Last night I attended the launch of the first anthology from Labello Press – Gem Street. The anthology is comprised of the winning and shortlisted stories from the inaugural Leonard A. Koval Memorial Prize.
I was delighted to meet up with the founding editor, Deborah McMenamy, who was kind enough to invite me along on the night. I also got to listen to seven of the writers read extracts from their stories: Steve Wade, Carol Brick-Stock, Noel O’Regan, Helen Kampfner, P.W. Bridgman, Zoe Gilbert and Paul Burns. The subject matter and styles were wide ranging with writers representing Ireland, the UK, France, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.
There was wine and canapes and good conversation too, all in the beautiful United Arts Club on Fitzwilliam Street Upper. I particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to chat to Steve Wade and Tanya Farrelly, two very accomplished and successful writers and Noel O’Regan, a young short story writer with a very bright future ahead of him. You can read another great story by Noel here.
Labello Press intend to run this competition again this year – check out the details here. I’m looking forward now to reading the stories at my leisure very soon. You can purchase a copy of Gem Street here, and I recommend you do that. Congratulations to all eleven writers and also to Deborah for making it all happen. I look forward to more publications from Labello Press in the future. Writers need publishers like Labello.
Thanks Brian,
I too was delighted our paths crossed again. Tanya and I both enjoyed talking with you. Likewise, I was very happy that the evening was such a success for Deborah. No doubt we’ll bump into each other again at another literary event in the future.
Yea it was great to meet up Steve. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again at some stage soon.