It really is happy days for this year’s Samuel Beckett festival in Enniskillen, with the announcement this week of £300,000 in funding for the festival from the UK-based TS Eliot Trust. News of the award, which will be dispensed over three years, comes as the festival gears up for its opening performances on Thursday, July 23rd. New additions to the line-up include the actor Stephen Rea, who will join a discussion about Beckett’s favourite actor, Jack MacGowran. The programme also features a production of MacGowran’s rarely performed Beginning to End.
Other highlights of the 12-day festival include director Sophie Hunter's anticipated production of Benjamin Britten's Phaedra, sung by the award-winning mezzo soprano Ruby Philogene and performed in an equestrian arena in the grounds of the ruined Necarne Castle in Irvingstown. The Berliner Ensemble, the company founded by Bertolt Brecht in 1949, make their Irish debut with a controversial production of Waiting for Godot, as do France's leading dance group The Maguy Marin Dance Company, with their performance of May B. For the full line-up and bookings, visit www.happy-days-enniskillen.com.
Literary highlights at Boyle
Headlining the literary programme at this year's Boyle Arts Festival in Roscommon are authors Kevin Barry and Belinda McKeon. The pair will give readings of their most recent work at an evening event in King House on Thursday, July 30th. Elsewhere, the Dublin author Patricia O'Reilly will discuss her recent book The Interview, a fictional retelling of the life of the modernist architect Eileen Gray. An event showcasing emerging talent in Irish poetry and fiction sees David Cameron (winner of the 2014 Hennessy New Irish Writing Award for Poetry, as opposed to the prime minister), Anne Marie Kennedy and Martin Dyar read from their work and discuss the ways in which their style and thematic concerns have been shaped by their roots. The Cork author David Murphy will give a talk on his recent book Walking on Ripples, which alternates between chapters of non-fiction and fiction to give "a sideways look at the world down the length of a fishing rod." A number of workshops for aspiring writers in flash fiction, poetry and prose are also scheduled as part of the festival, which runs from Thursday, July 23rd till Saturday, August 1st. The full programme, including theatre, classical music, spoken word and comedy events, can be viewed at http://boylearts.com/all-events/.
Franzen at the RDS
The American novelist Jonathan Franzen will be speaking in Dublin this autumn at International Literature Festival Dublin's Off the Page series. Author of four novels and five works of non-fiction and translation, Franzen is best known for his 2001 novel The Corrections, which won the National Book Award. Franzen, the first novelist to make the cover of Time magazine in 20 years, will be speaking about his anticipated fifth novel Purity. The book tells the story of Pip Tyler, a college graduate who embarks on a quest to find the identity of her father. Travelling to Bolivia for an internship, Pip, whose real name is Purity, is drawn into a world of activism and idealism. Family loyalties and murder, comedy and moral complexity are explored with Franzen's trademark historical and geographical sweep. The event takes place at the RDS Concert Hall, Dublin 4 on Monday, October 5th from 8pm. Tickets are €20 and can be booked through www.ilfdublin.com
Modern Irish literature at Earagail
New Irish writing is the focus of the closing weekend of the 2015 Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal. On July 25th and 26th, the festival presents Coast, Town & Country - The Best New Voices in Irish Writing, bringing together authors such as Belinda McKeon, Sara Baume, Kevin Barry, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Gavin Corbett and Lisa McInerney. Saturday's events include a writing seminar with Ní Chonchúir at 2pm for both beginner and more experienced writers. Kevin Barry is in conversation with Derek O'Connor about his forthcoming novel Beatlebone later in the afternoon. Chaired by the journalist Sinéad Gleeson, an event on Sunday at 2pm features Belinda McKeon and Sara Baume as they discuss their publishing stories and novels. Lisa McInerney and Gavin Corbett will host the weekend's final event, a writing seminar at 4pm that focuses on humour and surreal fiction. All events take place at the Malin Hotel in Donegal. Tickets are €10 per event or €30 all inclusive. Visit www.eaf.ie for more information.
Creative writing retreat
Writers looking for a last-minute retreat will find inspiration this weekend, July 25th and 26th, in the Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen, County Monaghan. The acclaimed poet Conor O'Callaghan will direct participants in Thinking about Things, a weekend workshop of creative activity. Participants will discuss the use of everyday objects in fiction, analysing how they can be used to symbolic ends. O'Callaghan will consider the idea of the objective correlative and how it applies to narrative art. Novels from Tolstoy to Anne Enright will be used as source material, with in-class exercises helping to encourage participants' own writing. For added inspiration, the centre is located the picturesque village of Inniskeen, among the Monaghan drumlins immortalised in the poetry of local man Kavanagh. For information and booking: 00353 (0) 42 9378560; infoatpkc@eircom.net or visit www.patrickkavanaghcountry.com.
Fry and Norris
If you missed Senator David Norris's Bloomsday interview with Stephen Fry at the O'Reilly Theatre in Dublin last month, you can listen to a recording of the conversation here. From Fry's teenage discovery of the works of Oscar Wilde, to the Senator's more recent discovery of Grindr, the audio recording features plenty of entertaining stories and banter between two great conversationalists. Organised by the James Joyce Centre to celebrate Bloomsday 2015, over 500 people attended the event in Joyce's alma mater Belvedere College.
Competition deadlines
The closing date to enter the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2015 is this Friday, July 24th. The annual award is for a first unpublished collection of poems in English. Now in its 45th year, the award is open to poets born on the island of Ireland, of Irish nationality, or those who are long-term resident in Ireland. Previous winners include Eileán Ni Chuilleanáin, Paul Durcan, Thomas McCarthy, Peter Sirr, Sinead Morrissey, Conor O'Callaghan, Celia de Freine and Joseph Woods. The winner will receive €1,000, which will be presented on Friday, September 25th at the opening of the annual Patrick Kavanagh Weekend in Inniskeen. www.patrickkavanaghcountry.com
The poet and editor Dave Lordan is judging the 2015 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition, which is taking entries up until Wednesday, August 5th. The competition is open to poets and fiction writers worldwide, with a total prize fund of €1,000. The overall winner receives €700 and will present their work at the Over The Edge reading series in Galway City Library. More information at http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.ie/. Fiction of up to three thousand words, three poems of up to forty lines, or one poem of up to one hundred lines are eligible for the €10 entry.
Quiz results
Congratulations to Michael Maguire, winner of the inaugural Irish Times monthly prize book quiz. Michael wins a €200 hamper of books courtesy of Kenny's Bookshop in Galway. The answers were: 1A; 2C; 3B; 4D; 5D; 6C; 7A; 8B; 9A; 10D. Look out for the next quiz next week
