Durcan downunder - Irish poet Paul Durcan has won the Queensland’s 2007 Poet-in-Residence

The Dublin poet Paul Durcan has just been announced as the Queensland’s 2007 Poet-in-Residence as guest of the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts’ Poet-in-Residence. He is famous for his live performances of his work including his most recent work The Art of Life (2004). Among his previous works are, Greetings of Our Friends from Brazil (1999), A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems (1995), Daddy, Daddy (1990), which won the Whitbread Poetry Prize, The Berlin Wall Cafe (1985), which was selected the Poetry Book Society Choice, The Selected Paul Durcan (1982), and Endsville (1967). He is a member of Aosdána and lives in Dublin

how to read Joyce - Writing and Reading Finnegans Wake

I have been asked several times in the past by people who started out with Dubliners and by the time they got to Finnegans Wake had given up on Joyce completely. There is an art to reading Joyce and am glad to see that there is a lecture tonight in Dublin about just that:

The James Joyce Centre is very pleased to welcome
Mr Vincent Deane to speak on
"Writing and Reading Finnegans Wake"

Monday, 26 February 2007 at 6.30pm
35 North Great George's Street

Mr Deane is an independent researcher and Dublin Joycean. He was editor of the 'Finnegans Wake' Circular and is co-editor of The 'Finnegans Wake' Notebooks at Buffalo. For the National Library of Ireland's 2004 Joyce exhibition, Mr Deane contributed the "Sirens" installation, an interactive study of music in Ulysses, now on display at the Joyce Centre. Mr Deane is a world renowned expert on the variety of printed sources from which Joyce drew creative inspiration.

The David Cohen Prize for Literature 2007

Set up by David and Veronica Cohen in 1980 to support music and the arts, the David Cohen Prize for Literature, is worth 40,000 pounds for the winner. It is run every two years and was won previously by the Irish writer William Trevor in 1999. The biographer Michael Holroyd won the David Cohen Prize for Literature 2005. The idea behind the prize is to recognise the lifetime achievement of english-speaking writers.

The Limerick poet Seán Lysaght has won the O'Shaughnessy Award 2007

The Limerick poet Seán Lysaght has won the O'Shaughnessy Award 2007 from the University of St. Thomas Center for Irish Studies. he previous winners of the O'Shaughnessy Award are Eavan Boland, John F Deane, Peter Sirr, Louis de Paor, Moya Cannon, Frank Orsmby, Thomas McCarthy, Michael Coady, Kerry Hardie and Dennis O’Driscoll.
"a deserted stretch of beach
with its marram hair-piece, a slatey sky
and a sharp bouquet of sea-holly." Scarecrow (Gallery Press, 1998)

Irish Book Awards 2007

Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Tenderwire by Claire Kilroy
Winterwood by Patrick McCabe

Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year
Northabout by Jarlath Cunnane
In search of Iraq by Richard Downes
The Stolen Village by Des Ekin
Connemara: Listening to the Wind by Tim Robinson

Galaxy Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year
A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes
From Here to Maternity by Sinead Moriarty
Should Have Got Off at Sydney Parade by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

Club Energise Sport Irish Sports Book of the Year
Forza Italia by Paddy Agnew
Every Single Ball by Brian Corcoran
Dublin V Kerry by Tom Humphries
Back from the Brink by Paul McGrath

Irish Newcomer of the Year Award
Forget by Ruth Gilligan
Pack Up the Moon by Anna McPartlin
Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse by Philip O'Ceallaigh
The Goddess Guide by Gisele Scanlon

Eason Irish Published Book of the Year
Vanishing Ireland by Turtle Bunbury and James Fennell
Irish Times - Book of the 1916 Rising by Shane Hegarty & Fintan O'Toole
Tom Crean: An Illustrated Life by Michael Smith
Lifelines by Niall MacMonagle

RTE Radio 1's - The Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Awards
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Winterwood by Patrick McCabe
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
Q and A by Vikas Swarup
Terrorist by John Updike

The Dublin Airport Authority Irish Children's Book of the Year - Junior
Silly Mummy Silly Daddy by Marie Louise Fitzpatrick
The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers
Irish Tales of Mystery and Magic by Eddie Lenihan
I'm a happy hugglewug by Niamh Sharkey

The Dublin Airport Authority Irish Children's Book of the Year - Senior
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
Something Invisible by Siobhan Parkinson
Demon Thief by Darren Shan

Cecelia Ahern - Nomination by Irish Book Awards

The celebrity author, Cecelia Ahern, daughter of the current Irish Tasiseach Bertie Ahern has been niminated for Best Popular Fiction in this year’s Irish Book Awards for her current novel, A Place Called Here. The results will be revealed at Trinity College on March 15. She will have to combat some heavy competition from the likes of already long established Irish heavyweights as Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes who are also in the category for Galaxy Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year.

Ennis Book Club Festival

Another Irish literature festival to make an impact on the literary scene is the Ennis Book Club Festival on the 2-4 March 2007. The festival describes itself as " This is the Festival that Book Clubs and Book Lovers everywhere have been waiting for –You will enjoy poetry in the cosy cafes, readings in the many restaurants and shops, and drama on street corners as you wander through the narrow streets and lanes of Ennis."
Among the Irish writers attending the event are: Patrick McCabe, Edna O’Brien, Fergal Keane, Charlie Bird, Denis Cotter, Ré O Laighlís, Carlo Gébler, Michael Coady, Rita Ann Higgins, PJ Curtis, Dermot Healy, Mary O’Donnell, Mary O'Malley, Rosita Boland; Niall Williams, Evelyn Conlon, and Anne Enright.

The Irish writer Benedict Kiely has died

The Irish writer, Benedict Kiely, from Omagh, county Tyrone, has died. A well known novelist and broadcaster who was named Saoi of Aosdana in 1996 for his contribution to Irish literature. He died at the age of 87 at his home in Dublin on Feburary 9th. Among his more well knowen works were: Benedict Kiely, A Raid into Dark Corners and Other Essays (1999), Nothing Happens in Carmincross (1985), All the Way to Bantry Bay and Other Irish Journeys, Proxopera: A Tale of Modern Ireland (1977), Dogs Enjoy the Morning (1968), The Captain with the Whiskers (1960), There Was an Ancient House (1955), Land Without Stars (1946), and Countries of Contention (1945).

Irish Literature Festival - University of Ulster's Many Voices Festival of Literature

The University of Ulster will hold it's literature festival, 'Many Voices Festival of Literature', on Tuesday 20 and it will run until Saturday 24 February. It will attempt to merge various strains of Irish literature from journalism to illustration in order to represent the broad spectrum of the art. Among those who will speak are: Colin Bateman, John Connolly, Cathal O’Searcaigh, Bernard MacLaverty, Kate Newmann, Paul Howard, Conor O’Clery, Malachi O’Doherty, Robert Welch and Chris Ryder.

Technorati Profile

James Joyce and David Lynch - Art as abstraction

In a recent interview the famous film director David Lynch made a parallel between his work and that of James Joyce: "Yes, with James Joyce, word combinations conjure things. He uses them as an art form and a language for abstractions. Cinema is its own language. As the sound and picture get going and things begin to happen, it can get pretty abstract, but it's a language that says something that can't be said in words -- or maybe could, by a poet." Here we see a very good example of Joyce's ability to render off the page the image he wants to express sometimes using the gap in the text to bridge to, and often create, the reader

Technorati Tags: Literature, Ireland, irish, writer, author, irish literature

Irish Literature from the North - The Rediscover Northern Ireland programme

American interest in the works of Northern Irish Literature should increase around St Patrick's day this year with the launch of The Rediscover Northern Ireland programme in Washington. The are hoping that over one million visitors will come see the event and increase interest in the poetry, prose and theatre of such Northern Irish writers as: Seamus Deane, Anne Devlin, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Louis MacNeice, Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, and Paul Muldoon.

Technorati Tags: Literature, Ireland, irish, writer, author, irish literature

Irish Book Awards - Literary award nominations have been announced

With brand new categories this year selection of books for the Irish Book Awards are better than ever, including such categories as: Irish Novel of the Year, Irish Published Book of the Year, Irish Sports Book of the Year, Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year, Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year, Irish Newcomer of the Year Award, Irish Children's Book of the Year.

Technorati Tags: Literature, Ireland, irish, writer, author, irish literature