I’m delighted that Big Man has been shortlisted for the audience choice prize at The Irish Times Theatre Awards. This one-man-show up against all those big productions with massive budgets from the best theatres and companies in the country.
I’m also over-the-moon that James McFettridge has been shortlisted for Best Lighting.
Thanks to all the team!
If you enjoyed the show you can vote here.
‘Queer Love’ Reviewed in The Irish Times
The Queer Love anthology ‘demonstrates why queer writers excel at writing’ according to poet/professor Sean Hewitt in The Irish Times.
Queer Love seeks to go some way to redress the lack of acknowledgement of the LGBTQI+ community in Irish literary anthologies, with a mixture of established writers of international standing, writers who have been making a splash in recent years and new emerging writers. The anthology has a mixture of previously published stories, newly commissioned work and those entered through our call out. Featuring stories by John Boyne, Emma Donoghue, Mary Dorcey, Neil Hegarty, James Hudson, Emer Lyons, Jamie O’Connell, Colm Tóibín, Declan Toohey, and Shannon Yee.
You can buy it here.
“Let’s fill those bookshelves in homes, libraries, and shops with more and more stories of us.” Click to read the article.
Thanks to Martin Doyle for spreading the word about the ‘Queer Love’ anthology by Southword Editons (Southword Literary Journal / Munster Literature Centre) edited by me. This is an extended version of the foreword with contributions from Shannon Yee and Neil Hegarty. Thanks to the other contributors to the anthology John Boyne, Emma Donoghue, Mary Dorcey, James Hudson, Emer Lyons, Jamie O’Connell, Colm Toibin & Declan Toohey.
To Garth Greenwell, the huge international success of his debut What Belongs to You, “was the biggest surprise of my life”, and he feels “immensely lucky” as “the success of a book has as much to do with chance as anything else”. Its success has allowed him to have a career as a writer and teacher in a way he wasn’t able to in his previous 20 years of writing. He feels relieved, though, that the writing process itself, “the struggle”, just him alone with his notebook and “the pit of doubt and despair”, hasn’t changed. “I wouldn’t know who I would be without it.”
You can read my interview with him about his new novel, Cleanness, in The Irish Times.
“Are you a new or emerging writer from a working class background? Would you like to be published alongside an Impac Award-winner, a Booker Prize-winner, two Sunday Times Short Story Award-winners, a senator, playwrights and poets? What about a professional development programme with the help of leading publishers and the Irish Writers Centre.”
Read all about it in my article in The Irish Times.
Here’s an excellent piece from Lisa Frank of Doire Press in Irish Times Culture on the new anthology we edited called ‘Belfast Stories’.
You can come to the launch at Belfast Book Festival this Sunday 5pm at Crescent Arts Centre.
A collection of Irish authors have responded to Brexit in the Irish Times today. Mine begins…
“One positive thing for Northern Ireland is that Brexit has actually made it visible. Mostly it feels like a little desert island and we jump up and down trying to get the attention of passing aircraft.”
And ends…
“…the whole damn place needs a gaying up!”
Head over the read the full text and the rest of the responses.
A very short story from me for Christmas in The Irish Times today – ‘Malibu Barbie Christmas’. I hope you enjoy it.
“Síofra wiggles, which is not a good sign as she’s started to wet the bed since the night she told them all to call her Baby Síofra again. Fintain sticks his hand under her bum. Dry as a bone.
“Good girl,” he says, like he’s proper Daddy.
“I’m holding it in for Santa,” says she.”
Head over for a 5 minute read.
My interview with The Man Booker Prize-winner Anna Burns is up on Irish Times Books today.
In it, she reveals to me her struggle with constant pain and her fears about ever being able to write again.
I wrote about the books I’ll be giving and hoping to get this Xmas over in The Irish Times if you fancy having a look.
What are yours?
The Good Son 