The writers versus the Irish Times

The rules were simple: six writers against SARA KEATING in a Scrabble game that took place during the Dublin Writers Festival. Each had one move, taking up where the previous writer left off. Would the writers or the journalist triumph?

Liz Lockhead

The task falls to Liz Lockhead, National Poet of Scotland or “Mackar”, as the official title reads, to open up the Scrabble board. At first she seems excited by the blank canvas, but enthusiasm quickly turns to frustration.

Earlier, she read from a new poem she has been working on, in which she talked about the way language changes – the way a fashionable 1960s “chick” becomes a “bird” – but she is finding the lexicon available with her seven letters infuriating.

“Actually, it’s not a bloody privilege to go first!” she says, sticking down the word RATION resentfully, opting for an unconventional placement on the board that is not quite legal to block a double-word score. “I’m not giving you that.”

I have pulled the second highest scoring letter, a J, and see an opportunity to triple it; she’s not impressed.

In protest she decides that the first person who puts down a word gets an automatic double-score (this is definitely not in the rules). But she’s the Mackar, and I’m a soft touch, and seven is a pretty poor score so I yield.

Liz Lockhead is National Poet of Scotland.

Lockhead: RATION (14 points)

The Irish Times : JET (26 points)

Colm Tóibín

“That’s not a word!” Colm Tóibín exclaims gleefully as he sits down at the Scrabble board. “That’s the first thing you should always say. Half the fun is contesting the rules.”

Tóibín knows immediately where he wants to place his word: “Oh that J is just beautiful.” It is also an eight-point letter, which helps. He giggles at the options that his secret selection of letters give him, and I am half expecting a “dirty word. Or I could put something down in Spanish, be bold in two ways.”

But Toibin’s inspiration comes suddenly and he sticks down JOINED – “that’ll do” – although he seems dismayed that it is only worth 15 points.

In generous spirit, however, he points out that he has opened up the board for me, releasing a bonus placement for me if I want to take advantage. As he waits eagerly to see what I will put down, he realises that the red square reads triple-word, not triple-letter. “Ah,” he says as he tots up my score for me, “I wouldn’t have done THAT if I’d known!”

The Empty Familyby Colm Tóibín is published by Viking

Tóibín:JOINED (15 points)

The Irish Times : DAFT (21 points)

Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart

Writer Paul Stewart and illustrator Chris Riddell are long-time collaborators and sit down to Scrabble as a natural team. When working on T he Edge Chroniclesor the new Wyrmeweald series, they hold meetings at the pub and they are comfortable peering over each other's shoulders, although they play individually and an entirely different game.

Riddell, who plays with his children “when it is wet and we are in the countryside and there is no internet access”, is an indecisive player. And, surprisingly for an illustrator, is more interested in getting a good word in than the potential score.

After much “time wasting; this is why my kids hate playing”, he puts down “DREAMER; I think that’s pretty apt.”

Stewart, who has wandered off impatiently, comes back to check up on Riddell’s play and immediately pulls the ER off his fanciful noun, chiding his friend for “wasting a blank tile for the sake of a single point”. He will take full advantage of that blank on his turn.

Riddell: DREAM (8 points)

The Irish Times : QUASH (44 points)

Stewart sits down, a bit impressed with me trebling the value of my Q with QUASH, but determined to outdo me and Riddell, and to “hit the jackpot”; he wants to get rid of all of his letters in one go, so he can take the 50 bonus points for this feat. Taking advantage of the Q that I left open, he puts down the prosaic PLASTER; landing a double-word score, piggy-backing on QUASH’s natural score (with SQUASH) and stealing the bonus points. “Scumming it? Of course I am.” In Stewart’s case, poetry might be sacrificed to strategy, but he pushes the writers by a narrow margin into the lead for the first time.

Wyrmeweald: Returner's Wealthby Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell is published by Random House

Stewart: PLASTER (82 points)

The Irish Times : CORAL (24 points)

Kevin Barry and John Butler

Another double-act joins me for the final Scrabble match: debut novelists Kevin Barry and John Butler, whose novels City of Bohaneand The Tenderloin, were both published this year.

The pair are reading together at the festival, but they have also collaborated on a series of film projects, and the short film that they worked on together last year, The Kid Kanturk– "the best Irish cannibal rockabilly film ever" as Barry puts it – receives its first public screening before they take to the stage. It is a product of two mad imaginations enmeshed in visual and verbal imagery.

As Butler explains, their relationship began after he read Barry's short story collection There Are Little Kingdoms, "and I just approached him saying I loved it and would love to work with him on turning one of them into a film".

They made The Kid Kanturk"so we had something to show what we could do", and they have just completed a feature film treatment for Parallel Films, Memorabilia, which they hope will go into production later this year. They agree to play one-by-one.

As Butler examines his letters, he explains that the collaborative relationship is simple: “Kevin does the script and I am the director.” He works his letters fast and impulsively, and puts down the word RURAL after about five seconds. As Barry leans over to look at his letters, he dithers as if expecting Barry to disapprove. He hums and haws, half-suggests taking it back, but finally leaves it and passes his leftover letters to Barry.

"Right now, you've got to put down urban," the Dubliner jokes, sniggering at the way he has subverted their roles; The Tenderloin, which follows Dublin suburbanites to the metropolis of San Francisco, is about as far from rural as you can get.

The Tenderloinby John Butler is published by Picador.

Butler: RURAL (15 points)

The Irish Times : DOCK (21 points)

Barry hates playing Scrabble. "I'm impatient, competitive and a cheat," he says. "Always trying to have a sneak and change my letters." When he is writing, Barry says, he "writes from the ear, acting it out, doing all the voices, like a mad man", but he works the letters into different orders in their tray silently. City of Bohaneis notable for its new-minted words, and as he studies his options intensely, I am half expecting a first consultation with the dictionary: "bino", "thrun"; I'm pretty sure you won't find them in the Concise Oxford.

Barry surprises us all, however, with a conservative play, which he admits privileges the potential score over originality, adding an ES onto the SQUASH that sits on the centre of the board. He is disappointed with 18, but it is the highest score that he could get with his letters, so at least he has satisfied the competitive urge to best me. However, with PROBE I push ahead by an incremental, but vital, single point.

City of Bohaneby Kevin Barry is published by Jonathan Cape.

Barry: SQUASHES (18 points)

The Irish Times: PROBE (19 points)

When the scores are added up it is a narrow victory for journalism. But writing is about creativity not strategy.

The Writers: 152

The Irish Times: 154