary O’Malley 17 Sara Baume, Jenni Fagan & Paul Kingsnorth 44
the audience that continues to support this festival into
its 32nd year. Booking Information Songs from a room: Sive 18 Fermata 45
Book online at: Merlin Coverley & Michael Winter 19 Far From Literature We Were Reared 46
Maeve Mulrennan, Programmer
www.cuirt.ie or www.tht.ie
Tara O’Connor, Manager Oisín Fagan & Ross Raisin 20 An Evening with William McCarthy 47
Paraic Breathnach, Producer
Box Office Jami Attenberg, Sinéad Gleeson & Cheryl Tan 21 Cúirt Labs 48
April 2017 Town Hall Theatre, Courthouse Square Spoken Word Platform 22 Workshops 52
Galway, Ireland
Ó Íochtar Mara – Saothar Chaitlín Maude 23 Pop-up Literature 54
00353 (0) 91 569777
No Childhood Back in Our Day 23 Exhibitions 55
Early Bird Tickets John Boyne & Kit de Waal 24 Library Events 56
Early bird tickets available until Tuesday 20 Launch: Poems for Patience 26 Plaque Unveilings 58
March. (Early bird price does not apply to
Simon Armitage & Terrance Hayes). Songs from a room: Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola 27 Poetry Ireland and Cúirt Bursary 58
Pete Mullineaux, Mark Wagenaar & William Wall 28 Day by day 62
Daytime Readings Ticket Map 64
Bundle
Attend 4 daytime readings (before 8.00pm)
for the price of 3.
Cover design by Marielle MacLeman
4 5
Official Opening Anne Kennedy
Writers’ Salon
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Venue Hotel Meyrick
and Residency
Date Sunday 23 April
Time 7.00pm
Price Free
www.cuirt.ie
Come along to the official opening of Cúirt 2017. Be entertained
with music from Galway Youth Jazz Orchestra and the musings of The Writers’ Salon is an afternoon of poetry readings and audience
Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre
some special guest speakers. participation. Each guest will read from their work, followed by a panel
discussion about writing. The audience is invited to join the discussion with Date: Monday 24 April
Refreshments are provided and a great night is guaranteed! an opportunity for questions. The Salon is a relaxed environment where
Time: 2.00pm
writers from all walks of life can discuss aspects of writing with a panel of
published writers who will share their pearls of wisdom. Price: €5
The Anne Kennedy Residency was developed to support writers by creating Refreshments provided.
a platform to mingle in a social arena, and promote the exchange of ideas,
guidance and encouragement. Sarah Clancy has been acting as a mentor to
emerging writer Daniel Mulcahy as part of the Anne Kennedy Residency.
The event is open to everyone, and will particularly benefit those pursuing a
career in writing.
Jenna Clake is studying for a PhD in Antony Huen is a PhD student at
Creative Writing at the University of the University of York, researching
Birmingham; her research focuses contemporary poets’ appropriation
on the feminine and feminist Absurd of artistic material. His recent
in twenty-first century British and publications include a poem in Cha:
American poetry. She is the Arts and An Asian Literary Journal, a book
Poetry Editor of the Birmingham review in Eborakon, and a chapter
Journal of Literature and Language. in the edited volume, Exploring
Her debut collection is forthcoming Creative Writing (Cambridge
from Eyewear in 2017. Scholars Publishing). He is one of
Eyewear Publishing’s Best New
Sarah Clancy is a page and British and Irish Poets 2017.
performance poet from Galway. She
has published three collections of Daniel Mulcahy is a third year
poetry, the most recent The Truth student of Creative Writing at NUI
and Other Stories from Salmon Galway. Recently he has had poems
Poetry in 2014. Her work has been published in The Galway Review,
published in the US, Canada, the UK with more work set to be published
and in translation in Mexico, Poland, in the near future. Daniel earnestly
Slovenia and Italy. She is slowly hopes to continue to develop as a
Join us for a night of quizzing and craic in the Galway
working on a new collection. writer, performer and human being
Venue The Galway Arms for as long as he is able.
Arms with Quiz Masters Vinnie Browne and Gerry
Elaine Cosgrove’s work has been
Date Thursday 06 April
published in The Stinging Fly Paul Nash studied at Trinity College
Hanberry overseeing proceedings on the night. Time 8.00pm Magazine (Featured Poet, Winter
2015), The Penny Dreadful, The
Dublin, where he received a PhD
in modern literature and film.
Price €40 per table of four Bohemyth, and New Binary Press. After contract lecturing in TCD,
It promises to be a night of fun and entertainment with (Includes a complimentary drink and finger food) Elaine was selected for the 2017 Maynooth University, and the
Fifty Best New British & Irish Poets National College of Art and Design
some friendly rivalry thrown in to keep us on our toes! Anthology (Eyewear Publishing),
and longlisted for the 2016 London
he taught in London state schools.
He returned to Dublin during the
Magazine Poetry Prize. Her debut Celtic Tiger to work in a software
collection of poetry will be published company. He is also an active
by Dedalus Press in 2017. songwriter and has written and
self-published a novel Whispering
Crates.
6 7
In Person: Seisiún na
World Poets Cúirte
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Launched at Cúirt, In Person: World Poets is an international collaboration
between Bloodaxe Books and award-winning film-maker Pamela Robertson-
Pearce, who worked with Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley on this sequel to In
Person: 30 Poets (2008), the world’s first poetry DVD-anthology. Her style
Venue:
Date:
Nun’s Island Theatre
Monday 24 April
Seán Tyrrell
of filming combines directness and simplicity, sensitivity and warmth – the Time: 5.30pm
www.cuirt.ie
The Cúirt session this year will celebrate musician Seán Tyrrell. Seán has been
perfect combination for the intimate readings by poets from around the Venue: The Crane Bar
Price: €5 recording music for over forty years. During the 1960s, he performed with
world included in this highlights film. It’s as if the poets were sitting in a room Johnny Mulhearn, Davy Graham, Rambling Jack Elliot and Paul Simon. Date: Monday 24 April
with you, giving informal, one-to-one readings to you in person. In 1992 he produced a traditional operatic version of Cúirt An Mheán Oíche
(The Midnight Court) by Brian Merriman, which was regarded by critics as the Time: 8.00pm
This hour-long film features a selection from the nine hours of footage on In hit of Galway Arts Festival. In 1994 his first solo project Cry of a Dreamer was Price: €10/€8
Person: World Poets. All of the poems are included in the book which comes released worldwide and voted Best Folk Album of the Year by Folk Roots and
with three DVDs. The project covers poets from many parts of the world, Hotpress. He has performed at major festivals and concert halls and on TV
including America, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Guyana, and radio in Ireland, England, Europe, Australia and the USA.
India, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, the Netherlands,
Pakistan, Poland, Romania and Sweden, as well as from Britain and Ireland. Seán will be joined by Ronan Browne, Johnny Mulherne, Liam Lewis, Steve
Hanks and Fergus Feeley.
Pamela Robertson-Pearce’s films include IMAGO: Meret Oppenheim (1996), winner of
the Swiss Film Board’s Prize for Outstanding Quality and the Gold Apple Award at the
Fregoli presents
National Educational Film and Video Festival in America. Bloodaxe editor and founder
Neil Astley’s many books include the Staying Alive trilogy of anthologies.
Fruition: A New
Book Launch:
Plays Project
Song of Songs Last October Fregoli Theatre released an open call for short original plays,
Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre
2.0: New & Selected
five pieces from four new writers were selected. These works were selected
for brilliantly conceived characters, imaginative use of language, and the Date: Monday 24 April
potential to create a world that an audience can become immediately
immersed in. We are very excited to debut the following five pieces for Time: 8.30pm
Poems by Kevin Higgins performance. The performance of all five pieces is approximately 70 minutes,
and suitable for those aged 14 years plus.
Price: €10 / €8
Find me in Spring Wristbands The Streets are Ours
Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems is published by Salmon and by Rory O Sullivan by Orla McGovern by Robert Higgins
Venue: The House Hotel Billy Duffy, a 10 year old aspiring Smuggling cans, messers and banter Two ageing boy racers gather in
includes a substantial number of new poems as well as selections from his six
previous poetry collections. Date: Monday 24 April hunter with an overactive at the gate - all part of a normal day the car park of a local Tesco on the
imagination, sees his father throw for Jimmy and Jono, two bouncers. evening their old friend is due to
Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He teaches Time: 7.30pm the body of a rotten deer off a cliff. But for Jono, today is different. return from abroad.
poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute,
Price: Free Or so he was told it was a deer. Today is when there is no way to
and is Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway Summer School. Kevin has published What repercussions can a child’s keep a lid on it.
four collections of poetry with Salmon, The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), Frightening New misunderstanding bring?
Furniture (2010), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), and his best-selling first collection, The
Boy With No Face (2005), which was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Tick Tock
Collection by an Irish poet. His poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Afterimage by Orla McGovern
Modern Irish Poetry and features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade by Jonathon Ryan A mother and daughter with a
–New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred
A window, a sink, a bookshelf, three strained relationship. A realisation
Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, April 2014). A collection of
Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published by Salmon Poetry items taken for granted, three of time. A last chance to speak in
in 2012 and 2016 - The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in items that dictate three characters. between the moments.
early 2016. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most read Afterimage is a short exploration of
living poet in Ireland.” the small victories, the big losses and
the surreality in between.
8 9This year Cúirt, in collaboration with the French Also on Tuesday Conference: Found Film: Un taxi mauve /
Embassy and NUI, Galway, pays tribute to the
memory of Michel Déon, renowned French 11.00am Pop-up with Miquel in Translation? France, The Purple Taxi
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin:
writer, and resident of Tynagh, Co. Galway from Ireland and the legacy of Venue: An Taibhdhearc
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Bell, Book and Candle
Date: Tuesday 25 April
the late 1960s until his death on 28 December 3.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Michel Déon Time: 4.00pm
2016. In recognition of his major contribution to Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Venue: Moore Institute Seminar Room,
The Dough Bros Price: Free
French literature, and of his generosity to NUIG, Hardiman Research Building, NUI Galway
the Galway City Library and other local bodies, 4.00pm Paul Durcan Plaque Date: Tuesday 25 April Director: Yves Boisset. Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Fred
Astaire, Philippe Noiret, Peter Ustinov, David Kelly, Niall
the events organised for Tuesday, 25 April are Unveiling: Grattan Road
www.cuirt.ie
Time: 9.30am Buggy et al. Filmed in the west of Ireland in 1977, based
dedicated to his memory. 4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Price: Free on the 1973 novel by Michel Déon.
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: The film rapidly became a point of reference for the
Michel Déon To register email karen@cuirt.ie French vision of Ireland, like Man of Aran or The Quiet
Sonny Molloy’s
Michel Déon was born in Paris in 1919. He began studying law there in 1937, but was Man. Against a backdrop of magnificent scenery and
mobilised during WW2. In 1942, he remained in the free zone, returning to Paris in 1944, Speakers are: Sarah Berthaud (on theoretical aspects of local life, it recounts the drama which brings together an
where he worked as a journalist and began his first novel. In the following decades he 7.00pm Placing The Word translation), Marie Blom (on translating humour in Roddy assortment of individuals, including the French narrator,
continued to write, while frequently living abroad. From 1963 to 1968, he lived in Greece, Exhibition Opening: Black Doyle’s writing), Gavin Bowd (on translating Michel who for various reasons find themselves in a remote part
but eventually settled in Tynagh, Co. Galway with his wife and children. A member of Gate Cultural Centre Houellebecq), and Clíona Ní Ríordáin (on translating
the Académie française since 1978, he is the author of more than 50 works, which have of Ireland.
received many prizes, among them the Prix Interallié for Les poneys sauvages (1970) and Michel Déon).
the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française for Un taxi mauve (1973).
He leaves an enduring literary legacy as one of the leading voices of the ‘lost generations’ Book Launch: Frédéric Vitoux
of the 1930s and 1940s and as an independent observer of late twentieth-century society. Venue: An Taibhdhearc
Michel Déon est né en 1919, à Paris. En 1937 il s’inscrit en droit à Paris, mais est mobilisé
Horseman, Pass by! Date: Tuesday 25 April
au début de la deuxième guerre mondiale. Après 1942 il reste en zone sud jusqu’en 1944,
puis regagne Paris où il travaille comme journaliste et prépare son premier roman. À by Michel Déon, translated Time: 8.00pm
by Clíona Ní Ríordáin
partir de 1946 il séjourne souvent à l’étranger et publie régulièrement des romans. De
1962 à 1968 il habite en Grèce, mais finit par s’installer à Tynagh, Co. Galway avec sa
Price: €10/€8
femme et leurs deux enfants. Membre de l’Académie française depuis 1978, il est l’auteur
de plus de 50 ouvrages et a reçu de nombreux prix, parmi lesquels le Prix Interallié pour Venue: Aula Maxima, NUI Galway The reading will be in French, with translation of extracts
Les poneys sauvages (1970) et le Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française pour Un available, and discussion in French and English.
taxi mauve (1973). Date: Tuesday 25 April
Time: 2.00pm French writer, novelist and essayist, Frédéric Vitoux was born in
Il nous laisse un héritage littéraire de grande valeur, et est maintenant considéré comme Paris in 1944. In addition to his novels and biographical writing, he
l’une des voix les plus importantes des ‘générations perdues’ des années 1930 et 40. Price: Free was for many years a film critic and literary columnist. In 2001, he
was elected to the Académie française. His work has been widely
These reflective essays about Déon’s life and experiences translated, and has won many awards, including the Goncourt
Prize for Biography for his Vie de Céline (1988), and the Grand Prix
in the west of Ireland describe the colourful and varied du Roman de l’Académie française for La Comédie de Terracina
personalities that he came across since he and his family (1994). Recent publications include Jours inquiets dans l’île Saint-
settled there in the mid 1970s. From his friendship with Louis (2012), Les Désengagés (2015), set in Paris in May ’68, and
John McGahern and Ulick O’Connor to Tim, the sturdy Au Rendez-vous des Mariniers (Fayard, 2016).
old postman who prefers his wind-blown country round
to retirement in sunny California, Horseman, Pass By! is Frédéric Vitoux. Écrivain français, romancier et essayiste, né
alive with fascinating characters and encounters. le 19 août 1944. Longtemps critique cinématographique et
chroniqueur littéraire à l’hebdomadaire Le Nouvel Observateur. Élu
The book launch will be accompanied by a display of
à l’Académie française en 2001. Ses ouvrages ont été traduits en
Michel Déon’s books. une dizaine de langues, et ont été couronnés de nombreux prix, y
compris le prix Goncourt de la Biographie pour La Vie de Céline
“Horseman, pass by! is filled with nostalgia, humour, colour, (1988) et le Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française pour La
and ghosts. It is a declaration of love for Ireland”. Comédie de Terracina (1994). Parmi ses derniers ouvrages parus :
Le Magazine Littéraire Jours inquiets dans l’île Saint-Louis (2012), Les Désengagés (2015)
et Au Rendez-vous des Mariniers (Fayard, 2016).
“Our lives would be all the richer if we read a
Michel Déon novel”.
William Boyd
“Déon is an outrageous storyteller”.
Times Literary Supplement
10 11Book Launch:
The Sacrificial
Rise Wind
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
by Elaine Feeney
by Lorna Shaughnessy
“An absolutely extraordinary poet…
Directed by Max Hafler
in the world of Kate Tempest meets
Warsan Shire and we’ll throw in Tom “Blame is a coin passed down from hand to hand: it
www.cuirt.ie
Venue: The Town Hall Studio
McIntyre for the rural influences. starts off hidden in the fists of powerful men” Date: Tuesday 25 – Fri 28 April
Brilliant.” RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena
This spoken word poetry performance event uses movement, rhythm, Time: 8.00pm
Elaine Feeney is an award-winning poet. She was born in Galway masks, words and music. It explores the blame game, the engine and
in 1979. She has published three collections of poetry, Indiscipline machinery of war, and examines our seeming helplessness in the wake of Price: €10/€8
(Maverick Press, 2007), Where’s Katie? (Salmon Poetry, 2010) and The catastrophe, through the characters surrounding the start of the Trojan
Radio was Gospel (Salmon Poetry, 2013). Most recently, her work
has appeared in Stonecutter Journal (US), The Wide Shore (US), The
War. The audience becomes judge and jury not just of the characters Lorna Shaughnessy was born in Belfast
Stinging Fly (IRE), The Manchester Review (UK), Solas Nua (US), New but of themselves too. This project emerged from a section in Lorna and lives in Co. Galway. She has published
three poetry collections, Torching the
Writing (Canada), Pilgrimage Magazine (US) and Oxford Poetry Shaughnessy’s most recent work, Anchored, published by Salmon.
Brown River, Witness Trees and Anchored
(UK). Elaine was recently commissioned by Liz Roche Company (Salmon Poetry), and a chapbook, Song
to write the poetic narrative to Wrongheaded, a feature stage The performers are Catherine Denning, Michael Irwin and Orla Tubridy. of the Forgotten Shulamite (Lapwing). Her
production accompanied by a film directed by Mary Wycherley. It work was selected for the Forward Book of
premiered at the 2016 Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival. The piece is Venue: Bite Club
A post-performance discussion will take place on Thursday, 27 April. Poetry, 2009.
included in her new collection, Rise (Salmon Poetry, 2017).
Date: Tuesday 25 April
Max Hafler is a theatre tutor, director and
Time: 6.00pm writer who now specialises primarily in
Michael Chekhov Technique and Voice. His
Price: Free book, Teaching Voice, was published by
Nick Hern Books in 2016. He recently set up
Chekhov Training and Performance Ireland
Calasanctius
to make the West of Ireland a hub for the
acting technique.
College
Book Launch
Centre for Drama, Theatre and
Performance, NUI Galway present
Consensual
by Evan Placey
At Calasanctius College the students have come
Venue: Calasanctius College, Oranmore
together to launch their annual book, a collection of their
skills, talents, and creative ability. Here you will find fact Date: Tuesday 25 April
and fiction, art and photography, poetry and opinion.
Time: 7.00pm
Our book explores the experiences of adolescents as
they move towards adulthood. These young artists bring Price: Free An explosive play that explores what happens when buried secrets catch up Venue Nun’s Island Theatre
a clarity and freshness to familiar artistic forms that must with you. Diane, Head of Year 11, hasn’t seen Freddie since that night six
be seen to be believed. years earlier when he was fifteen. She thinks he took advantage of her. He Date Tuesday 25 - Sat 29 April
thinks she groomed him for months. Neither is sure. But when it comes to
Time 8.00pm
Music, art and readings will complement each other sex and consent, are there really any blurred lines?
in a fantastic evening of creativity, refreshments and Price €14/€12
entertainment. Directed by Andrew Flynn.
12 13Also on Wednesday
11.00am Pop-up with Miquel
Cúirt/ ROPES
Over the Edge Launch
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin:
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
New Writing
11.00am Reading & Discussion with
Michael Winter: Ballybane Library ROPES is a Literary and Arts Journal produced solely by the students of the Venue: Town Hall Theatre Bar
Masters in Literature and Publishing at NUI Galway. Launching at Cúirt, all
12.00pm Kitchen Reading with proceeds will be in aid of Pieta House, a nationwide charity that focuses on Date: Wednesday, 26 April
Showcase
Alan McMonagle & Kerrie helping those dealing with issues such as suicide and self-harm.
Time: 5.00pm
O’Brien: Tuam
www.cuirt.ie
The theme of this year’s publication is ‘Silence’ and features work from Price: Free
writers such as Brian Leyden and Kevin Higgins. ROPES 2017 also contains an
12.00pm Kitchen Reading with
array of exciting art, photography, prose, poetry and drama from new and up
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan & Pete
and coming artists and writers.
Mullineaux: Ballinasloe Highlighting emerging talent in
poetry and fiction, The New Writing Venue: Town Hall Theatre
1.00pm Little John Nee Plaque Showcase features readers and Date: Wednesday 26 April
Unveiling: Threadneedle Road winners from the popular Over the
Edge Literary Series in Galway and Time: 3.00pm
3.00pm Pop-up with Miquel the 2017 Cúirt New Writing Prize. Price: Free
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: This event is a firm favourite amongst
Sheridans Cheesemongers Cúirt audiences, and one not to be
missed. Winners of the 2017 Cúirt New Writing Prize (to be announced on
4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel www.cuirt.ie) will join the showcase line-up to read their winning entries.
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Anam Theatre presents
PERSONA
Rena Garrett is a graduate of the MA
Dock 1 Seafood Bar & Restaurant in Writing from NUI Galway. She has
participated in poetry workshops at Galway
8.00pm The Sacrificial Wind: Arts Centre. Her poetry has been published
Town Hall Theatre Studio in The Moth Magazine, and Spontaneity.
org and was shortlisted for the Galway
Rape Crisis Centre Short Story Competition
8.00pm Consensual: 2016. Rena was a Featured Reader at the
Nun’s Island Theatre August 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading.
Joyce’s Eileen P Keane is from North Connemara,
Love Letters
Co. Galway. She has completed the MA in
Writing at NUI Galway. Eileen has written
and performed for theatre and stage and her
to Nora
CD Spaces was released in 2014. She writes
poetry, memoir and non-fiction. Her poems
appear in the latest edition of The Galway
Venue Tigh Nora, Cross St. Review and her Flash Fiction was shortlisted
To be or not to be, that is the question…
for Allingham Festival 2015. Eileen was a Venue Nun’s Island Theatre
Date Wed 26 to Friday 28 April Featured Reader at the March 2016 Over The
Edge: Open Reading. When the outside world and her roles within it become too much to bear, Date Wed 26 to Friday 28 April
Time 3.00pm actress Elizabeth Harker ceases to speak and move. Declared physically and
Time 6.00pm
Price Free mentally sound, she is sent to her doctor’s seaside cottage where she is
looked after by Alma. A close and complex relationship develops between Price €10/€8
Approximately 20 minutes duration Una Mannion teaches Performing Arts the two women which crosses the bounds of sanity, identity and reality.
in IT Sligo. In March 2016, her poetry
A theatrical reading of James Joyce’s was published in the New Irish Writing This work-in-progress adaption from Anam Theatre explores transposing the
love letters to Nora Barnacle. page in The Irish Times and her fiction famously disintegrative form of Ingmar Bergman’s radical, minimalist classic
was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing
Prize. She won the Yeats’ Society’s Seamus
from the cinema to theatre and pursues its urgent question of whether it is
When the young Joyce met Nora possible to cease to be without ceasing to live.
Heaney Prize and came second place
in 1904 it marked the beginning of in Dromineer Flash Fiction 2015. She has
a long relationship that eventually been shortlisted in the Listowel, Bridport, Adapted by Sarah O’Toole from Ingmar Bergman’s 1965 screenplay
led to marriage and continued Fish Memoir and other competitions. She Design by Elaine Mears
until Joyce’s death. Joyce’s love recently completed an MA in Writing at NUI
letters give an insight into this Galway. She lives in Sligo with her husband
intense, intimate and often inspiring and three children. Una was a Featured
Reader at the May 2016 Over The Edge:
relationship.
Open Reading.
14 15David Butler, Martina Evans,
Yrsa Daley-Ward Vona Groarke &
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
& Kerrie O’Brien Mary O’Malley
Venue: Town Hall Theatre
Venue Town Hall Theatre
www.cuirt.ie
Date: Wednesday 26 April
Date Wednesday 26 April
Time: 8.30pm
Time 6.30pm
Price: €16/€13
Price €10/8
David Butler is a novelist, poet and playwright. His most recent novel City of Martina Evans was born in County Cork and has lived in London for 28 years.
Dis (New Island) was shortlisted for the 2015 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. She is a poet and novelist, the author of eleven books of prose and poetry.
In 2016 David received a Per Cent Literary Arts Commission to compose Her awards include the Premio Ciampi International Prize for Poetry. Burnfort
a poetry sequence for Blackrock Library. Literary prizes include the Fish Las Vegas was short-listed for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2015. The
Short Story contest, Poetry Ireland’s Ted McNulty prize, and the Brendan Windows of Graceland: New and Selected Poems was published by Carcanet
Kennelly award for poetry. All the Barbaric Glass, David’s second poetry in July 2016.
collection, was published by Doire press in March. All the Barbaric Glass
consists of poems written over a five-year period which interrogate nature “I work mainly with dramatic monologues
—specifically the sea — in order to broach such perennial human concerns as as I am interested in the human voice as an
ageing, loss and love, as well as the prevalence of social media with its (mis)
representations of the contemporary world. instrument. Working with memory, history and
dreams, I am interested in creating cinematic
Kerrie O’ Brien is a writer from Dublin. She has won multiple awards for her
poetry and prose and featured in Miscellany, RTÉ Arena, The Stinging Fly, effects.”
Poetry Ireland Introductions Series, Cyphers, The Irish Times and Hennessy
New Irish Writing among others. She was the Editor of Looking At The Stars, Vona Groarke has published ten titles with Gallery Press, including seven
an anthology of Irish writing which raised over €21,000 for the Dublin Simon poetry collections, the latest being Selected Poems (2016). Her most recent
Community. She has given talks on art and poetry in the National Gallery publication is a book-length essay on art frames, Four Sides Full, which
of Ireland and has spoken about literary activism in universities and literary was the Book on One on RTÉ Radio 1 in January 2017. Her poems have
festivals. Illuminate is her debut collection of poetry and was made possible recently appeared in The New Yorker, Threepenny Review, The Guardian and
by a literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. It was chosen as a Poetry Review. A former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, current selector
New Statesman Book of the Year by Sebastian Barry and an Irish Times Book for the UK’s Poetry Book Society and a member of Aosdána, she
of the Year by Joseph O’ Connor. teaches poetry in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester.
“My poems are raw and powerful reflections on Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara. She served on the council of Poetry
lineage, faith and love which explore the concept Ireland and was on the Committee of Cúirt International Poetry Festival
for eight years. She has published seven books of poetry, the most recent
of oneness and the transcendent nature of art and Valparaiso arising out of her residency on the national marine research
creativity.” ship. Playing the Octopus is her latest book of poems. She is working on
a memoir of childhood, as well as essays on place. She is a member of
Yrsa Daley-Ward is an actor, writer and poet of mixed West Indian and West Aosdána and has won a number of awards for her poetry. She writes for
African heritage, born and raised in Lancashire and now living in London. RTE Radio and broadcasts her work regularly. She was the 2016 Arts Council
Drawing heavily on her own experiences, Yrsa interweaves each discipline to Writer-in- Residence at University of Limerick.
fuse poetry with theatre, music and storytelling and has been writing for as
long as she can remember. Her debut collection of poetry and prose, bone,
is available on Amazon. Yrsa has performed her work at several theatre and
performance spaces in London including the Soho and Lyric theatre, Rich Mix
and the Albany. Her poetry has also been exhibited at the Tate Modern. She
has worked in South Africa in conjunction with The British Council in Cape
Town and Johannesburg.
16 “I tell stories. Some tall, some dark.” 17Also on Thursday
10.00am Poetry workshop with Songs from a Merlin Coverley
Room: Sive & Michael Winter
Martina Evans: Hotel Meyrick
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
11.00am Pop-up with Miquel
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin:
Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop Sive is a songwriter and multi- Merlin Coverley is the author of six books: London
instrumentalist with a voice that Venue: The King’s Head Writing, Psychogeography, Occult London,
12.30pm Lindsay J. Sedgwick “sweeps along displaying folk and Date: Thursday 27 April Utopia, The Art of Wandering, and South. He lives in
on Writing for TV & Film: GMIT jazz influences with the confidence London. Moving between geography and mythology,
CCAM of one who knows.” Her unique Time: 1.00pm literature and history, South is the first book to look
www.cuirt.ie
sound weaves together her love for at all things Southern in one volume. It examines the
Price: €10/€8
1.30pm Screenwriting workshop the craft of song writing with her South as a symbol of freedom and escape, the South
with Lyndsay Sedgwick: GMIT enthusiasm for experimentation and as the location of Northern visions of Utopia, and the
CCAM intricate arrangements. South as the imagined site of decadence, poverty and
backwardness. From Tahiti to the streets of Peckham,
2.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Sive released her debut album to critical acclaim in 2012 and since then from Naples to New Orleans, Merlin Coverley’s brilliant
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: has toured extensively across Ireland, The UK, Europe and New Zealand, and wide-ranging study throws light on how and why the
Galway University Hospital sharing stages with the likes of Kila, Mick Flannery, John Spillane and idea of the South, in all its forms, has come to exert such
Gemma Hayes. Her second album The Roaring Girl will be released in a powerful hold on our imaginations.
3.00pm Joyce’s letters to Nora: April.
Tigh Nora “My work explores the relationship
“Keeps the toes tapping and both ears alert. between places, both real and Venue: Town Hall Theatre
4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel
Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin:
Brilliant stuff. Sive is a real find.” imagined, and those who write about Date: Thursday 27 April
Jackie Hayden, Hot Press
Tigh Neachtain Time 1.00 pm
them, especially in respect to my own
city, London. I am also interested in Price €10/€8
6.00pm Persona:
Nun’s Island Theatre the relationship between walking and
6.00pm Sports Writing workshop writing, and in the literary tradition Michael Winter has published two collections of stories,
with Gerard Siggins: Hotel which this has inspired.” five novels, and one work of non-fiction. He has won
Meyrick the CBC short story contest and is the only writer ever
to win the Notable Author award, conferred by the
8.00pm The Sacrificial Wind: Writers Trust. His novel Minister Without Portfolio was a
Town Hall Theatre Studio Canada Reads finalist and he’s been twice nominated for
the Giller Prize. His most recent book, Into the Blizzard,
8.00pm Consensual: sets out to retrace the steps of the Newfoundland
Nun’s Island Theatre Regiment during the First World War. He divides his time
between Toronto and Newfoundland.
10.00pm Festival Club:
Hotel Meyrick “In June a few years ago I set out to
visit some of the World War One
battlefields of Europe – the slope
and valley and river and plain that
the Newfoundland Regiment trained
on, and fought over and through and
under.”
Part unconventional history, part memoir-travelogue,
part philosophical inquiry, Michael Winter uniquely
captures the extraordinary lives and landscapes, both
in Europe and at home, scarred by a war that is just
now disappearing from living memory. In subtle and
surprising ways, he also tells the hidden story of the very
act of remembering – of how the past bleeds into the
present and the present corrals and shapes the past.
18 19Oisín Fagan & Jami Attenberg, Sinéad
Ross Raisin Gleeson & Cheryl Tan
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Oisín Fagan is a writer and activist. He has previously been published in The Venue: Galway Arts Centre Jami Attenberg is The New York Times best-selling author of five novels, Venue: Town Hall Theatre
Stinging Fly, New Planet Cabaret and Young Irelanders and his work has including The Middlesteins and Saint Mazie. She has contributed essays
featured at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. In 2016, he won the inaugural Date: Thursday 27 April about sex, urban life, and food to The New York Times Magazine, The Date: Thursday 27 April
Penny Dreadful Novella Prize for The Hierophants. Hostages, published by Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Lenny Letter. She lives in Brooklyn,
Time: 5.00pm Time: 6.30pm
New Island, is his first collection. He is a recipient of the Literature Bursary New York.
www.cuirt.ie
Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. Price: €10/€8 Price: €10/€8
Powerfully intelligent and wickedly funny, All Grown Up delves into the
psyche of a flawed but mesmerising character. Readers will recognise
“The stories in Hostages are blends of histories, themselves in Jami Attenberg’s truthful account of what it means to be a
mythologies, revolutions, science fictions and 21st century woman, though they might not always want to admit it.
mysteries, all concerned with the possibility of “My books explore the
Sinéad Gleeson’s essays have appeared in Granta, Banshee, Winter Papers, intimate folkways and
communities to bring about change, and the ability gorse and Autumn. Her short story ‘Counting Bridges’ was longlisted at
of normal people to care for others under extreme the 2016 Irish Book Awards. In 2015, she edited The Long Gaze Back: an rhythms of Singapore,
Anthology of Irish Women Writers, which won Best Irish Published Book at where I grew up, with a
circumstances.” the 2015 Irish Book Awards, and in 2016, The Glass Shore: Short Stories by
Women Writers from the North of Ireland, which won in the same category. focus on the collision of
Ross Raisin was born in 1979 in West Yorkshire. His first novel, God’s Own She is currently working on a collection of non-fiction and also a novel. She old traditions and heady
Country was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for nine literary awards, presents The Book Show on RTE Radio 1.
including the Guardian First Book Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. modern materialism,
In 2009 Ross Raisin was named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based journalist and author of the new post-colonial gender
In 2013 he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British writers. He novel Sarong Party Girls, which was named one of Amazon’s 10 “Best Books
lives in London. A Natural delves into the heart of a professional football of the Month” for July 2016. A native of Singapore, she also wrote A Tiger and racial politics, as well
club: the pressure, the loneliness, the threat of scandal, the fragility of the In The Kitchen: A Memoir of Food & Family, and was editor of the fiction as the traditional role
body and the struggle, on and off the pitch, with conforming to the person anthology Singapore Noir. She was a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal,
that everybody else expects you to be. In Style magazine and Baltimore Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The of women -- specifically
New York Times and The Paris Review. Asian women -- in
society and how that is
changing.”
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
20 21Spoken Word Ó Íochtar Mara -
Platform Saothar Chaitlín Maude
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Venue Ionad Cultúrtha an
This exciting, high-energy event will showcase both poetry and short Venue The King’s Head Phiarsaigh, Rosmuc, Co. na Gaillimhe
fiction. Performers will have up to three minutes to present their
piece to a panel of three judges with MC Pete Mullineaux overseeing Date Thursday 27 April Date Thursday 27 April
proceedings. The top three participants will go on to perform at the
www.cuirt.ie
Time 6.30pm Time 7.00pm
Cúirt Showcase at Electric Picnic in September.
Price €6 Price €10/€8
Guest Performer to be announced.
Ba dhuine de phríomhfhilí a linne í
Open submissions are invited for the Spoken Word Platform and entry is
Caitlín Maude (1941 -1982), chomh
open to all. Your poem or fiction piece should take up to three minutes
maith le bheith ina hamhránaí sean-
to perform.
nóis, drámadóir, aisteoir, scríbhneoir,
oideachasóir agus gníomhaí polaitiúil.
Please submit to:
Déanann an taibheoir Caitríona Ní
Spoken Word Platform,
Chonaola míreanna as prós, filíocht
Galway Arts Centre,
agus amhráin Chaitlín a chur i láthair
47 Dominick Street,
ag 7pm Déardaoin 27 Aibreán 2017
Galway
in Ionad Cultúrtha an Phiarsaigh, Ros
or email petemullineaux@gmail.com by Thursday, 13 April.
Muc.
*Is i nGaeilge ar fad a bheidh an
taispeántas seo. (This event is in the Irish
language.)
No
Childhood
Back in our
Day Venue:
Date:
Róisín Dubh (upstairs)
Thursday 27 April
Time: 10.00pm
Price: €10/€8
An evening of song, poetry, social
history and tall tales with Seamus
Ruttledge, Martina Evans, Sarah-
Anne Buckley, Conor Montague and
special guests.
Tickets are available from the Town
Hall Theatre or www.roisindubh.net
22 23John Boyne &
Kit de Waal
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
“Long before we discovered that he had fathered A brother chosen. A brother left behind. And a
Venue: Town Hall Theatre
two children by two different women, one family where you’d least expect to find one.
Date: Thursday 27 April
in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have
www.cuirt.ie
Time 8.30pm
Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly
Price €16/€13 like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and
Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to give Jake to strangers. Since
Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore”. Jake is white and Leon is not.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell Evoking a Britain of the early eighties, My Name is Leon is a heart-breaking
him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? story of love, identity and learning to overcome unbearable loss. Of the
At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, and struggling with his sexuality at fierce bond between siblings. And how - just when we least expect it - we
a time where to be gay was to be a pariah, he will spend a lifetime coming to manage to find our way home.
know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and
ten will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more. Kit de Waal writes about forgotten and overlooked places, where the best
stories are found. Her debut novel My Name is Leon, a heart-breaking
John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of ten novels for story of love and identity, is a Times and international bestseller, and was
adults, five for young readers and a collection of short stories. Perhaps shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. Her prize-winning flash fiction
best known for his 2006 multi-award-winning book The Boy in the Striped and short stories appear in various anthologies. In 2016 she founded the Kit
Pyjamas, John’s other novels, notably The Absolutist and A History of de Waal Scholarship at Birkbeck University.
Loneliness, have been widely praised and are international bestsellers. In
2015, John chaired the panel for the Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious
literary award. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is his most ambitious novel yet.
24 25Also on Friday
10.00am Fiction workshop with
Launch Poems Songs from a
for Patience Room:
Jami Attenberg: Hotel Meyrick
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
12.00am Pop-up with Miquel
Barceló & Stephen Burt:
McDonagh’s Fish & Chip shop
Venue: University Hospital, Galway Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola
12.00pm Kitchen Reading with Date: Friday 28 April Lasairfhíona (pronounced Lah-sah-reena) is a singer/songwriter
Damon Galgut, Theresa Muñoz & Venue: The King’s Head
Time: 11.00am from Inis Oírr, the Aran Islands in the West of Ireland. Her debut
Jacob Polley: Galway City
www.cuirt.ie
album An Raicín Álainn (pronounced An Rackeen Ah-lyn) generated a Date: Friday 28 April
Price: Free very favourable response in Ireland and abroad. It was selected by Hot
1.00pm Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, writing Press music magazine as one of the best folk albums of 2002. Her second Time: 1.00pm
on Food: GMIT Library Poems for Patience is a long running programme established by Galway solo album released in 2005 appropriately called Flame of Wine, a literal Price: €10/€8
University Hospitals Arts Trust in which poems are displayed on the Arts translation of her name, was also very well received. Tracks from the
2.00pm Pop-up with Miquel corridor of the hospital and in waiting areas throughout the hospital and album were used on the award-winning BBC programme Coast. Her new
Barceló & Mary O’Malley: associated hospital units. album One Penny Portion demonstrates Lasairfhíona’s rare ability to sing
Galway City Library songs from an ancient Gaelic tradition while being equally at home with
In the past, the series has featured poems by leading Irish and contemporary songs.
3.00pm Joyce’s letters to Nora: international poets such as Seamus Heaney, Vona Groarke, Jane
Tigh Nora Hirschfield and Colette Bryce.
Since 2013 Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust runs an annual poetry ‘’One Penny Portion is a vibrant and subtle return of
4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel
competition. The 2017 winner will be introduced at the launch and will a major song stylist.’’
Barceló & Mary O’Malley:
read their winning poem. fRoots Music Magazine
The Quay’s Pub
6.00pm Persona: ‘It is great to be able to stop for a minute and ‘’A pure breath of everything that is beautiful about
Nun’s Island Theatre
forget everything and share in a silent way with the Ireland.”
world’ BBC Folk & Acoustic Reviews
8.00pm The Sacrificial Wind:
Town Hall Theatre Studio
‘Wonderful collection to ease the mind of even
8.00pm Consensual:
Nun’s Island Theatre the most impatient patient!’’
This year’s selection has been chosen by Yrsa Daly-Ward.
10.00pm Festival Club:
Hotel Meyrick
Yrsa Daley-Ward is a poet, actor and writer. Drawing heavily on her own
experiences, Yrsa interweaves each discipline to fuse poetry with theatre,
music and storytelling and has been writing for as long as she can
remember. Her debut collection of poetry and prose, bone, is available
on Amazon.
26 27Pete Venue:
Date:
Town Hall Theatre
Friday 28 April Début
Mullineaux, Panel
Time: 1.00pm
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Price: €10/€8
Mark Wagenaar Venue
Date
Town Hall Theatre
Friday 28 April
& William Wall Time 3.00pm
www.cuirt.ie
Price €10/€8
Originally from Bristol UK, Pete Mullineaux now lives in Galway and
works in development education. His first published poem, aged 13, Paula Cocozza is a staff feature Roisín O’Donnell was born in
was recorded on an album along with music by Ewan MacColl and writer at The Guardian and has Sheffield with family roots in
Peggy Seeger. He has been featured on RTE’s Arena and published covered everything from soccer Derry. Her stories have been
widely in Ireland, UK, USA as well as Spain, France, Japan & India. His to fashion to fourth-wave anthologised in The Long Gaze
four collections are: Zen Traffic Lights (Lapwing 2005) A Father’s Day (Salmon feminism. Her writing, which Back, Fugue, Young Irelanders,
Poetry 2008) Session (Salmon 2011) and most recently, How to Bake a has also appeared in Vogue, Unthology and The Glass Shore.
Planet (Salmon 2016). The Telegraph, the Independent, She has been shortlisted for
and the TLS, received the several international prizes,
“Pete Mullineaux’s poetry merges the personal and the global, 2013 David Higham Award. such as the Cúirt New Writing
while music and visual art are also recurring themes. Wry and philosophical, Paula lives in London with her Prize, the Pushcart Prize,
his work has been described by various reviewers as ‘tender & lyrical’, husband, two children, and a garden full of foxes. How the Forward Prize, and the
‘gorgeous and resonant’, ‘grimly funny’ and comparisons made with Brian to Be Human is her first novel. Brighton Prize. Wild Quiet is
Patten, Roger McGough and John Cooper-Clarke.” her first collection.
Lisa Harding completed an
Mark Wagenaar is the winner of the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2016 MPhil in Creative Writing at Amanda Reynolds teaches
winner of Red Hen Press’ Benjamin Saltman Prize, for his forthcoming book Trinity College. Her stories Creative Writing in Cheltenham,
Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining. His first two books, The Body Distances have been published in The where she lives with her family.
(A Hundred Blackbirds Rising), and Voodoo Inverso, won UMass Press’ Dublin Review and The Bath Close To Me is her debut novel.
Juniper Prize & U of Wisconsin Press’ Pollak Prize, respectively. His poems Short Story Anthology. She
have appeared in or are forthcoming from The New Yorker, 32 Poems, Field, has just been awarded a “Close To Me is a gripping
Southern Review, Image, & many others. He holds a PhD in English Literature DLR Professional Development psychological thriller about
from the University of North Texas & an MFA from the University of Virginia, Arts grant for her prose writing. secrets and lies, an incredibly
and this year he is serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Valparaiso Harvesting is her first novel and accomplished debut novel with
University. was inspired by her involvement with a campaign against a quality of prose that will keep
sex trafficking run by the Children’s Rights Alliance. the reader gripped from the
“Mark Wagenaar’s poems are brimful of the world, generous, fluid, packed first page.”
with an avid music, with praise and astonishment. In poem after poem, Alan McMonagle has written for radio, published two
Wagenaar renders a sense of ‘a still life with everything in the world,’ not in an collections of short stories, and contributed to many Rhea Boyden (Chair) has
attempt to freeze-frame the moment but in order to register everything in the journals in Ireland and North America. Ithaca is his first been published in the Irish
moment, in all its registers, as the moment passes.” novel. Times Magazine and had her
Documenta Art Show review
William Wall is the author of four novels, including This is the Country, “Compelling from start to finish. Read it.” published in Roll Magazine,
longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize; three collections of poetry; and Patrick McCabe New York. She is currently
two volumes of short stories, including his latest, Hearing Voices/Seeing collaborating with PHEVER.
Things (Doire Press). His work has won and been shortlisted for many prizes ‘‘Right from its remarkable opening sentence, this ie TV-Radio in Dublin on
including The Virginia Faulkner Award, The Patrick Kavanagh Award, the extraordinary debut had me hooked. A fierce, funny, on- various projects including the
National Book Award and the Hennessy Award. His work has been translated its-own-terms, beautiful, heartbreaker of a novel.” upcoming Irish Electronic Music
into many languages including Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Latvian. He Joseph O’Connor Awards 2017.
is the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the only European
recipient of the award.
“The stories in Hearing Voices/Seeing Things are inspired by overheard
conversations, chance phrases, isolated encounters and each story is a
brief, intense, confessional moment in a character’s life. These are stories of
ordinary people coping with an extraordinary world, a little lost and uncertain
of their future.”
28 29Conor O’Callaghan Damon Galgut
& A.L. Kennedy & Eimear McBride
Cúirt International Festival of Literature
Conor O’Callaghan is from Newry A.L. Kennedy is the author of 18 Damon Galgut was born in 1963 in Eimear McBride grew up in the
Venue: Town Hall Theatre Venue: Town Hall Theatre
in County Down, and now lives in books: 6 literary novels, 1 science Pretoria, South Africa, and published west of Ireland and studied acting
Manchester. He has published four fiction novel, one storybook for Date: Friday 28 April his first novel when he was 17 years at Drama Centre London. Her debut Date Friday 28 April
acclaimed poetry collections: The children, 7 short story collections old. In total he has published 8 novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
Time: 6.30pm Time 8.30pm
History of Rain (1993); Seatown and 3 works of non-fiction. She books, which have won and been took nine years to publish and
www.cuirt.ie
(1999); Fiction (2005); and The Sun was included in the Granta Best Price: €10/€8 shortlisted for numerous awards, subsequently received the Bailey’s Price €16/€13
King (2013). He also wrote the non- of Young British Novelists list on including two shortlistings for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Kerry
fiction book Red Mist: Roy Keane two occasions and has won various Man Booker Prize. He currently lives Group Irish Novel of the Year, the The writers
and the Football Civil War (2004). awards in various countries including in Cape Town. Goldsmiths Prize, Desmond Elliot will be
He lectures at Sheffield Hallam the 2007 Costa Award and the 2016 Prize and the Geoffrey Faber interviewed by
University in the UK and at Wake Heinrich Heine Preis. Her prose is “Damon Galgut’s work covers a variety Memorial Prize. Her short fiction JP O’ Malley,
Forest University in North Carolina. published in a number of languages. of themes and subjects, ranging from has appeared in Dubliners 100, The a freelance
Nothing on Earth is his first novel. She is also a dramatist for stage, the personal to the political. He is Long Gaze Back and on Radio 4. She journalist,
TV, film and radio. She is an essayist fascinated by isolated individuals at occasionally reviews for the Guardian, cultural critic,
It was a time when nobody called. and commentator in various UK and odds with history and themselves, TLS, New Statesman and New York and events
Early evening, the hottest August European publications and regularly often trapped in moral quandaries to Times Book Review. curator,
in living memory. A frightened girl reads her work on BBC radio. She which there is no clear solution. ” presently
bangs on a door. A man answers. occasionally writes and performs one “My writing is about finding ways to based in Budapest. He writes on
From the moment he invites her person shows and has worked as a make language best express the literature, culture, international
in, his world will never be the same stand up comedian. life of the body and the life of the politics, history, economics, and
again. Where is her family now? Is mind simultaneously. I’m particularly society. His work has appeared in a
she telling the truth? Can the man be “I was born in Dundee in the NE interested in sex, sexuality, women’s wide range of publications, including:
trusted? Beautiful and disturbing, her of Scotland. My work is both dark struggle for self-determination and The Irish Times, The Sunday
story – retold in his words – reaches and funny - something that I think modernism’s potential for pushing Independent, The Washington Post,
towards those frayed edges of both Scots and Irish people can the conversation about these The Observer, The Irish Examiner,
reality where each of us, if only once, understand. Life is both dark and subjects forward.” The Toronto Star, New African, and
glimpses something nobody will ever funny. I think art and literature can The Times of Israel.
explain. create places where humanity is able
to remember itself and the qualities
which keep it humane.”
Digital Literature & Art:
Interface as Creative Device
This panel discussion brings together different perspectives on digital
Venue Galway Arts Centre
creative practice, including literary authorship, art, publishing and criticism.
It focuses on how new media platforms and interfaces offer new possibilities Date Friday 28 April
in the production and reception of literature and art in the 21st century. The
session features digital poet Jason Nelson and digital artist Alinta Krauth as Time 5.00pm
well as practitioners and scholars from Ireland. Price Free
The event is supported by the Fulbright Commission of Ireland, the Irish
Research Council, the European Commission via Marie Curie Actions, and the
Moore Institute, NUI Galway.
Digital
dci Cultures
Initiative
30 31You can also read
