Thursday 31 January 2013

Ó Bhéal Guest Poet Line-up for February / March

Ó Bhéal Guest Poet Line-up for February / March



Karl Parkinson – 4th FebruaryAnne Fitzgerald – 11th FebruaryJames Lawless – 18th FebruaryNiamh Boyce – 25th February
With earlier Wordshop from 7pm
Cahal Dallat – 4th March
In association with Foras na Gaeilge
Joe Steve Ó Neachtain – 11th MarchMaurice Devitt and Orla Fay – 18th MarchJoan McBreen – 25th March
The night begins with a Poetry Challenge starting around 9- 9.30pm. Guest poets begin about 10.00pm for between 30-45 minutes, after which there is the usual open-mic session. Be sure to come early to get good seats!
 
visit: www.obheal.ie
Ó Bhéal is held every Monday in the Hayloft, upstairs at The Long Valley, Winthrop Street, Cork. See the map: www.obheal.ie/map

Alec Soth current show, Broken Manual,

2013 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at The Kitchen @ The Museum FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15TH

The 2013 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Mary O’Rourke, Sarah Clancy, Máire Holmes, Kevin O’Shea, The Tuesday Knights poets, James Lawless, The Abandoned Darlings writers, Elaine Feeney, Micheál Ó'Coinn, Away With Words writers, Michael Faherty, Merlin Park Hospital writers & Amit Mediratta will take place at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, February, 15th at 8pm.

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets who published a new collection of poems during 2012 are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be short readings from the anthologies Abandoned Darlings (NUI Galway MA in Writing class of 2012), Wayword Tuesdays (The Tuesday Knights poetry group), Jessica Casey & Other Works (Away With Words writers, published by Salmon), This Never Happened (Merlin Park Hospital Writers) and Infusions (Java Writers). There will also be a reading of poems from Elaine Feeney & Sarah Clancy’s poetry CD Cinderella Backwards.

All welcome. There is no cover charge. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of The Arts Council and Galway City Council.

Wednesday 30 January 2013

Derek Mahon. A DISUSED SHED IN COUNTY WEXFORD

by Derek Mahon
Let them not forget us, the weak souls among
the asphodels –
Seferis,  Mythistorema


For J.G. Farrell

Even now there are places where a thought might grow –
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped forever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft,
Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence,
Lime crevices behind rippling rainbarrels,
Dog corners for bone burials;
And a disused shed in Co. Wexford,

Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.
This is the one star in their firmament
Or frames a star within a star.
What should they do there but desire?
So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud,
They have learnt patience and silence
Listening to the rooks querulous in the high wood.

They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
of the expropriated mycologist.
He never came back, and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain.
Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew
And once a day, perhaps, they have heard something –
A trickle of masonry, a shout from the blue
Or a lorry changing gear at the end of the lane.

There have been deaths, the pale flesh flaking
Into the earth that nourished it;
And nightmares, born of these and the grim
Dominion of stale air and rank moisture.
Those nearest the door growing strong –
‘Elbow room! Elbow room!’
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling
Utensils and broken flower-pots, groaning
For their deliverance, have been so long
Expectant that there is left only the posture.

A half century, without visitors, in the dark –
Poor preparation for the cracking lock
And creak of hinges. Magi, moonmen,
Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
At the flashbulb firing squad we wake them with
Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.

They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
‘Save us, save us,’ they seem to say,
‘Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naïve labours have been in vain!.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

Theatre of the face.Lewis Hyne photography 1918 New York

mslexia short story competition for women writers

Mslexia short story competition.
Hello,

As someone who is writing short stories and has submitted work to us in the past, I thought you might be interested in hearing about our fifth annual short story competition for women writers, which is now open for entries.

The first prize is £2,000 – one of the biggest prizes available in the genre –and includes two optional extras: a week’s retreat at the home of early women’s writing, Chawton House Library, and a day with a Virago editor. Other winners will receive a share of the remaining £1,050 prize pot, and all of the winning stories will be published in the June 2013 issue of Mslexia.

We’re delighted to announce that the acclaimed novelist, memoirist, poet and short story author Janice Galloway will be judging the entries this year (her ‘Collected Stories’ is published by Vintage). The closing date for the competition is 18 March 2013, so there’s plenty of time to get your entry together.

Full details of how to enter are on the website at
www.mslexia.co.uk/shortstory where we’ll also be posting new and inspiring writing workshops to help you generate new work, FAQs and advice about entering online – as well as information on how to subscribe to Mslexia for valuable ongoing writerly support.

With all the best for your writing in the meantime,
 

Sophie Baker
On behalf of the Mslexia team

Carol Ann Duffy Prayer


Prayer
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
    Carol Ann Duffy


Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy Photo

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish-Irish poet, born on 23rd December 1955 in Gorbals, Glasgow. The family moved to England when Duffy was six years old. She attended Saint Austin’s RC Primary School, went on to Joseph’s Convent School and then Stafford Girl’s High School. Her writing talent was recognized by some of her teachers. She was a keen reader and writer of poems from an early age. At age 15 one of her teachers, June Scriven sent Duffy’s poems to a publisher, who was impressed by them and thus published them. She started a relationship with the poet Adrian Henri, living with him till 1982. To be closer to him, Duffy enrolled in the University of Liverpool. During this time she wrote two plays and a pamphlet named ‘Fifth Last Song’. She received her degree in philosophy in 1977.



She has won many other awards and honors such as ‘Costa Poetry Award’ (2011), ‘Signal Poetry Award’ (1997), ‘CBE’ (2001), ‘Cholmondeley Award’ (1992), ‘Dylan Thomas Award’ (1989), ‘Eric Gregory Award’ (1984) and the ‘C. Day Lewis Fellowship’ in 1982. Duffy also received doctorate degree from the University of Hull, University of Dundee, University of St. Andrews, University of Warwick including a Fellowship from Homerton College, Cambridge.

Monday 28 January 2013

The Reading Life: An Interview with Rachel Thompson-Author of Broken...

The Reading Life: An Interview with Rachel Thompson-Author of Broken...: Rachel Thompson – 10 Things I Wish I Knew by   ADMIN   on   JANUARY 25, 2013  ·  LEAVE A COMMENT 10 Things I Wish I Knew Abo...

Exciting News!NEW COMPETITION.James Plunkett Short Story Award

Exciting News!

NEW COMPETITION
James Plunkett Short Story Award
Organised by the Irish Writers' Centre in partnership with

the Irish Writers' Union.



We are delighted to announce the 2013 James Plunkett Short Story Award for new and emerging writing talent. James Plunkett was known as one of Ireland's greatest social commentators, maybe most famous for his novel about the 1913 Lockout, Strumpet City. This year, we are launching a new competition for short story writers, which will give new writers a platform on which to read their work and be recognised. Nine candidates will be shortlisted, from which a winner will be chosen.



The Award will be presented on 16th October 2013 at the Irish Writers' Centre.



1st prize: €2,000

2nd prize: €1,000

3rd prize: €500



Keep an eye on the Irish Writers' Centre and Irish Writers' Union website. Details of the competition and how to enter will be online soon!



This competition is supported by the 1913 Lockout Commemoration, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, Dublin City Council, Dublin City Libraries and ICTU.

Sunday 27 January 2013

365 Days of Awareness for quotes and thoughts.

136/365 - Living Cautiously (J.K. Rowling)


“It is impossible to live 
without failing at something,
 unless you live so cautiously
 that you might as well not have lived at all -
 in which case,
 you fail by default.”

  - J.K. Rowling
 

Chattahoochee Review article on Mary Morrissey


The Chattahoochee ReviewCONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT: MARY MORRISSY

Mary Morrissy is the author of two novels, Mother of Pearl and The Pretender, and a collection of short stories, A Lazy Eye. Mother of Pearl was shortlisted for the Whitbread (now Costa) Award; The Pretender was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC Award. She was a recipient of a prestigious Lannan Foundation Award and her short fiction has won the Hennessy Award and been anthologized widely in the UK and Ireland. Her next novel, The Rising of Bella Casey, is forthcoming in 2013.
Morrissy’s lyrical and compelling story “Miss Ireland” appears in our upcoming double issue with a special focus on Ireland. We asked her to share some thoughts on the story with TCR readers.

What was the impetus for “Miss Ireland”? Tell us a little about how you came to write it.
“Miss Ireland” had its genesis in a story from my childhood that my mother used to refer to in hushed tones. A young mother had gassed herself and her two young children in a house on our street—this was before I was born so I never knew any of the details. But it stayed with me, mainly because as a teenager I was convinced that nothing ever happened in neighbourhoods like ours—suburban, respectable; this incident, mystifying and shocking, was in direct opposition to my lofty, adolescent view that I was surrounded by placid, self-satisfied dullness in a place where nothing happened. 

“Miss Ireland” begins dramatically: “The maid stuck her head in the gas oven one Sunday afternoon in the Devoy house, 27 Vandeleur Drive, but not before she had fed and changed the baby—Fergal, it was—and put him down for his nap.” Conflict increases all the more when, in the same paragraph, the mother of the household reacts with “selfish relief.” Family dynamic creates much of the tension in “Miss Ireland,” before and after the suicide. How did family roles and plot structure evolve in revision?
My original idea was to write the story from the point of view of the maid, then Irene appeared and took over, I’m afraid. It seemed more interesting to view Quinny through her eyes because Irene can’t recognise what’s in front of her. In many ways, that is Quinny’s tragedy—that she finds herself in a world that won’t or can’t empathise with her situation and that world is the family. Although the story is set in and plays out within the family, I’m hoping it has wider resonances. One of the debates that has exercised public interest in Ireland is how much ordinary people knew about the maltreatment and abuse of children in state and church care during this period. The answer, I think, is that they knew and they didn’t know—much like Irene, who instinctively senses Quinny’s plight, but consciously hasn’t a clue.
   
How would you consider the story to reflect or comment upon your experience of Ireland?
The story is set in the Sixties in Ireland, in 1965 to be precise. (The 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising is mentioned as “upcoming.”)  In nuance, it reflects the period of my childhood. The very fact that there are still maids in evidence speaks of a time that seems pre-historic, even to me. The Sixties came late to Ireland, so my memory of the decade was one of traditional, conservative values. What drives Irene, the mother in the story, is a sense of respectability and constraint. At that time there were very well-defined roles imposed on women and men and the influence of the Catholic Church was paramount. A sub-theme in the story is an exploration of national and female identity—Irene has represented Ireland in a beauty contest, but Quinny represents an altogether different version of the female, Irish experience of the time.

Where do you go for writing inspiration in general?
For novels, I can never predict where the idea will come from. My novels have been historical but only because the stories that have really fired me happen to be from the past. I can’t really say why a baby kidnap in Dublin of the 1950s (my first novel, Mother of Pearl) or the story of Anna Anderson, the woman who spent her whole life insisting she was the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia (The Pretender, my second novel), captured my imagination. What unites them is that they feature real people and inhabit a territory somewhere between fiction and biography.
My most recent novel, The Rising of Bella Casey, is the story of a 19th century schoolteacher whose life is turned to ruin by a secret sexual obsession. It’s based on the life of the sister of Irish playwright Sean O’Casey, whose writing about her is woven into the narrative. The trajectory of Bella’s story is heartbreaking, a riches-to-rags narrative, and once it took hold it just would not let go.
My short fiction is usually more personal and generally contemporary—the smallest trigger can set an idea whirring, sometimes an image, something someone says, chance encounters, memories.

What are you working on now? What can readers look forward to?
“Miss Ireland” is part of a linked cycle of stories that I’m close to finishing. After that, I have two novels in line waiting to be written. My novel The Rising of Bella Casey is due to be published in 2013.

Friday 25 January 2013

Cork Spring Poetry Festival






35 Poets from Ten Countries
Ireland's Biggest Annual Poetry Festival

Readings
Workshops
Discussions
Prizegiving
  
Carolyn Forche
Tomaz Salamun
Matthew Sweeney
Gwyneth Lewis
John Ennis
& Others
  
February 13th to 16th
  

Thursday 24 January 2013

ISBN 's when you need one and when you dont.Read all about it on this website

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity

Erica Verrillo has written seven books and published five. She doesn't know why anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would ever want to publish. But, if you insist on selling your soul to the devil, learn how to do it right: marketing, literary agents, book contracts, book promotion, editors, rejections, pitching your book, how to get reviews, and ... most important of all ... everything she did wrong.
Thursday, January 24, 2013

When you need an ISBN
If you are thinking of putting your book into print, whether it's through print-on-demand, or any other self-publishing print venue, you will need an ISBN. You will also need the barcode that is normally found above (and below) the ISBN. (These can be purchased through
Bowker, or obtained free at http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/) Without an ISBN, no library will ever order your book, no book store will stock it, no one will review it – your book may as well not exist.

When you don't need an ISBN
If you are epublishing, you don't need to purchase an ISBN. Amazon doesn't require one. (Amazon assigns its own code, an ASIN number). Barnes & Noble has gone that route as well. If you decide to distribute your ebook through Smashwords, they will assign an ISBN from their own stock. (The long string of numbers in the middle of the ISBN code will identify Smashwords as the publisher.)

A comprehensivce five week, ten hour course with novelist and short story writer Marian ONeill



Creative Writing Course
A comprehensivce five week, ten hour course with novelist and short story writer Marian ONeill at Stone House Books, Kieran’s St. Kilkenny
Phone: 087 6801561
E-mail: marianboneill@hotmail.com

MARIAN ONEILL

Marian O Neill is the author of four novels, Miss Harrie Elliott, Daddy’s Girl, Seeforge and All Gods Dead. She lectures in creative writing at degree level and is offering a comprehensive course on the subject.
The course will cover narrative voice, characterisation, plot and theme, various forms of description and dialogue.
Marian has worked as an editor and has also run a small publishing house, on the strength of her experience advice will be given on ed-iting and presenting work for publication.
The course starts on Monday the 11th of February in the Stone-House Bookshop from 7 to 9 pm at a cost of 100. Places are lim-ited. Please contact Marian for further details

Wednesday 23 January 2013

New post on Poethead The Wild Pupil, a poem by Kathy Darcy

New post on Poethead

The Wild Pupil, a poem by Kathy Darcy

 
The Wild Pupil
I have spent my life
squeezing my fingers between
vibrating leaves of costal bone,
insistently scraping fascia
from muscle from nerve,
unhooking your sternum
from your throat,
prizing apart
the wedges of your spine
to reach that precious bag of blood,
to quell its chaotic pulse;
to jump back
as your thorax springs open
like an eye,
your heart
the wild pupil.
 'The Wild Pupil ' is © Kathy D'Arcy , from The Wild Pupil, published 2012 by Bradshaw Books.
.
Kathy D'Arcy is a poet, workshop facilitator and youth worker based in Cork city. Originally trained as a doctor, she is currently writer in residence with Tigh Fili Cultural Centre. Her second collection, The Wild Pupil, was recently launched in Dublin by Jean O' Brien and in Cork by Thomas McCarthy. She has just been awarded an Arts Council Artists' Bursary to support the future development of her work.

Narrrative Magazine extract from article on famous writers who twitter

THE TWITTER FORMAT has turned many actors, singers, politicians, and athletes into popular writers, but if you’re still in doubt about the pleasures of this genre, please consider the twitter feeds of some of our favorite literary authors, which provide witty and insightful commentary and provocative ideas in one hundred and forty characters or less.



Narrative

Robert Olen Butler (@RobtOlenButler): “How a novel is like a life lived: We struggle through the local lies of our corporeal existence in pursuit of the big truth we all desire.”

Joyce Carol Oates (
@JoyceCarolOates): “Saddest fact: Women are never surprised by misogyny though some men seem to be.”

Sherman Alexie (
@Sherman_Alexie): “Should I eat only those species of animal that have eaten humans? And call myself a revengitarian?”

Yiyun Li (
@apple_twig_Li): “Only one achievement worth mentioning this year (go away 2012): I found three typos in the 2007 edition of War and Peace.

Monday 21 January 2013

e,e cummings.Breaking the rules.



i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- e. e. cummings ~
(Complete Poems, 1904-1962)
for H.T.
The Poet
E. E. Cummings was born Edward Estlin Cummings in 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died in North Conway, N.H., in 1962. Cummings earned a B.A. degree from Harvard in 1915 and delivered the Commencement Address that year, titled "The New Art." A year later he earned an M.A. degree for English and Classical Studies, also from Harvard.

Cummings joined an ambulance corps with the American Red Cross in France during World War I. The French imprisoned him on suspicion of disloyalty, a false accusation that put Cummings in prison for three months. He wrote the novel, The Enormous Room, about his experience. Many of Cummings' writings have an anti-war message.

Cummings was a fine artist, playwright and novelist. He studied art in Paris following World War I and he adopted a cubist style in his artwork. He considered himself as much a painter as a poet, spending much of the day painting and much of the night writing. Cummings particularly admired the artwork of Pablo Picasso. Cummings' understanding of presentation can be seen in his use of typography to "paint a picture" with words in some of his poems.

During his lifetime Cummings wrote over 900 poems, two novels, four plays, and had at least a half dozen showings of his artwork.

More than 168 of Cummings' original poems have been set to music.

Friday 18 January 2013

poemimage.“How goes the night, boy?…” by Michael Hartnett

An image within a poem will grab me and set off a trail of associations which I 'document' by manipulating one of my ink drawings into multiple variations. I like to explore that space where text and image intersect. All images copyright Steven McCabe.



 Michael Hartnett (1941-1999) is an award winning poet from County Limerick, Ireland. Poem courtesy of Niall Hartnett.



She was my three-years child,
Her honey hair, her eyes
Small ovals of thrush-eggs.

f5
How goes the night, boy?
It is late: lace
At the window
Blows back in the wind.

Beginners Creative Writing in Ranelagh


 

Thurs morn Beginners Creative Writing in Ranelagh

New Thursday morning Beginners Creative Writing classes starting in Ranelagh Arts Centre http://bit.ly/SQ0mcp
by
Calling all pensive pensioners, busy mums, part-time workers, lads and ladies of leisure – young & old – we like everyone! Join us on Thursday mornings and tap into your creativity in this fun writing class like no other in Dublin!
NEW DAYTIME COURSE in RANELAGH DUBLIN 6
Come a long and act the maggot with us in the lovely Ranelagh Arts Centre
If you like your class mates you can even have coffee with them after in Nick’s next door!
Thursday mornings starting Feb 21 – 6 weeks (10am-11.30am) €140
Where: Ranelagh Arts Centre in Ranelagh village, Dublin 6:
across the street from Ranelagh Luas stop & beside Superquinn & Nick’s Coffee.

Flourish in 2013 with Act The Maggot. A fun New Year’s Resolution!
Roll up. Roll up: New Beginners Writing Course
BOOK NOW. Early birds act the maggot!
actthemaggot@gmail.com or call 0873744926

Thursday 17 January 2013

Mary Lynn Jamison.artist at work,from Anam Cara workshop

Mary Lynn Jamison (Gainseville, Florida):  "Richard and I planted the labyrinth pattern in rye grass again this year and it has come up beautifully.  It is alive with energy and really holds a sweet space for meditation.  This pattern contains the most ancient artistic pattern on earth.  In the middle ages the church took the ancient labyrinth pattern and expanded it into a larger pattern.  This is a copy of the labyrinth that appears on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France.  It was walked as a pilgrimage.  A metaphor for going inside and finding our center, our spiritual heart, opening to our unlimited creative potential and bringing that potential out into our world.  It is a powerful meditation and calming process." [Several years ago, Mary Lynn set the lines for the labyrinth in the meditation meadow at Anam Cara.]    

Mary Lynn's labyrinth
 

Short courses in Irish, French Fiction, Poetry NUIM Kilkenny

Gaeilge - Meánleibhéal
Thursday 7-9, January 31st – March 21st
8 weeks €120

Cúrsa comhrá do dhaoine gur mhian leo a gcuid Gaeilge a fheashsú.


Nature in Poetry and Prose
Tuesday 7-9pm, February 19th – March 26th
6 weeks €90

This evening course will look at how writers from a variety of eras and environments have engaged with the natural world through poetry and prose. From Wordsworth and Heaney to Jack London and haiku, we will discuss work on a range of themes. Texts will be supplied.

.

French Short Fiction
Thursday 10am – 12 noon, January 31st – March 7th
6 weeks €90

This course will explore the French short story in translation, including work by Flaubert, whose novels often overshadow his shorter work, and two other masters of the short form, Maupassant and Colette. Texts will be supplied.

For details and booking  visit  www.nuim.ie/kilkenny, or call 056 7775910
Please apply by Thursday, January 24th, as minimum numbers are required for courses to proceed.


--
Margaret Irish
NUIM Kilkenny Campus
College Road
Kilkenny

Tel:              056 7775910
Email:          margaret.irish@nuim.ie
Web:            http://kilkenny.nuim.ie

Facebook:    www.facebook.com/KilkennyCampus

William Trevor Elizabeth Bowen Short Story Competition

WILLIAM TREVOR/
ELIZABETH BOWEN
International
Short Story
Competition
2013.
Prize Fund 4 ,500

International
Mitchelstown Literary Society is pleased to announce the launch of the third William Trevor / Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition.
The Society was founded to celebrate the lives and works of two of Ireland’s literary greats with Mitchelstown connections. The short story competition evolved as a natural adjunct to our annual literary festival and aims to provide a competitive outlet for new and emerging
writers in the short story genre. The continued support
of William Trevor includes sponsoring the very
generous First Prize.
Our adjudicators are both well-known short story
writers and book reviewers. They will select a short list
of approximately 25 stories to be passed on for final adjudication.
Drumshanbo born, Dublin resident, Ita Daly, who will again be our main adjudicator, was married to writer and editor, the late David Marcus. Educated at U.C.D., Ita holds a Masters Degree in English. She has published five novels, a collection of short stories and two children’s books. Two times winner of the Hennessy Literary Awards and an Irish Times Short Story Award winner, Ita’s last novel
‘Unholy Ghosts’ was long listed for the Impact Award.
Each story should contain a maximum of 3000 words and should be submitted, by post only, on or before Friday 5th April 2013.
First Prize €3,000.00
Second Prize €500.00
Five runners up will receive cash prizes of €200.00 each.
There is an entry fee of €20.00 per entry and
each entry must have an official entry form attached.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

We all want to tell a story, in paint or ink or words or notes.

I know this is a work in progress but already it is unfolding a tale.

Watch for the finished work on Islander Art website.

Medieval Village

by James Cope at Islander art

 

good advice Rachel Randall is a content editor for Writer’s Digest Books.

Extract from Rachel Randall's article
Rachel  is a content editor for Writer’s Digest Books.

Don’t worry about being worried, and don’t let worry drag you down.
Not long after his novel Hold Tight debuted at #1 on the New York Times best-seller list, Harlan Coben was speaking to a crowd of suspense readers. He was asked if, with all his success, he still felt insecure with any part of his writing. He laughed and admitted that’s the writer’s stock in trade. Coben said he always gets to a point in a work-in-progress when he thinks, “This is terrible! I used to be so good. When did I lose it?”
In fact, if you’re not insecure about your writing, Coben says, you’re either mailing in forgettable stuff or somebody else is writing for you.
You will worry if you are a writer. Turn that worry into writing.

New post on Poethead.Paula Meehan poetry.Interesting site to visit.


Mysteries of the Home cover

Mysteries of the Home cover

‘Seed’, by Paula Meehan

by C. Murray
" The first warm day of spring
and I step out into the garden from the gloom
of a house where hope had died

to tally the storm damage, to seek what may
have survived. And finding some forgotten
lupins I’d sown from seed last autumn
holding in their fingers a raindrop each
like a peace offering, or a promise,

I am suddenly grateful and would

offer a prayer if I believed in God.
But not believing, I bless the power of seed,
its casual, useful persistence,
and bless the power of sun,

its conspiracy with the underground,
and thank my stars the winter’s ended."

'Seed' is © Paula Meehan, all rights reserved..
'Seed' is taken from the  Mysteries of the Home Compedium by Paula Meehan, which will be re-issued in February 2013 by Dedalus Press.

Islander art: Little Pig.Great work on this site.I just love this little character!

Islander art: Little Pig: Derwent pencils and oil pitt on Fabriano art by kevin gough

NEW YEAR POETRY WORKSHOPS AT GALWAY ARTS CENTRE WITH KEVIN HIGGINS

NEW YEAR POETRY WORKSHOPS AT GALWAY ARTS CENTRE WITH KEVIN HIGGINS

In the New Year, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three poetry workshops, all facilitated by poet Kevin Higgins, whose best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face, published by Salmon Poetry, was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet. Kevin’s second collection of poems, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in 2008 by Salmon Poetry and his poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry. His third collection Frightening New Furniture was published in 2010 by Salmon and his work also appears in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). A collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published in 2012 by Salmon Poetry. His next collection of poetry, The Ghost in The Lobby, will be published in early 2014, also by Salmon.
Kevin is an experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. One of his workshop participants at Galway Arts Centre won the prestigious Hennessy Award for New Irish Poetry, two have won the Cúirt New Writing Prize, one has been awarded an Arts Council Bursary and yet another won the Cúirt Poetry Grand Slam, while several have published collections of their poems. Kevin is also co-organiser of the successful Over The Edge reading series which specialises in promoting new writers.

Each workshop will run for ten weeks, commencing the week of January 21st. They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class January 22nd), Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class January 24th); on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class January 25th).

The Tuesday evening and Friday afternoon workshops are open to both complete beginners as well as those who’ve been writing for some time. The Thursday afternoon workshop is an Advanced Poetry Workshop, suitable for those who’ve participated in poetry workshops before or had poems published in magazines. The cost to participants is €110, with a concession rate.

Places must be paid for in advance. To reserve a place contact reception at Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886 or email
info@galwayartscentre.ie

Monday 14 January 2013

The Art of Changemaking

THE ART OF CHANGEMAKING
Do you want to make ‘a dent in the universe’?  If so we invite you to share your dreams @ the Art of CHANGE-MAKING.
The Art of CHANGE-MAKING is a 12 day international programme about bringing you closer to ‘Be the Change you want to see in the World’. It is about moving away from individualism and competition to cooperation and innovation.
The Art of CHANGE-MAKING invites you to share develop and share skills and experience in an innovative learning exchange. It will question how we sustain our creative ideas and actions exploring the future of CHANGE-MAKING.
Who will want to be there?
Do you love to work and experience how you can contribute to a better world? That is why you devote your life to what you do. And that is why we challenge you to participate in the Art of CHANGE-MAKING. We understand people for whom this is the key to their daily reality.
Do you see yourself as someone who wants or feels the need to step out of the comfort zone and try something 
else? Something different? Something strange? Then the Art of CHANGE-MAKING is something for you.

The programme is an accredited learning experience and is a  CIT approved Module at Level 9 (5 credits). It  is open to applications from people with a range backgrounds and experience who are passionate about the programme themes.

The event is hosted by Crawford College of Art and Design with Partners,  Amsterdam University of Applied Science , The Knowmads, University of Kassel, Centre for Social Innovation and University of Ulster.

Please visit theartofchangemaking.com to find out how you can get involved.