The Bealtaine 1998 literary festival, which takes place this weekend in Portlaoise, will give the organisers a chance to introduce Co Laois's new writer-in-residence - Athy-based Rita Kelly.
The poet and fiction writer will spend the rest of the year working with local writing groups and in the prison promoting literature in the county.
The post is funded by Laois County Council. Other authors who have held it are Patrick Galvin and Mary O'Donnell.
The festival, which is now in its fourth year, will be opened at 7 p.m. tomorrow by Ms Mary Wheatley, cathaoirleach of Laois County Council at County Hall.
Earlier in the day readings by children's writers will take place in schools countywide. Contributors include Gerard Whelan, Larry O'Loughlin, Ashling O'Loughlin, Mary Friel, Marylin Taylor, Marie Louise Fitzpatrick and Margo Bossonet.
The broadcaster and author, Liam Nolan, is among those giving readings at the council offices tomorrow at 9 p.m. with Patrick Galvin, who is now writer-in-residence in University College Cork.
Galvin, the author of seven collections of poetry, who broadcasts frequently on radio and television, is currently working on his autobiography, Song for a Fly Boy.
Other readers include Dublin-born Hugh O'Donnell, a Tyrone Guthrie Award winner, and Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, who has written three collections of short stories, two novels and, under the pseudonym Elizabeth O'Hara, five novels for children.
There will be a great deal of local interest in a lecture to be given at 2 p.m. on Saturday in the County Hall on the writings of John Keegan, a prominent literary figure of the mid-19th century.
The lecture, From Laois to the Nation - the Writings of John Keegan, will be given by Tony Delaney, a Dublin-based civil servant, from nearby Shinrone. For the past number of years he has devoted himself to the study of the life and works of Keegan.
Later, on Saturday evening, Emo Court will be the venue for readings by Alice Taylor and Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, head of the department of English at Trinity College, Dublin.
The event will also feature a performance by Two Chairs Company called A Likely Story. Two Chairs Company is made up of actor Nuala Hayes and musician Ellen Cranitch.