Talk of first novels and new books about to be published buzzed around the Irish Writers' Centre this week. Emerging writers rubbed shoulders with the more established ones at a party to celebrate publication of a collection of new short stories, Arrows in Flight, edited by Caroline Walsh, literary editor of The Irish Times.
One contributor to the book, Keith Ridgway, has a new novel coming out in February, to be published by Faber and Faber. Entitled The Parts, it's a novel "about people's misunderstandings of each other and confusion", he said.
Another contributor, John MacKenna, who leaves RTÉ Radio 1 this month after 23 years there, will have his book about Ernest Shackleton, which he co-wrote with Jonathan Shackleton, grand-nephew of the great explorer, published by Lilliput in a couple of weeks.
Jason Mordaunt, a former student at Greendale Community School, where writers such as Roddy Doyle, Catherine Dunne and Paul Mercier taught, came along to the party too "to make his literary début", as RTÉ's Seamus Hosey said. Mordaunt's first novel, Welcome to Coolsville, will be published by Jonathan Cape in May next year.
Poets were in attendance too, including barrister John O'Donnell, whose first collection, Some Other Country, published by Bradshaw Books, was launched later in the week, competing with Liz McSkeane's book, Snow at the Opera House, which was launched on the same night in Dublin's Winding Stair Bookshop.
Another Arrows in Flight contributor, the writer Mary Morrissy, who now lives in Cobh, Co Cork, is off to the University of Arkansas in the New Year to give a creative writing course. The Derry-born writer, Sean O'Reilly, said the rights of his book of short stories, Curfew, had been sold, and they will be adapted into a series of short films.
The former taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, who was there with his daughter, artist Mary FitzGerald, and his nine-year-old granddaughter, Sorcha FitzGerald, has his own book coming out later this month. Its title is Reflections on the Irish State.
Another spring publication to look out for comes from Liam Harte, of the University of Ulster, whose anthology, Autobiographical Writings by the Irish in Britain, is to be published by Four Courts.
Caroline Walsh said she now realised her affection for the short story came from her mother, writer Mary Lavin, who had "an abiding love of the form".
These short stories "are partly a response to the Celtic Tiger", said Declan Kiberd, professor of English at UCD, who launched the book. "Short stories seem to exist on the cusp," he said. "It's the quintessential Irish form. They tell us where we are now. By getting such a cross-section you are getting a photograph." The collection, Arrows in Flight, is published by Scribner TownHouse.