Girl Unknown, the third Penguin-published psychological thriller by Karen Perry, aka Paul Perry and Karen Gillece, has been picked up by Peaky Blinders producers tiger aspect to turn into a TV series. The writers, who are immersed in their fourth novel Shoot the Crows, are also working closely with Dublin film company Subotica on the adaptation of their first novel The Boy that Never Was. Perry, who was a judge for this year’s Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, and who teaches on the creative writing programme at UCD, said the duo were “delighted, and working hard”.
Of Mornington, a new play by Billy Roche, is playing for three nights at The Mill Theatre, Dundrum next week - Novemeber 16th ,17th,18th. It is being staged by a small company from Enniscorthy called Scalder Theatre, which had a successful run at the Wexford Opera House during the summer with the play. Tickets: 01 296 9340
A one-day conference on George Moore, the Irish writer who made Paris his home and became the leading propagandist for French Impressionism and literary realism in the English-speaking world, takes place on December 2nd in Dublin. France & Ireland Meet: George Moore and Others is held by the Association for Franco-Irish Studies in McCann Hall, Chatham Row, Dublin. Admission is free but register by November 18th by email to Mary Pierse (piersems@eircom.net) or Eamon Maher (eamon.maher@ittdublin.ie).
The monthly literary journal A New Ulster publishes its 50th issue this month and to celebrate achievement Peter O’Neill will be reading along with the poets David Rigsbee and Michael J Whelan in Books Upstairs, 7 D’Olier Street, Dublin 2, on November 15th.
Another anniversary, the 30th year of the Irish Studies Centre in London, is celebrated on Tuesday, November 22nd, at 6.30pm, in The Great Hall, London Metropolitan University, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7. The evening will include an exhibition, a film screening and a lecture by Prof Shaun Richards.
A play about Charlotte Bronte is being staged on Saturday, November 12th, in the old Bronte Church in Co Down, where her father preached and taught in the adjoining school. Bronte: A Solo Portrait of Charlotte Bronte begins as Charlotte, the last surviving Brontë sibling, returns to her father’s home in Haworth in Yorkshire and sits down to write a letter to her friend Ellen Nussey, called Nell. This provides a biography of Charlotte’s life as she looks into the future alone with her elderly father. The play will be performed at Drumballyroney Church otherwise known as the Bronte Interpretatitve Centre at 8pm. To book, ring 048 40623322.
Paul McVeigh reads from his Polari prize-winning novel The Good Son, a recent Irish Times Book Club selection, at Belfast Central Library on Monday, November 14th, at 6pm as part of the Outburst Queer Arts Festival in association with Libraries NI.
The Limerick Writers’ Centre screens the documentary Hubert Butler: Witness to the Future on Thursday, November 17th at 8pm at the Belltable, 69 O’Connell St, Limerick. The film will be introduced by the director Johnny Gogan.The portrait of a great prose stylist, a brilliantly original thinker and a champion of human rights features contributions from John Banville, Roy Foster and Fintan O’Toole. Booking s: 061 953 400.
The Linen Hall Library in Belfast delves into the past of CS Lewis, one of the intellectual literary giants of the 20th century, in the new exhibition CS Lewis and the Island of his Birth which runs until November 30th. Discover how Lewis’ early years in Northern Ireland inspired his writings and the characters within his stories. On Friday, November 18th at 5.30pm, The Female Line, in 1985 the first Northern anthology of women writers is relaunched as an ebook and archival resource. A panel of writers, editors, academics and publishers including Patricia Craig, Anne Devlin, Leontia Flynn, Alan Hayes, Alex Pryce and Anne Tannahill will assess how the female writer has fared over the past three decades since the anthology’s original publication.
