A debut collection by a 67-year-old retired director of an engineering sales company in Dublin, published by a tiny Irish imprint, has been shortlisted for one of poetry’s most prestigious awards, the 2016 Forward poetry prizes.
Distance by Ron Carey, published last November by Revival Press, the publishing arm of Limerick Writers' Centre, has been shortlisted for the £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, along with works by Nancy Campbell, Harry Giles, Ruby Robinson and Tiphanie Yanique.
The London Irish poet Ian Duhig has also been shortlisted, for the £15,000 Forward Prize for Best Collection, for The Blind Roadmaker (Picador), alongside works by Choman Hardi, Alice Oswald, Denise Riley and Vahni Capildeo. The prizes will be awarded on September 20th in London's Royal Festival Hall.
Carey, who is from Limerick, is a late developer as a poet. After a career that started on Shannon Industrial Estate, cutting and drilling steel, he took up poetry seriously only in his 60s, while working as a director of an engineering sales company in Dublin.
He received an MA in creative writing last year.
“It is an honour to have been shortlisted. It feels to me like a confirmation of my poetry’s relevance and worth,” Carey said. “The journey to becoming a poet has been a long one, so I really appreciate this acknowledgment. It was the indefatigable Dominic Taylor of Revival Press who published my collection, and it is great to see a small press publisher coming to the fore. Whatever happens, this has given me a confidence in my work.”
Another shortlisted Irish writer will find out tonight whether he has won the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Gavin McCrea is shortlisted – along with, among others, William Boyd and Patrick Gale – for Mrs Engels, the story of Lizzie Burns, Friedrich Engels's Irish lover. "Unusual in its focus, and broad in its reach," the judges said, "Mrs Engels does that thing that good historical novels should do: it allows you to see a piece of the past that you have never seen before."
If McCrea must make do with the consolation prize of £1,000 for being shortlisted, he can at least look forward to the announcement on June 22nd of the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize, for which he is shortlisted alongside Lisa McInerney and Julia Rochester.
Move over, the Stinging Fly, Banshee and Gorse. There's a bright new wave of literary magazines about to hit town. That's right, get ready for Crazy Cookies, The Bookshelf, Marvellous Marshmallows and Hyper Writers. Today will see four groups of budding young Dublin writers come together to sell magazines of their short stories, poems, illustrations and book reviews. The children, aged eight to 13, will be reading extracts from their work at the launch party, at 2pm in Castleknock Community Centre in Laurel Lodge.
Business to Arts is seeking a writer to work with pupils at St Joseph's Co-Ed primary school in Dublin's East Wall from September to May on a freelance basis, a post supported by the Docklands Arts Fund and A&L Goodbody. The deadline is July 7th. Visit businesstoarts.ie/artsfund/writer- in-residence-open-call/ for details.
The adult colouring book craze is about to get far stranger, the Hollywood Reporter revealed this week, with Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk releasing his own opus, Bait: Off-Color Stories for You to Color, "eight genre-defying tales of strangeness, horror and, it would seem, black-and-white artwork ready for readers to bring to life as they see fit". I can only echo author Ruth Ware, who tweeted: "I have to confess, I did not see this one coming. What's next – @IrvineWelsh's Little Book of Mindfulness?"
