Brian Kirk's Blog

All of a sudden I have some readings happening in the near future, which is great. I don’t do enough of them, but it means I have to learn to read all over again – read to an audience that is.

I’m hoping to get some help this Saturday where I’ll be performing as one of the shortlisted poets in the Heart In Mouth poetry competition run by Fingal County Council. This competition was a bit different in that you didn’t submit written work but an audio recording of an original poem. Being shortlisted means I get to do a two hour workshop on performance with Dave Lordan and Karl Parkinson on Saturday afternoon before the readings that evenings. The whole thing takes place in Fingal County Council offices in Swords at 7pm on Saturday. I’m a bit nervous, but looking forward to it also.

The experience I gain there should help me prepare for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Readings on Thursday 30th May also. I’ll be reading at 6.30pm in the Irish Writers’ Centre on Parnell Square along with Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Stephanie Conn and Madeleine Barnes. If you’re on Facebook there’s an event set up here with all the details. There will also be two further readings in the series in early June and I’ll post about all three again before the time.

This year also I’ve been invited to read short fiction at Listowel Writers’ Week as part of the New Writers’ Salon. I’ll be reading along with some great short story writers: Noel O’Regan, Madeleine D’Arcy, Eimear Ryan and Elizabeth Reapy, founder and editor of Wordlegs. There is a poetry element to the Salon also which will feature fellow Poetry Ireland Intro poets Kerrie O’Brien and Victoria Kennefick along with Stephen James Smith, Cal Doyle and the wonderful Jennifer Matthews who edits Long Story Short Literary Journal.

Suddenly I’m busy and it’s public – I need to get out of this room and learn how to read again.

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This is another example of a new poetry publisher setting up to meet the demand from writers and readers of poetry. In recent years we’ve seen the emergence of many new online and paper journals and zines that reflect new work in poetry and the short story – I’m thinking immediately of the success of Bare Hands, Wordlegs and The Poetry Bus to name but three.

This is a little bit different again. Smithereens Press was set up with the intention of producing high-quality poetic texts of chapbook-length to be made available online. The decision to start the press was founded on the understanding that opportunities to release shorter texts, particularly those that may not meet the criteria of standard full-length collections, are restricted by financial realities and limited interest on the part of the more-established publishers. The ambition is to provide a venue for poets so that their work may be made widely available to a community of readers and poets here in Ireland and abroad.

The press recently released their first three publications (and have others forthcoming);
The Server Room – Conor O’Callaghan
Rain – Maurice Scully
Zero at the Bone – David Wheatley

Kenneth Keating, founder and editor, goes on to say: “Smithereens Press endeavours to produce chapbooks of the highest quality of various forms of poetry. These publications may be complete mini-collections, stepping stones toward a more established volume of poetry, or transient texts which embrace a condition of open-endedness.

The press welcomes work from diverse poetic backgrounds and its editorial policy hopes to blur any reductive divisions between ‘traditional’ or ‘experimental’ poetry. This project is still in its infancy, but we are proud of the start we have made. This is only a start, however, and we need help to get our message out and to grow this press so that poets, emerging and established, and readers of poetry alike can find a new entry point into contemporary Irish poetry.”

They are open for submissions now – check out their Submission Guidelines. All enquiries and submissions should be made to the editor, Kenneth Keating, at smithereens.press@gmail.com.

I recommend you take some time to enjoy the three publications to date – they are each very interesting and very different. Save it as a favourite –  I have – and go back to the poems again and again. And if you have something you’re working on that fits the bill, why not submit and see what happens.

Updates and news on their latest releases can be found on Facebook and Twitter (@SmithereensPres) pages. Keep an eye on this one!

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This week I have another story at Ether Quick Reads – this will be my fourth to be published by them. Ether Quick Reads can now be downloaded to Android as well as Apple devices which should bring the work to a much wider audience.

The story is called Dignity and costs the tiny sum of 69p to download. Go on give it a lash!

I have three other stories available for download at Ether: Worm, The Girl in the Window and my award winning story Perpetuity is free. Here are the links. There are plenty of other good writers available for download so check out the catalogue.

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The month of March has been given over to the Irish Short story at Mel Ulm’s The Reading Life blog. Mel is a great supporter of writers from all over the globe and his site gets roughly 100, ooo hits every month. This is the third year he has focused on Ireland and Irish writers, and I’m excited to be included this year among others such as Eileen Casey, Gerard Beirne, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Ethel Rohan and Fred Johnston.

Mel has posted a commentary on my new story The Shawl here, and also on my story New Amsterdam which was featured in the Galway Review in November 2012.

I was delighted to take part in a Q and A session also, and you can check that out here.

Please also look back at the previous postings 0f stories and poems by Mel of Irish writers living and dead, and also at the Q and A’s. And do keep an eye on The Reading Life throughout the month of March where there will be plenty more on the Irish short story.

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I was delighted to be included in the Poetry Ireland Introductions series for 2013. On Saturday last I attended an all day workshop with my fellow poets, led by Alan Jude Moore, at Poetry Ireland headquarters on Kildare Street. Alan is a great poet and an excellent facilitator; he allowed everyone to have their say, but wasn’t afraid to give a frank response to poems also.

We each brought one poem to be workshopped and it was an intense and interesting day spent with a great bunch of people who just happen to be very talented poets also. This year’s Poetry Ireland Introduction Series poets are:

There will be three nights of readings in the Irish Writers’ Centre in May and I’ll post more details of same when the time gets nearer. It’s a great opportunity to have your work heard and to bring your poetry to a wider audience, so I’m absolutely thrilled to be a part of it.

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This month I’m delighted to announce that my new short story The Shawl is the featured story at Long Story Short, Literary Journal.

The Long Story Short, Literary Journal was created by writer and poet Jennifer Matthews. It’s an online literary magazine that caters for the longer short story (4,000 words plus) which is often outside the word limit set by many editors and competition administrators. The journal publishes one story per month which helps highlight the author’s work for that period, but readers can also read stories from previous months via the archive.

I want to thank Jennifer for choosing my story and also for some editorial advice she gave me prior to publication. Since the journal kicked off in August 2012 the quality of the stories has been excellent (and no, I’m not just saying that – read them and see for yourself). Those published to date are: Julia Van Middlesworth, Charles Boyle, Dave Lordan, Naoimh O’Connor, John MacKenna and Aileen Armstrong. You can read their stories here.

The site also features original photography, and I’m especially pleased with the above image by American visual artist  Jenna Weaver that accompanies my story.

Jennifer Matthews works with the Munster Literature Centre in Cork and is an accomplished writer and poet. She was recently shortlisted in the poetry category of the 2012 Bridport Prize.

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There’s a whole range of interesting events and readings taking place at the Irish Writers’ Centre right now. You should check out their list of upcoming events here.

A season of Friday lunchtime readings commences tomorrow 22/2/13 for those of you lucky enough to live or work close by.  The line up is as follows: 

Friday 22 nd Febraury – Ken Bruen

Friday 1st March – Rosemarie Rowley

Friday 8th March – Selina Guinnes

Friday 15th March – Kathy D’Arcy – (well worth a visit)

Friday 22nd March – David Park

Friday 5th April – Eugene O’Connell

Friday 12th April – Donal Ryan – (The Spinning Heart is on my reading list – great reviews so far)

Friday 19th April – Gerry Murphy

There are also two interesting poetry launches from Dedalus Press coming up on 26th February: Harms Way, a first collection by Conor Carville, and Mysteries of the Home by the brilliant Paula Meehan.

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One of the hardest things about being a writer is dealing with the inevitable plethora of rejection slips, both physical and virtual. Early on in your career, if you are serious about your calling, you have to grow a second or third skin. Failing that (if you can excuse the negative phrasing) you will find yourself everyday sitting in the corner of your bedroom with the curtains pulled against the light and your head buried in your hands. If you want to be published you have to submit work to editors at magazines or judges in literary competitions. It’s fraught of course, but if you don’t submit you’ll never know if your writing is achieving what you want it to.

This week I came across a couple of great posts for aspiring and established writers. The first comes from Lynne Barrett at The Review Review and it gives a comprehensive account of how the aspiring writer should approach the area of sending out submissions. I urge you to read it, and heed it.

The second blog post is more specifically to do with managing the insecurities we all feel when in the middle of a large literary project, a novel in this case. Nuala Ní Chonchubar is a talented and successful poet and writer, and she speaks candidly in her blog, Women Rule Writer, this week of the problems that can beset us when undertaking a novel-sized project. I have some experience in this area also, and am still putting myself through the ringer with my current novel. However, I have had the WIP read by two close and trusted fellow writers who gave me their candid views, and I’ve taken their comments in the manner I would those of a respected editor. Sure there were some sizeable problems, but also alot of positivity, and because of that I feel rejuvenated in the work and ready to make this novel into the best that it can be.

So, with thanks to all the honest bloggers out there, my advice is to try and stay positive. 

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It’s almost the end of January already so it’s great to kick off the new year with couple of poetry publications.

My first publication of the year is in the brilliant Bare Hands Poetry, Issue 13, where my poem First Kiss appears alongside work by Elizabeth Reapy and others. This beautiful online journal of poetry and photography continues to go from strength to strength. They published their first print book last November, The Bare Hands Anthology, which features 15 stunning photographs and 25 poems from a wide range of excellent poets. Why not order a copy and in the meantime check out all the Bare Hands back issues online.

My second publication is in the beautiful Derry Art and Poetry Magazine, Abridged. This one has the theme Once a Railroad. It will be launched at 6pm on 7th February at the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast. Abridged produce quality print issues s well as PDFs online, and I’m delighted that my poem Balancing Act will be featured alongside work by Daniel Seiffert, Gerard Beirne, Ceara Conway, Michael Casey, Rachael Mead, Afric McGlinchey, Nadege Meriau, Clare McCotter, Zoe Murdoch, Olive Broderick, Ruth Le Gear, Howard Wright, Geraldine Timlin, Jason Roycroft, Mark O’Flynn, Aiofe Mannix, Arthur Broomfield, Ethna O’Regan, Antony Owen, Dougal McKenzie, Gerard Smyth, Steve Sharkey, Kelly Richardson, Simon Perchik, Sue Morgan, Victoria J. Dean, Stephen Sexton, Bernadette Bradley, Celeste Auge, Jan Uprichard. A PDF version of the issue will be available for download here after the launch. Check out the past issues also – well worth a long look and feature some excellent work by established and emerging poets.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that Burning Bush 2, Issue 4, is now online – even though I’m not in it there’s poetry from Patrick Chapman, Celeste Auge, Noel Duffy, Barbara Smith, Christopher Locke and others; fiction from Dave Lordan and Danielle McLaughlin; and reviews of Joseph Horgan and Keith Gaustad.

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Remember all those New Year resolutions you made a couple of weeks back that shone like diamonds in your mind and are now being tramped into the mud of the quotidian? Well, it’s time to dig up those gems and polish them off again.

Here’s a list of dates you should be working towards:

25/1/2013 – Strokestown Poetry Competition.

21/1/2013 – RTE Francis MacManus short story award.

28/2/2013 – RTE PJ O’Connor Award for radio drama.

1/03/2013 – Poetry Ireland / Trocaire Poetry Competition.

1/03/2013 – The White Review Prize.

31/3/2013 – The Moth Short Story competition.

05/4/2013 – The William Trevor / Elizabeth Bowen Short Story competition.

And don’t forget: Southword are taking submissions of poetry and short fiction up to 15/3/2013, and The Stinging Fly has changed its submissions policy recently – there is an initial window for submission of poems and stories during February 2013.

Now get to it!

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