Brian Kirk's Blog

I spent all day Saturday at RTE Radio Centre in the company of the other shortlistees in the 2011 PJ O’Connor Awards for Radio Drama.  It was great to meet up with the others and exchange ideas about how we do our work. The workshop was organised by the RTE Drama Production team of Aidan Mathews, Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Brew, and the day was facilitated and led by Jesper Bergman, Dramaturge of the Royal Theatre Denmark and permanent judge of the PJ O’Connor Awards.

To be honest I wasn’t really sure what a dramaturge was, but after a day of immersion in the techniques and practises of radio drama and having had detailed discussions on the approaches to creating drama for radio I think I have some idea. Jesper, for me, was like a therapist or analyst who interrogated the work, forcing the writer to crystallize his or her ideas about their play – what it is and what it isn’t. I certainly came away with fresh approaches on  how I can rework a short play I have already written. I can see now that I haven’t been completely honest in how I let the story develop.  I am now prepared to go back to it and let the play’s own logic emerge truly and run its course, and then let’s see what happens.

I’m really surprised by how energised I feel about the prospect of revisiting the play. I’m still not exactly sure what a dramaturge does, but in this case it seems to have worked.

Thanks to the team at RTE Radio Drama for inviting us in. You can listen to the winning plays and a host of other radio plays here on the RTE archive.

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“It says something about the richness of this collection that I’ve got this far without mentioning my three personal favourites.  The Girl in the Window (Brian Kirk), where a middle-aged bank manager sits in his office watching a woman undressing in her apartment across the road. He’s spent decades retreating from the world, from his wife, from his job, from his colleagues, and now he mistakes his safe, hermitic voyeurism for love. The story has a strong, pitiless ending.”

Almost exactly a year to the day of publication of Sharp Sticks Driven Nails a review by Mithran Somasundrum of the anthology has appeared in The Short Review. You can read the full review here. The anthology was published by the Stinging Fly Press and edited by Phillip O’Ceallaigh, author of two highly regarded short story collections, Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse (2006) and The Pleasant Light of Day (2009).

If you haven’t read it yet copies of Sharp Sticks Driven Nails can be bought here.

The Stinging Fly has been for some time at the cutting edge of fiction and poetry publishing in Ireland. They will be launching a New York themed issue of the magazine later this month in New York which featurs writers such as Emer Martin, Kathleen Murray, Sean O’Reilly, Keith Ridgway and Eimear Ryan among others. Check it out / buy it here.

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This Thursday 13th October 2011 sees the launch of the Stony Thurday Book 2011 at the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick city as part of the Cuisle Poetry Festival.  Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it along on the night, but I’m really pleased that my poem The Kitchen in Winter is inlcuded in this year’s publication. I had a poem in the 2009 issue and was very impressed by the quality of the poetry and the production values of the book itself.

The 2011 issue is edited by Mary Coll and inlcludes poems by Peter Goulding, Orla Fay and James Lawless.  I’m really looking forward to receiving my copy in the post and seeing what other gems are pressed between the covers.

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Next Monday, 17th October 2011, sees the third in a series of six readings in Tallaght Library, once again presided over by award winning author Eileen Casey.

This week’s featured readers are all well established poets: Enda Coyle Greene, Eamonn Lynskey and Mary Guckian, and proceedings commence at 7pm  as usual.

Bios

Enda Coyle-Greene’s work has been widely published and broadcast. Her first collection, Snow Negatives won the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2006 and was published in 2007 by Dedalus Press.

Eamonn Lynskey’s  Dispatches & Recollections ( Lapwing) was published in 1998. His  second, And Suddenly the Sun Again, (Seven Towers Ltd)  was published in 2010. Eamonn was a finalist in the Strokestown International Poetry Competition (2004) and also in the Sunday Tribune/ Hennessey Literary Awards (2006).

Mary Guckian is a Leitrim Writer living in Dublin.  She has published three books of poetry with Swan Press.  Her most recent collection is Walking on Snow.  She was a prize-winner in ‘Poetry on the Wall’ (2004), a South Dublin Libraries Awards.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Enda and Eamonn before, so on the strength of their past performances I’m going to do my best to be there next Monday. And you should too.

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Graham Knuttel The Last To Fly

This looks like a very interesting competition.  I spent a Saturday morning recently sitting oppostive the above Graham Knuttel painting.  It’s a little unnerving, nightmarish even, but it grows on you. Why not give it a go…

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Last night at Tallaght Library we had an all prose reading event chaired by award winning author, Eileen Casey.  There was a pretty good crowd who listened attentively to Colm Keegan, Louise Phillips and myself reading.

Colm read his Hennesy Award nominated story Drown Town; Louise read two pieces, a short piece called Monkey and the Brain Eater which dealt with the shocking effects of Alzheimers and an extract from a play she is currently working on.  I read a brand new story called To the sea.  We ran a little over time so there was not much time to receive comments or review matters after the readings, but all readers were very well received.

In a short discussion before the readings Eileen broached the subject of blogging and how a writer might make the most of the internet.  All three writers currently blog, although Colm has not done so regularly for some time.  We talked about the motivation to blog, some seeing it as an opportunity to hone writing skills in a new and somewhat anonymous environment, while others saw it mainly as a networking or promotional tool. My brother in law, Eddie, who attended the reading ( and was full of praise for all three readers!) sent me on this link here on the subject from Seth Godin’s blog.

It chimes with some of what was discussed last night. It’s food for thought.

Thanks again to Eileen Casey for arranging this series of readings.  Looking forward to the next one on 17th October already.

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Boyne Berries 10 Cover

I attended the launch of Boyne Berries issue 10 last night at the Castle Arch Hotel in Trim.  Issue 10 is a milestone and the editorial team produced a high quality colour magazine to mark the occasion.  Peter Fallon of Gallery Press spoke eloquently about the importance of readers to authors, and the role of the publisher and the editor in ensuring that authors always have readers, drawing on his own personal experiences in both capacities.

Michael Farry, as editor, and the whole team at Boyne Berries should be proud of the work they continue to do.  The highlights for me last night were Evan Costigan’s Leaving Nagasaki, Carolyne Van Der Meer’s In Central Station, James Lawless’ The Tramp In The Lady, Michael Farry’s The Hawk’s Rock and Peter Goulding’s For Pablo Casals, but there are many more treasures between the covers.  At the end of the evening Peter Fallon read his poem The Fields of Meath, the opening poem of issue 10: a geographical, temporal and metaphysical journey around the county sometimes driven, sometimes cajoled along by a sly rhyme that is delicious to the ear.

You can get a copy of Boyne Berries 10 here.  And you really ought to, you know!

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The second reading in the series of six fortnightly readings takes place at County Library Tallaght at 7pm on Monday next, 3rd October 2011.

Louise Phillips, Colm Keegan and I will be reading a mixture of poetry and prose.  Proceedings will be overseen once more by Eileen Casey, award winning local author and poet.

I’m really looking forward to this – I don’t do enough public readings, so I’ll be taking time out this week to prepare well in advance.  Colm and Louise are both experienced writers as you can see from the short bios below, and Colm has developed over the last number of years a particularly honest and forthright style of delivering his work to an audience.  I think, however, that all three of us have very different approaches to our work, which I hope will make for a varied and engaging experience for those who attend.

At the moment I’m thinking poetry, but that might change.  There’s a peculiar challenge in reading a 10 or 15 minute story in a way that keeps the listener interested. We’ll see…

Hope to see you there!

Bios 

In 2008, Louise Phillips was shortlisted for the Molly Keane Memorial Award, and in 2009, she won The Jonathan Swift Award with her story ‘Last Kiss’. In 2010 & 2011, she was long-listed for the RTE Guide/Penguin short story competition, and this April was a winner at the Irish Writers’ Centre Lonely Voice platform.

Colm Keegan writes poetry, short stories and screenplays.  He also runs Nighthawks,Dublin’s premier arts night.  Shortlisted for three Hennessy Awards for both fiction and poetry, he is currently working on a novel. Colm lives in Clondalkin.

Brian Kirk has been shortlisted for various awards including Hennessy Awards in 2008 and 2011.  His stories and poems have appeared in The Sunday Tribune, The Stony Thursday Book, Crannog, Revival, Boyne Berries, Wordlegs and various anthologies. Brian lives in Clondalkin.

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Peter Fallon of Gallery Press will launch Boyne Berries 10 on Thursday 29th September 2011 in The Castle Arch Hotel in Trim at 8pm.  Boyne Berries is the magazine of the Boyne Writers’ Group and is edited by Michael Farry. I’m delighted to have my poem At the Archive Reading Room published in what will be a bigger, brighter, bumper edition of this quality literary magazine, along with the likes of Peter Fallon, James Lawless, Niamh Boyce, Deirdre McClay, Susan Connolly and Alan McMonagle.

There will also be a second launch the following night in Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway at 6pm, presided over by Kevin Higgins.

I am looking forward to hearing all the readers at the Trim launch.  If you can’t make it along to either of the launches you should try to get your hands on a copy. The magazine is available in Antonia’s Bookshop, Trim, Spar in Trim, in Dublin at the bookmarket in the Twisted Pepper Building on Abbey Street each Saturday afternoon from 1pm – 6pm, and in Galway in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop. You can also purchase a copy online here.

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O Emperor are the best Irish Band to emerge in years.  Hailing from Waterford, they are young but old enough to have a wealth of musical experience behind them playing as a covers band since school days there, where they specialised in Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Beatles songs.  Their own music unsurprisingly has flashes of sixties and seventies influences ( Beach Boys, Steeley Dan etc ), but they have a sonic quality and that is unique to them.

Oh and they write great songs as well, as you can hear from the track above.  They released their first album Hither Thither last year, and I was fortunate enough to see them live at the Academy shortly after.  I’ve already booked my tickets for the Button Factory on 17th December 2011.

Trust me.  If you go to see one gig this year etc etc… I mean it!

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