Brian Kirk's Blog

It’s a new year and many of us will have made resolutions to send out more work more often. With that in mind here are a few deadlines coming up for short fiction writers and poets.

Cúirt New Writing Prize 2012: Poetry, short story categories and the deadline is 5th March 2012. All the details are here. Judges are Joseph Woods (Poetry Ireland) for poetry and Declan Meade (Stinging Fly) for stories.

Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2012: Short story and the deadline is 26th March 2012. All the details are here.

The story word limit in both of these competitions is 2000 words, which I feel is a little bit constricting.

William Trevor / Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012: Deadline is 30th March 2012 and the judge is Ita Daly. The word limit is 3000 here and stories can have been previously published. The entry fee is pricey at €20 but they publish a shortlist of 25 before final adjudication so you get an idea if your story is of a standard. All the details are here.

So, no excuses, start writing or re-drafting that diamond in the rough!

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In January 2010 Wordlegs, an online magazine, was founded by Elizabeth Reapy with the aim of garnering a new and wider audience for new writing in Ireland. Now two years later they are on the cusp of launching Issue 9 with a catalogue of quality poetry, stories and flash fiction behind them. You can check out back issues here.

As part of the 2nd birthday celebrations they have asked contributors to pick their favourites and you can check some of these out on their facebook page  here.

I was delighted to have my story Pressed Service featured in Issue 7, Autumn 2011.

My highlights to date would be: Jaki McCarrick’s By the Black Field in Issue 3 – it has such an understated menace running through it and the writing is so subtly coloured, it reads like looking at a painting.  Also Andrew Fox’s Nesting from Issue 8 – it painstakingly gives a glimpse into young lives starting out, showing the holes before they even appear.

Closing date for submissions to Issue 10, Summer is 31st March 2012 and you’ll find all you need to know here.

Happy birthday Wordlegs!

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The results of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair have been published. Twenty writers and novels were chosen by the judges from 570 entries to take part in the Novel Fair in March 2012 where they will get an opportunity to meet with representatives from Penguin Ireland, Transworld, O’ Brien Press, Lilliput Press, Hachette Books, Liberties Press, Little Island, Arlen House and New Island. Literary agents such as Marianne Gunn O’ Connor, Yvonne Kinsella, Emma Walsh, Ger Nichol, Paul Feldstein and Jonathan Williams will also be present.

Congratulations to the winning twenty. They are as follows:

I entered my novel Winter Journey in the competition and was informed that while it didn’t make the top twenty it was highly commended by the judges along with fourteen others. Those highly commended were:

It’s a bit disappointing to miss out and yet be so close, but I’m trying not to dwell on it. At present I’m in the process of finishing novel no. 2 so I’m trying to be positive and stay focussed on the job in hand. Well, you have to, don’t you?

The Novel Fair is yet another example of the Irish Writers’ Centre providing great opportunities for emerging writers to establish themselves, and they must be thanked and congratulated for their continuing efforts.

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The Irish Writers’ Centre has been running The Lonely Voice series since 2010 affording emerging short story writers the opportunity to read their work in front of a live audience in the wonderful Georgian setting on Parnell Square.

They have now just launched a website/blog which not  only gives a detailed history of the series with links to a lot of the stories and biographical information on the writers, but also has up to date information on current writers in the series. Each month a new judge picks four stories from those submitted. All the details on how to submit are here.

I was lucky enough to read twice in the series in 2010 and 2011, and it’s a wonderful experience – very different to reading poems in that you have to sustain your voice over ten to fifteen minutes, and hold the interest of the audience. Still, for the normally desk-bound writer it’s a great opportunity to get out there and meet your future readers.

Why not browse the site and read a few of the stories – the quality is excellent.

Thanks goes to Jack Harte, Chairman of the Writers’ Centre, and to all of the volunteers who give their time so generously to keep this wonderful resource for writers going from strength to strength.

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My writer profile (above) appeared in yesterday’s Echo Newspaper. Even though I’ve been writing poetry for years it always seems strange to see oneself called a poet in print. Anyway it’s great to get the publicity.

Susan Condon has been keeping track here of all the poets featured in the series which is linked to the hugely successful reading series organised and facilitated by Eileen Casey in the County Library in Tallaght between October and December last year. Peruse the profiles at your leisure.

By the way, I’m not always as serious as I look in the photo. Honestly…

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Yesterday at lunch time I went to see a great new play at Bewley’s Cafe Theatre. Those Sick and Indigent is a short play by Alan O’Regan set in a homeless shelter on the night after one of the residents has died. Care worker Ronan, with some help from two other residents, makes an inventory of the late Jack Gannon’s few possessions. We learn alot about Gannon’s life as the play progesses, but we learn more about those left behind, Ronan’s helpers Finbarr “The Cad” and Oxo.

O’Regan skilfully uses humour to temper the bleakness of the setting and the action and he never lets sentimentality creep in, which is an inherent danger when dealing with the less well off in society. The play was a runner-up in the Dublin City Public Libraries From Page to Stage competition in 2010 and in the same year won the new writer award in the Cork Arts Theatre Play Writing Award. O’Regan also won the overall prize at the Cork Arts Theatre in 2011 with a new play, so he obviously is one to watch.

The acting also is worth a mention. Mark Lambert (pictured above) as Finbarr drives the play along and Gerry O’Brien is a brilliantly intense yet fragile Oxo, while Shane O’Reilly is convincing as the young care worker, at the start unaware of the lives of those he cares for, at the end undoubtedly moved by what he has learned.

Those Sick and Indigent runs at Bewley’s Cafe Theatre until 21st January 2012. To book online go here, or just pop along at lunchtime if you’re in town. Doors open at 12.50pm and show starts at 1.10pm. Just the thing to get you through a dismal January Dublin day.

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Just got wind of an upcoming event at the Royal Irish Academy on 2nd and 3rd February. For anyone interested in listening to or writing for radio broadcast this looks like a very interesting event.  The full details are here.

I think the Seamus Heaney event is booked out on the Thursday evening, but you can book the Friday symposium here.

The RIA have run some interesting panel discussions in recent times and this is well worth checking out.

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Christmas is great up to a point, but New Year? Who needs it? As a memento mori it’s almost redundant when you get to a certain age anyway, and even back in the days when I wasn’t so obsessed with the finite nature of my existence I always felt a bit of a fake as I smiled and kissed and toasted the future at midnight on the 31st of December. Better to just note the change of date, open a fresh diary and keep going as if nothing has happened.

So I’m looking forward to reading plenty of new stories, poems and novels this year and hopefully catching some drama along the way too. I’m into the business of life nowadays; living it, evoking it, examining it and trying to understand it when I can and accept it when I can’t. And of course I’m re-committing myself to my various works-in-progress. It’s good to have a break every now and then, but it’s even better to be back at the desk, tapping away, thinking again, creating, living. Life’s too short, as they say… Happy New Year then!

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Next Monday night 19th December 2011 at Tallaght Library Kate Dempsey will be reading from her recently published “Dinky” book of poems along with Ann Marie Mullins, Ray Mullen and Trish Best.

Kate blogs at Emerging Writer, one of the best blogs for those of you who need to know what’s going on in the world of literature and writing. You can buy Kate’s book here – it’s published by The Moth who also produce an excellent quarterly magazine.

Susan Condon has compiled an archive of the recent Echo pieces on a lot of the writers featured over the weeks here.

There should be a Christmas party atmosphere on the night. Readings start at 7pm. Hope to see you there!

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I went to the readings on Monday night in Tallaght Library. All poetry this time, but all widely different styles and approaches.

It started with Michael Whelan, awarded second place in this year’s Patrick Kavanagh Award, who read a selection of poems from his entry based on his experiences as an Irish soldier serving with the UN in Lebanon and Kosovo. It was very powerful and moving, as you might expect, but deftly handled and delivered with quiet authority.

Gavan Duffy came next. I was thinking that Michael would be a hard act to follow, but I forgot that poetry is not a competitive sport and, within seconds of Gavan reading his first lines, as an audience we were transported again to another place, a place that ostensibly is the actual humdrum world but on closer inspection shows itself to be a place where the poet unpicks the detail of the everyday with an acute intelligence and a sharp ear for the telling phrase.

All change again as Maria Wallace began by taking us back 70 years to an ersatz memorial for the Spanish Civil War dead carved out from a mountain by political prisoners on the orders of a tyrant. All through her reading she moved with ease from past to present, from Ireland to Catalonia, encompassing a broad range of styles to suit the required mood.

Finally, Eileen Casey read some new poems, among them two powerful Titanic poems. Her work meets the ear and the mind’s eye with musical precision and the meticulous accumulation of faithfully reconstructed living detail. I was delighted to learn that she has been awarded this year’s Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship for poetry. Congratulations Eileen!

The final reading of the year will take place on Monday 19^th December 2011, when Kate Dempsey, Trish Best, Ann Marie Mullen and Ray Mullen will read from their work. Try not to miss it!

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