Bring a Book, Buy a Book
St Michael’s House, one of Ireland’s largest providers of community-based services for children and adults with an intellectual disability, has launched its 2016 Bring a Book, Buy a Book campaign, which runs until March 8th.
The campaign asks volunteers to contribute their second-hand books and purchase books donated by their colleagues, fellow students, friends or family at a cost of €2 per book. The campaign encourages reading for all and all funds raised will go directly to St Michael’s House to help provide services to children and adults with an intellectual disability.
Bring a Book, Buy a Book locations can be set up in offices, schools, colleges, clubs or homes. Each location will receive a starter pack consisting of: promotional posters, bookmarks, stickers, donation box and carrier bags.
Barbara Wiseman, head of fundraising, St Michael’s House, said: “We raised €30,000 last year and aim to exceed that figure this year. We look forward to welcoming back those who have supported the initiative in the past, and we hope to see some new schools, clubs, families and companies taking part this year too. This is a great way for companies to boost morale while participating in a worthwhile corporate responsibility programme. Our campaign theme this year is Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover. St Michael’s House aspires for the ability of all children and adults in their services to be viewed above any disability and this year’s campaign seeks to convey that message.”
The campaign was piloted in 2008 with 15 different locations taking part, rising to 200 locations in 2015, with 100,000 books successfully swapped.
To register your location and receive a starter pack, join on Facebook: www.facebook.com/stmichaelshouse; visit www.bringabookbuyabook.ie, email: fundraising@smh.ie or phone (01) 8840200.
Colum McCann and Thomas Morris on Sunday Times short story longlist
Stinging Fly magazine editor Thomas Morris, last month’s Irish Times Book Club author for his Faber short story collection, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing, has made the 12-strong longlist for the 2016 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, as has New York-based Dubliner Colum McCann.
The winner will receive £30,000, the world’s richest prize for a single short story. Regularly attracting talent from around the world, this year’s longlist again reflects its global scope, including Guardian First Book Award winner Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe), Nicholas Ruddock (Canada), Madhulika Liddle (India), Edith Pearlman (United States) as well as UK writers Deborah Levy, Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner Jonathan Tel and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize, Maggie Shipstead. No British writer has yet won the prize. The longlist includes Alix Christie, Rob Magnuson Smith, Marcel Theroux.
The winner will be announced on April 22nd.
Ennis Book Festival
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the 2016 Ennis Book Club Festival runs from Friday, March 4th until Sunday, March 6th. Marian Keyes, Henrietta McKervey, Diarmaid Ferriter, Lisa McInerney and the comedian Colm O’Regan are among the line-up at this year’s festival. A special programme for younger readers, the inaugural Léamh Festival, features Monkeyshine Theatre with The Magic Bookshop, Marita Conlon-McKenna reading from her new novel, Rebel Sisters, Book for Babies with Sara Keating, and Ridiculous by The Ark, an event showcasing work from Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce and Spike Milligan.
The main event on Saturday evening hosts inspirational poet and playwright Lemn Sissay and former BBC chief news correspondent Kate Adie. Lemn was the first poet commissioned to write for the London Olympics and has worked with Jarvis Cocker and KT Tunstall. For food lovers, the Happy Pear pair, David and Stephen Flynn, will share recipe demos, stories and their passion for all things healthy at an event on Saturday afternoon.
Catriona Crowe, Susan McKay, Caroline Criado Perez and Micheline Sheehy Skeffington will host Do it Like a Woman on Sunday, looking at women as revolutionaries, whether writing poetry in Afghanistan or scaling the London Shard. Another highlight is The Singing Café on the festival’s opening night, where Darina Gallagher and Sinéad Murphy will recreate the café chantant or singing cafe from Joyce’s short story Araby in Dubliners. The full programme is available on http://www.ennisbookclubfestival.com and all events are now on sale at Glór box office on 065-6843103 or www.glor.ie.
Mountains to Sea
Always one to draw the big names, the headline speakers at this year’s Mountains to Sea festival include Michael Parkinson, Paul Muldoon and young adult author Cathy Cassidy. Three events to watch out for include The Mark and the Void author Paul Murray in conversation with the Indian writer Neel Mukherjee, crime fiction with Sophie Hannah and Declan Hughes, and journalist Sinéad Gleeson interviewing Jonathan Franzen’s protegé Nell Zink, whose novels The Wallcreeper and Mislaid debuted to acclaim last year.
Running from Wednesday, March 9th until Sunday, March 13th in Dún Laoghaire, the programme also includes Neil Jordan, Cecelia Ahern, David Aaronvitch, Paul Mason, Louise O’Neill, Michael Smith, Pauline Bewick, Paul Murray and Sinéad Crowley.
Liam Ó Maonlaí, David Blake and Hilary Bow will present an evening of Van Morrison songs sung in Irish. Tom Holland and Mostafa Salamehd will discuss the challenges for the contemporary Muslim faith with Tom Clonan. This theme will also be explored in the Poetry Now strand of the festival, when the work of Syrian poet Maram al-Masri will be examined alongside that of American poet Martha Serpas.
An event to watch out for is What’s Left, where veteran left-wing journalists and activists David Aaronovitch and Paul Mason explore what socialism once was and what it could become with Hugh Linehan.
Letters Live returns with contributions from Kevin Barry, Owen Roe, Cathy Belton and Michelle Forbes. RTÉ’s The Book Show with journalist Sinéad Gleeson will present Women and Words featuring Sabina Higgins, Louise O’Neill, Miriam O’Callaghan, Jennifer Johnston and others reading excerpts from women’s literature, journals and letters. Tickets for all events are on sale now from www.mountainstosea.ie or through the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on 01-2312929.
World Book Day
World Book Day takes place this Thursday, March 3rd. Dubray Books is lookming forward to redeeming thousands of the special World Book Day vouchers, which are given free to school children and redeemed at the bookseller’s expense. They offer an exciting opportunity for children to visit a bookshop and buy their own book – many for the first time. There is a fantastic range of books specially produced costing €1.50 for the children to choose from. To make the experience as exciting and memorable as possible many events and author readings are planned at each branch. Visit dubraybooks.ie for details.
Free books
Enable Ireland customers will get a free book with every purchase this Thursday, March 3rd as the charity marks World Book Day 2016 in each of their 21 charity shops across the country. Providing services to over 5,000 children and adults with disabilities, the organisation is keen to promote reading in customers of all ages, while encouraging new customers to visit their shops. The charity shops are stocked through public donations made through house collections, textile banks, corporate collections, donations directly into Enable Ireland’s shops and services and donations made into TK Maxx shops nationwide. Further information can be found at www.enableireland.ie.
Irish author nominated for RoNAs
The Wicklow novelist Emma Hannigan has been shortlisted for the 2016 Romantic Novel Awards for her latest book The Secrets We Share. Nominated in the Epic Romantic Novel Award category, Hannigan will also be eligible for the overall award, The Goldsboro Books’ Romantic Novel of the Year 2016, if she wins in her category. The awards comprise six categories – Contemporary Romantic Novel, Epic Romantic Novel, Historical Romantic Novel, Romantic Comedy Novel, the RoNA Rose Novel (for shorter and category romance) and Young Adult Romantic Novel – with five authors shortlisted for each. TV presenter Fern Britton will announce the winners at a ceremony in London on Monday, March 7th.
Rising readings at UCC
Novelist Lia Mills, poet Nessa O’Mahony and Mary Morrissy, writer and lecturer in creative writing at UCC, will read together this Thursday, March 3rd, as part of the School of English’s March Women and the Rising reading series. Mills’s 1916 novel Fallen is this year’s Two Cities One Book choice. Morrissy’s The Rising of Bella Casey was nominated for the 2015 Dublin International IMPAC award. The reading takes place at Creative Zone, Boole Library, UCC at 6.30pm. Admission is free and all are welcome.
Second novel for ebook success story
Wicklow author Ann O’Loughlin will have her second novel published by Black & White Publishing this summer. Her debut ebook, The Ballroom Cafe, made Amazon’s Top 10 Bestselling Ebooks in 2015. The novel, about forced illegal adoptions from Ireland to the US, has over 215,000 in ebook sales and 1,400 reader reviews on Amazon. Set in Ireland and India, O’Loughlin’s second book, Monsoon Tears, is the story of a love affair between an Irish woman and an Indian man that was hidden for 30 years. O’Loughlin is a senior journalist with the Irish Examiner. Her new book draws on her experiences of working and living in India.
Irish writers on Waterstones shortlists
Two novels by Dublin-based writers have been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2016. In the Younger Fiction category, former Irish Times arts editor Shane Hegarty is shortlisted for his debut novel Darkmouth, while The Accident Season by the French-Irish author Moïra Fowley-Doyle is nominated in the Older Fiction category. Lisa Williamson, Melissa Salisbury and Leo Hunt join Fowley-Doyle on the Older Fiction shortlist. Kevin Sands and Katherine Woodfine are among those nominated for Younger Fiction. The winners will be announced at a reception at Waterstones Piccadilly in London on Thursday, March 17th. The winner of each category will receive £2,000, with the overall winner receiving an extra £3,000.
Shan Van Vocht
The UCD Digital Library has launched its latest historical journal, Shan Van Vocht, from the National Folklore Collection in University College Dublin. The Shan Van Vocht was a national monthly magazine founded by two Belfast poets, Alice Milligan and Anna Johnston (later Anna MacManus), which ran from 1896 until 1899. It contained literature, poetry, historical articles, and political commentary, as well as news and events of various cultural and political societies. Poetry and prose in Irish were also included, occasionally with an English translation.
As the centenary commemorations of 1798 approached, many issues included articles, short stories, oral histories, and poetry relating to the United Irishmen’s rebellion. James Connolly, Douglas Hyde, and Arthur Griffith were among those who contributed. The journal also featured writings by P.J McCall, Lionel Johnson, T.W. Rolleston, John MacNeill, William Rooney, Michael Cusack, Thomas Concannon, Alice Furlong, Nora Hopper, and Seumas MacManus under the pen name Mac. View the collection online at http://digital.ucd.ie/view/ucdlib:43116.
Green Glowing Campus
Gavin Corbett will read will from his latest novel Green Glowing Skull in Trinity College on Thursday, March 31st. The event takes place in the JM Synge Theatre in the Arts Building at 7pm. Introduced by author and Trinity lecturer Deirdre Madden, Corbett will discuss his work as part of his tenure in TCD as Arts Council Irish Writer Fellow for 2016. The event is free, open to the public, and will be followed by a Q&A session.
