Dublin Writers Festival 2009 - 2nd to 7th June

Dublin Writers Festival was a huge success. I´d like to thank Jack Gilligan and Liam Browne for putting to gether such a wonderful prgramme of events.

Special thanks to Dublin City Council and the Arts Council for sponsorship of the event.

See you next year.

Labels: arts council, dublin city council, dublin writers festival

Brendan Kennelly’s performance was the first in Dublin for over three years. He read from his latest collection Reservoir Voices, a masterful command over the voices of everyday emotions and behaviours. Introduced as “no follower of academic vogue”, Brendan certainly has an original sound – although he reminded the crowd “It’s not me speaking. “I thought that was it, thought that I was dried up. I was bored, sleepless and I was getting rid of myself. I used to go to the Boston reservoir at night and watch the black swans, thinking how beautiful they were. Then voices started talking to me and in four sleepless weeks, I wrote 80 poems.”

Brendan’s poems spoke from the viewpoint of, amongst other things, a yawn, hope, a lie, peace, listening, a ring, a hug and worry. His voice overflowed with generosity against the bare wooden backdrop of the stunning Abbey Theatre. This was the first time I’d ever heard Brendan read, and was as amazed by the gentle pace and delivery as I was from by the overwhelming feeling of hope and amicability from the poems. It was inspiring to hear poetry that had a positive, witty approach while tackling themes with melancholic or difficult undertones. When Brendan spoke of being depressed after reaching his 70th birthday, I was both shocked and amazed. It’s almost impossible to imagine a man with such a sunny disposition and warmth feeling such things.

The poetry was beautiful, and will speak for itself. But I want to dedicate this post to the man. His love of poetry, his respect for other poets (in particular Patrick Kavanagh and Frank O´Connor) and his deep respect and gratitude to the audience was compelling. When the question and answer session began, the crowd actually spoke of previous times they´d met him and how he’d touched their lives, which is a perfect compliment for any poet. Brendan deserved the standing ovation that he received and I’m certain that everyone leaving the audience that day felt a little lighter on their feet and in their hearts.

Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: brendan kennelly, dublin writers festival

Joe Queenan´s latest book Closing Time addresses his upbringing in a Philadelphia housing project with a depressed mother and alcoholic abusive father. His sculpted prose covers issues people often try to ignore, such as poverty, class and abuse, in an uplifting honest and non bitter portrayal. Shane Connaughtan takes real characters and puts them into a fictional setting which makes Big Parts altogether comical yet touching. The wit and wisdom of these two extraordinary writers came together to talk about abuse, lives worth recording and making the everyday important through literature. Here’s my pick of the Q&A session:

With all the recent discoveries regarding abuse and the Catholic Church, do you think Catholicism offers a shield to hide abuse?

Joe: to be honest, I had the opposite experience. All the abuse was in my house. If it wasn’t for the church, there’d have been no parochial schools. The nuns were much better than the priests – they’d tell us we needed to know stuff that the rich kids didn’t know because daddy would get them a job. Of course, there were priests you’d stay away from but generally speaking I-m very grateful for the school, high school and especially college that I went to. I’ve not got any dark stories – only from within my house.

Was writing Closing Time a catharsis for you? Did you feel you had to write it?

Joe: Yes. I was given a book to blurb which was about four men meeting up again for the first time since prep school and how their lives hadn’t worked out. It was awful and I’d heard it so many times. I wanted to write about interesting people than middle class neurotics. Poor people have problems, middle class people have neuroses which can be cured through xanax. But poor people have interesting childhoods, meeting interesting people and taking interesting jobs.

I wanted to write something unsentimental – nothing like Bruce Springsteen lyrics. I also wanted to talk about class because people hate talking about it, and in an unsparing way. When you’re poor, the only thing you really have is words. Words are weapons and books are siege weapons. The Irish have made these shiny, polished and perfect
.At the end of the book you don’t harbour bitterness yet you don’t pretend that your father was ok. You’d reached a certain accommodation.

Joe: Having a bad father doesn’t make it ok to be a bad son. I loved his stories; he’d start quoting from Mark Antony’s funeral oration and I’d think wow! But people always ask – did you forgive? No! Someone takes your childhood, then you don’t ever forgive. It’s like being imprisoned for 17 years. But your heart doesn’t turn to stone if you don’t forgive. Forgiveness would be stupid, insulting. I’d feel emasculated if I forgave him. Let Jesus forgive him, that’s his job. I’m not in the forgiving business. But your heart can be closed to one person but still open for your children.

Where did your main character come from?

Shane: Well, this man lived above me in a flat in London and was a very powerful man. He was extreme politically – he used to always write to the telegraph complaining Margaret Thatcher was a liberal, so that gives you an idea. He had many projects like water shows and also a hint of pedophilia about him. He was pretty awful character but he was also looking after this woman who was 30 years his junior and suffered from terrible schizophrenia. He was very articulate and would be heard at Speaker’s Corner, but fiction is a reflection of the truth.

Was your character meant to be a character of farce or of deeper signification?

Shane: I didn’t want his character to go unsung. He was very real – I just put him in a fictional setting. Changed things round a bit. In 1987 I started keeping a journal of al the characters I met. I was driven by the people who cry in the wilderness of the city. Life is art without the fun and I wanted to turn these people’s lives into fun but without ridicule. It’s meant to be fun but therapeutic also. He’s just real. That’s it.

Joe: I did the same thing. Their stories were worth telling. It’s a kind of homage.

Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: dublin writers festival, joe queenan, shane connaughton

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this event but I was certainly intrigued. I’m familiar with the powerful poetry of Dermot Bolger, but I had no idea it could be so evocatively performed.

David Power was extraordinarily talented, playing pipes, fiddle and whistle. Likewise, Tony Mahon was enchanting on the accordion, and Eamonn Hunt´s rendition transported you along with the music. I’d never thought of these instruments as beautiful but the sounds that The Frost is All Over created were other-worldly.

The tunes were haunting against a backdrop of images depicting the real lives of people that Bolger’s poetry encapsulated. Poems read included Sonny Brogan´s Jigs, Bold Doherty, Recording, ONeill´s Cavalacade, The Frost is All Over and The Nomad.

On the dark, bare stage, the shadows played against the wall as though they were the ghosts of the dispossessed finding their way back home through this powerful performance. It was truly stunning.

Labels: dermot bolger, dublin writers festival, the frost is all over

I was certain this would be a wonderful pairing, and I’ve spent the week in anticipation. Paula Meehan and Leanne O´Sullivan are two of my favourite female Irish poets because they bring such colour, depth and vividness to their poems. Paula transfigures the every day with beautifully woven language that transcend distance and time, while Leanne brings the landscape to life in a deeply romantic, thought provoking way.

Paula was rhythmic, humorous and warm. Reading poetry is a true skill and difficult to master, but Paula’s lilting voice and humble approach delivered her poetry to perfection. Paula read poems from her new book Painting Rain, including an elegy, and dedications to various people including Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.

I particularly loved the raw energy and sense of loss in Death of a Field, where private memory and ecology collided to portray the loss of a field for housing - something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. She interweaved the secret exploits of friends and lovers with the disappearing beauty of nature and the reality of washing powders and domestic life. Another favourite was Them Ducks Died for Ireland, set in St Stephens Green and based on an official notice detailing the destruction to the park during the Easter Rising of 1916.

Leanne brought an exquisite rendering of the Irish landscape to the stage with poems from her latest collection: Cailleach – The Hag of Beara. I find Leanne’s poetry particularly original and inspiring and it was obvious from the gasps in the audience that I’m not alone. Each of her poems had a tenderness and thoughtfulness which definitely betray the strong insight that Brendan Kennelly would describe as “eyes behind eyes.”

Based upon the mythical woman so central to Western Irish lore, Leanne’s poems explore love, loss, deities, history and tradition, against a backdrop of rocks, the ocean and strong mystical characters which mirror everyday life and romance. From Scent where she changes the hag from being not only miserable, but old into a young beauty, to The Watcher where a woman admires her lover emerging from the ocean, Leanne betrays a depth which encapsulates the classical idea of eros in a familiar setting.

I was also pleased to hear Leanne read one of my favourites - The Cord - which was dedicated to her mother in the audience. It described beautifully the journey of a mother/daughter relationship and bond. No description I give could convey the delicacy and poignancy of the poem. The most poignant poem of the evening was written from the viewpoint of children buried before their baptism. It was a touching response to the churches discussion about whether these children should still be considered to be in limbo which caused a second round of grieving for their parents.

Both used strong mythological imagery and their performances were as different as they were complementary. I think this was a powerful bind for the audience. I certainly wasn’t disappointed, and judging from the queues of people to buy books and get them signed, neither was anyone else.
Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: dublin writers festival, leanne o sullivan, paula meehan, women irish poets

William Fiennes wooed the audience with his honest, witty and passionate approach to his memoir The Music Room. Talking about his early days as a writer, he said: “I had a naïve idea that you wrote a book and if people were reading it and talking about it then that’s it – you’re made! You become a writer. But after The Snow Geese a desert vista opened up and I began to think – it’s said that everyone has one book inside them. What if that was mine?”

Thankfully, William persevered and decided to write the story of his older brother who suffered from severe epilepsy. “I believed in books and wanted to write more. The idea and form had to be the perfect match. The Snow Geese was original and nothing else I wrote was the same. I tried to distance myself from memoir, but I found I didn’t care about the characters and I realized these really mattered to me. I had to think about what I felt strongly about and I decided to write about my elder brother Richard who died in 2001.”

The story is indeed touching, written with warmth and humour. The descriptions of the house in which he grew up are extremely vivid and exciting, but for William, growing up there was as equally difficult as it was magical. “I grew up in a wonderland, a paradise with a strong sense of history. It was a place of wonder and mystery, with Richard’s wildness and unpredictable behaviour, it was a Garden of Eden with a seed of mortality. It was a self contained world, surrounded by water; a microcosm of love, wonder, beauty, excitement, confusion, loss and difficulty.”
In The Music Room, William discusses the development of medical psychology and traces the changes in thought from ancient times to the 1950´s. Experiencing first-hand the affects of frontal lobe damage, William seeks to inform the reader, but without becoming overly forceful on the subject, addressing it with subtlety and respect so a very real perspective is gained. William describes The Music Room as “a string quartet, with four musical instruments playing their own musical scores, moving in diverse directions but coming together to create a perfect melody.”

Asked whether it he ever felt guilty or disloyal for writing about the violent side of his brother’s character, William replied “I had to show both sides. It would have been disloyalty not to. It would have diminished his character. He was bigger than his condition. It would have been a bigger dishonesty to whitewash it out.”


William’s books are strong on motifs, and in The Music Room he returns to birds; this time erons and rooks. He discussed their place. “Rooks are gregarious birds and always in groups whereas herons are solitary birds. I associate my brother with herons because he loved them, along with Leeds Utd and smoking a pipe. He’d take binoculars and go out searching for them. I think of things as needing a heron/rook balance – especially if you´re a writer. It’s hard to write amongst a whirligig. The motif is so strong so I did consider using it in the title but then realized I couldn’t. I can’t be the bird man!”

It was plainly evident that the audience was mesmerized not only by the depth and beauty of his book, but by the way William talked about his work and his memories in such a generous and convivial way. William is currently working on his third book which he describes as “another one of these first person types, though again, it’s not just about me. I use the first person like a periscope for readers into another world.” Personally, I can’t wait to take a peek.

Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: dublin writers festival, william fiennes

Described as having a “distinctive metaphoric style”, it was pleasure to listen to Anne Michaels read from her new book The Winter Vault. She read the preface with her tranquil, gentle and evocative voice, stirring the audience and pulling them in with the beautiful language. What strikes me about Anne’s work is the lack of dialogue – a rare technique and talent in a writer. This came across ever more powerful in person, and the one bit of dialogue read aloud “calculate me” still resonates. Here’s my pick from the Q&A session.


Where did The Winter Vault come from?

This book came out of the need to answer a number of questions. How do we commemorate historic events in a public way? When people are dispossessed of love and landscape, what remains? What remains is memories, our bodies and language – often language as the only thing left. So few of us live where we were born – so its also about belonging. Do we belong where we were born or where we were buried?

Let’s begin with the anguish, the anguish of the communities and what they suffer – are the novels born of responsibility? What’s the nature of your historical interest?

This book is an absolute argument for hope; a potent message of hope. I’m interested in how we remember – intimate, personal memories and public, historical memory and the relationship between the two. Both books are trying to understand this relationship and the title itself is a metaphor for history.
The characters voice their memories through interior dialogue. They’re very persuasive – you don’t do dialogue like other writers.

This is purposeful and makes the exchange between the characters very intense. It’s extremely deliberate – a way of focusing and being precise about thing that are imprecise. It’s the inexpressible things we should be most precise about. The intensity of ornate language allows us to focus on the things we want to express.

Do you research before you write?

I do a tremendous amount of research. It’s respect for the subject matter. Collecting facts and putting a meaning onto them are two very different things. Discerning meaning takes a long time. I’m very careful with what facts I use. A single image has so much power. It can take a lifetime to figure these things out. I’m aware of the potency so try to use facts carefully.

Through your books Canada looks different.

People bring their histories, their stories with them. Canada is tremendously vibrant. For example, I went to my local store and the man serving behind the counter was reading Faust in Korean, which sums up the place. Literature is one place where these things are kept. A book is a safe place to talk about things that aren’t safe to talk about.


I’m currently writing about the adaptation of form. In the film of Fugitive Pieces, what did you think about the girl being completely illuminated?

There’s an inevitable compromise. I didn’t want to write the screenplay – you don’t really have any control – and that would be very hard for me. There were also some very beautiful, authentic moments in the film, including a haunting score by a Greek composer. The young boy has great depth to him. I think they get a lot of things right.

I’d love you to talk a little about your process.

I’ve a horrible story to tell you and I wouldn’t recommend it! I have young children and I couldn’t bear to compromise life with them or how I work. The solution was I worked daily from 1am to 5am. Every parent is always part focusing on whether their children are safe. But it’s a very arduous way to spend your life. It worked though. You also want to protect your children from what you’re thinking - it’s nice to know they weren’t privy to what was going on in my mind.

How do you find your voice?

It’s a mysterious process and writers who tell you otherwise aren’t telling the truth. When characters come its like love at first sight and you think you know everything about them but it takes a few years. Voice comes from an acute listening to the characters. It’s also a privilege to have 400 pages with a reader. That voice comes from keeping a reader close. It’s different for a poet. You want to bring the reader with you to somewhere else – reconciliation, something earned. Readers need to have a place in the book – to think and feel.


Special thanks to Ian for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: anne michaels, dublin writers festival

The following people have tickets on the door for their chosen events:

Kristi Thompson: 2 tickets to The Frost is All Over, 2 tickets to Shane Connaughton and Joe Queenan
MK Andrews: 2 tickets to The Frost is All Over
Suzanne: 2 tickets to The Frost is All Over

Give your name at the desk when you arrive, and enjoy.

More free tickets available:

The festival team are kindly offering:

The Frost is all Over: 1 pair of tickets
Shane Connaughton and Joe Queenan: 2 pairs of tickets.
Val McDermid and Kate Summerscale: 2 pairs of tickets.

To win, simply comment here on why you’re loving the festival so far and I’ll allocate the tickets to the answers I like best. I will announce tomorrow.

The events have been extremely popular and of outstanding quality, so I hope you can join us.

Labels: free tickets, joe queenan, kate summerscale, shane connaughton, the frost is all over, val mcdermid

This was one of those rare occasions to get up close and personal with debut writers and to ask about and gain valuable insight into what to expect from the world of publishing.


After a brief introduction by Declan Burke, Ed O´Loughlin, Aifric Campbell and Peter Murphy each gave a short reading from their debut novels. Declan then opened the Q&A session with some well thought out questions, before opening it to the floor. Here’s my pick:

Declan: The classic advice for novelists is write what you know – which is rubbish, because it limits imagination. Did you find that having lived in Africa was a help or hindrance when writing your novel?

Ed: It helped because it got me writing. I got material, colour and incident first hand. It gave me the courage to write. The intent was to for it to be purely fictional. The first draft was a long process and most of it was gone by the final draft. The most satisfying parts were those that were completely made up. You have to be able to invent stuff – that’s the fun part.

Declan: Did being a journalist help you as a writer?

Peter: I’d always wanted to write and in my 20´s, I was bursting with ideas but had nothing to write about. It was like being hungry but not wanting food at the same time. I thought it was cool to be a writer – second only to being a musician. So I ran away from writing. When I started writing about film, music or books, it gave me discipline.

Ed: With journalism you compress and tell but with fiction you show. I had to unlearn being a journalist to write fiction. Journalists usually write non fiction if they write a book because it helps with their career. It took me seven years to write this book; partly because I was lazy and partly because I was on the road a lot. The only way to complete a novel is to block off four hours every day and then you get results.

Declan: What pulls you in when you’re writing?

Peter: It’s a mood – a mystery I want to solve. For instance, I was listening to the Canadian band God Speed You Black Emporer and wanted to put words on it. I have lots of abortive stuff in the drawer. For this novel I took a swab of DNA from the second book. A definition of madness is repeating the same behaviour but expecting different results. I read reviews to find out what my book is about.

Aifric: I didn’t have a clue until I as finished. I thought I was going to write about the murdered lecturer but I was reading more about his brother. Something just grips you and it leads somewhere. Could be a character…or a parrot.

Peter: I read reviews to find out what my book is about.


Declan: For me writing 80,000 words was a big deal and an important learning curve. What did you learn when writing your novel?

Aifric: This is the first novel I have published. It’s not the first novel I’ve written.

Ed: Just sit down and do it. Don’t worry if your first draft is crap; you can go back and edit it. My first draft was a bigger feeling than getting a publisher.

Aifric: You become a better editor, better at the craft; better at your job. There’s always a pull between what publishers and the public want and what you want to write. You have to write the book you want to read.

Peter: Other people are smarter than I am. I was writing a lot, trying to find the story and by pure luck I found some brilliant readers. We’d meet every few weeks and workshop each other’s work. Getting published utterly changed my life; it was like a licence to practice.

Declan: Seeing a book of mine in the shops was the same. I have the life before that happened and the life after that.

Audience: What do you think of the festival theme The Power of the Word?

Aifric: Language makes us human; it’s our interface with other people. It’s our way of communicating with the world in a solid way. I’m fascinated by language and when you read, you interpret. It’s reading that brought me to writing.

Peter: Beyond literature, think of how language is used in the media. An Aramaic definition of “sin” is “impression”. A perfect example is the debasement of language during wartime.

Ed: We think consciously in words. They’re the only things we have to try and rationalise with and communicate with.

Audience: Do you listen to music when you write?

Peter: Not so much. If I do it doesn’t have a voice, can’t have words. If I’m drifting from the atmosphere of what I want to write, I will listen to some music equivalent of what I want to write.

Ed: Music is an emotional medium I’ve hidden some obscure musical references in my book, but no-one will find them. I like music for emotion.

Aifric: I wear noise cancelling headphones. But I write well on trains – it helps with dialogue.

Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: aifric campbell, ed o´loughlin, peter murphy

The Romanian Ambassador stopped by the Project Arts Centre in support of the Dublin Writers Festival. He discussed the importance of bridging the gap between Ireland and Romania and between words and image. He introduced some dramatic Romanian photographs, previously shown in Vienna, Strasbourg and Paris, which captured scenes from a Romanian production Oscar Wilde´s The Picture of Dorian Gray. He said this was “a testimony to how much Irish works are appreciated in Romania.”

Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: ambassador of Romania, dublin writers festival, project arts centre

Going to an event such as a reading by Seamus Heaney, you know you’re in for something wonderful. Yet I wasn’t quite prepared for the array of emotions that would be stirred, or the scope of poetry that would be shared.

The first lady of political broadcasting in Ireland Olivia O’Leary led with a heartfelt introduction to “Seamus Heaney, who has written the music of my time.” Her memories from the 1970´s brought to life the colourful past of a poet intrigued by and respectful of journalism, news and politics; a poet whose life has been dedicated to measuring and addressing the life, love, loss, wit and ambiguity of Ireland and Irish identity.


Seamus opened with a reading from his Beowulf translation which he described as befitting the surroundings and “should be able to bounce to the back of the hall and then to the other back of the hall, where we have an audience also, I realise.” We were plummeted into Hrothgar´s hall, enjoying the song of the minstrel while implicit danger surrounds the castle walls. We were jolted back with “Now go read it. It’s still available”.

After the crowd stopped laughing, Seamus explained “Imagination has the strength to push back against the reality. There’s no real need to address the gloom. We just need to be aware of what’s out there; it’s awareness that shapes our poetry.” Evocative words in any era.


Seamus continued with Mossborn: Sunlight and then Oysters, which conveyed “that halfway house between freedom and obligation.” The next poem showed the “pleasure, resistance and fortification” of music even in troubled times, while one of my favourites, Harvest Bow, cajoled tears from the audience. Seamus described the format of a sestina for Two Lorries, before adding “you’ll not notice it, all being well, but I assure you it’s there”.

Before reading the mystical Seeing Things, Part Three, Seamus declared a love for how something solid and credible can have a hallucinatory quality about it. Staring into the pipes of the organ in the National Concert Hall while listening to his poetry, I understood exactly what he meant. Other poems included The Lift, Midnight Anvil, The Skunk, St Kevin and the Blackbird, Miracle and Tate’s Avenue.

Throughout his performance, Seamus´s voice was tranquil and firm and his stage presence mesmerizing. He remained lively, witty and engaging. But most inspiring was Seamus´s honesty, affection and humility. He admitted after at one point “Sorry, I’m very nervous here” and another time he turned his back on the audience at the front to read to the crowds behind him, eventually finishing the night in a sideways stance “to fit you all in.” He even thanked the crowd “for listening so intently.” Unsurprisingly, Seamus Heaney received a standing ovation from the crowd. Not one person in the packed out auditorium remained seated.


A touching dedication ended the evening with the Lord Mayor´s address, thanking Seamus for being “a weaver of words and a dreamer of dreams”. He accepted a limited edition WB Yeats book with gratitude and a parting shot; “It’s called Last Poems and Two Plays. I hope it’s not ominous.”

I hope, however, that the attendance and audience reaction is a sign of things to come for the rest of Dublin Writers Festival.


Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: seamus heaney

I have four pairs of tickets for Joe Queenan and Shane Connaughton at the Abbey Theatre on June 7th at 1pm.

Joe Queenan is a novelist and film critic for The Guardian and considered to be one of the most popular humourists of our time. His latest book Closing Time addresses his own Irish-Catholic upbringing in a Philadelphia housing project.

Shane Connaughton´s many writing credits include co-writer of Oscar-winning film My Left Foot and author of A Border Station which addresses a father/son relationship in Ulster. His latest book Big Parts is described as a comic novel about a grotesque and hilarious world.

Both writers are known for their keen-eyed observations of human foible. To win a pair of tickets to this afternoon of wit and wisdom traversing page, screen and stage, leave a comment to this post stating why you´d like to go.

I´ll pick my favourite four replies on Thursday June 4th.

Labels: joe queenan, shane connaughton, win tickets

This week:

• Sarah Waters talked to The Independent about the inspiration behind The Little Stranger and GCN is running an article about her in its June issue
• Christine Dwyer Hickey spoke to The Irish Independent on death, growing up in Ireland, becoming a writer and her affinity with Italy.
• Simon Schama raved about John Donne on BBC2
  

Coming up:

• Newstalk’s Culture Shock will broadcast a special Writers Festival programme on June 4 featuring many of the writers including Melvyn Bragg, Simon Schama and Programme Director Liam Browne.

Labels: articles, dublin writers festival, news

The long-awaited Dublin Writers Festival starts tomorrow with a sell-out Seamus Heaney reading at The National Concert Hall. I’ll be sitting side stage, scribbling furiously as this poetic genius addresses an eager crowd.

Of course, I’m excited about the whole festival but there are certain events I’m really looking forward to. These are my personal top picks:

• Peter Murphy, Ed O´Loughlin and Aifric Campbell on Wednesday 3rd June at 6pm in the project Arts Centre at 6pm, described as “one unmissable event for budding novelists”. Sold!
• The one-off Irish reading and book launch with Canadian poet Anne Michaels at 6pm on Thursday June 4th looks set to be as engaging as her Orange Prize winning novel Fugitive Pieces.
• Zoe Heller and Geoff Dyer’s combination of erotic love and spirituality has a strong pull on Friday June 5th at 6pm in the Project Arts Centre.
• I recently met Paula Meehan at the launch of No Soy Tu Musa, an anthology of Irish women’s poetry translated into Spanish. Having lived in Spain I felt a certain resonance with this project and her reading was inspired. I’m also looking forward to hearing Leanne O´Sullivan for the first time. They´re appearing together on Saturday June 6th at 6pm in the Project Arts Centre.
  
• My other must see is Brendan Kenelly on Sunday June 7th at 3pm in the Abbey Theatre. Anyone who spends their life wording, thinking and daring gets my full attention.

Labels: dublin writers festival, favourite picks