Dublin Writers Festival

Dear President Obama, fancy joining us Monday evening?

Okay, okay, I know it’s a long shot, but given the weather forecast for tomorrow is less than pleasant and it’s known that Barack Obama enjoys a good book, it’s not totally impossible that he might consider coming to the Samuel Beckett Theatre for The Jekyll and Hyde Inheritance.

Even if he doesn’t come – you should consider it, especially if you’re looking for something interesting to do tomorrow evening – four authors, two musicians and thoughts on whether we’ve all got a Dr Hyde in us.

Of particular personal interest is Richard Holloway, respected gay rights activist and environmentalist, also an ex Bishop who left the church after they voted against gay and lesbian rights. Considering I left a seminary after studying there myself, I’m looking forward to his thoughts and reflections on this aspect of his own past.

Please check here for all details on traffic disruption.

You’ll also find details on the Trinity College Website. The map below should help you find your way. We recommend the LINCOLN GATE as a point of entry.

We fully expect the event to go ahead as planned. Even the President of the USA can’t stop us! (That’s not a dare, Mr President!)

While the description here will tell you what the event is about, it might be worth telling you more about some of the participants in the event below.

Richard Holloway

• Former Bishop of Edinburgh, now a prominent writer and critic of religion, theology and morality
• Retired from the church after the Lambeth Conference voted against gay and lesbian rights in the church, describes himself as an “after religionist”
• 1999 published controversial bestselling book Godless Morality
• Latest book Between the Monster and the Saint (2008) is “an essay on the human condition and how we might endeavour to be our best despite its contradictions and tensions” (The Guardian)
• Sits on the Commission for Human Fertility and Embryology
• Works for the promotion of gay and lesbian rights and campaigns for environmental causes
• Writes and reviews for The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Sunday Herald
• and The Scotsman.
• Hosted BBC television series When I get to Heaven, Holloway’s Road and The Sword
• and the Cross. Also currently hosts BBC Radio Scotland book review programme, Cover Stories.
• Lives in Edinburgh with wife and three children

Louise Welsh

• Welsh’s work is influenced by her time studying history at Glasgow University – her novels are often set in historical settings
• Opened a second-hand bookshop after leaving university which she ran for eight years.
• Describes all her novels as quests
• First novel The Cutting Room (2002) won many prestigious awards: Crime Writer’s Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger for best first crime novel, 2003 Orange Prize for Fiction, Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award, Corine Internationaler Buchpreis: Rolf Heyne Debutpreis (Germany), The Guardian chose her as “Woman to Watch” in 2003
• Tamburlaine Must Die (2004) details last few days of Christopher Marlowe
• The Bullet Trick (2006) – story of a down-and-out conjurer in Berlin
• Latest novel Naming the Bones (2010) is set in the universities of both Edinburgh and Glasgow
• Also writes short stories, plays, and has written an opera
• Newspaper features – The Times, The Sunday Herald, The Scotsman
• Regular radio features BBC Radio 3, 4 and Scotland
• Currently Writer in Residence at Glasgow University
• Other awards: 2004 Scotland on Sunday/Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award, 2004; Stonewall Book Award (US) (honor in literature)

John Burnside

• Scottish writer and poet born 1955; now lives in Fife
• Studied English and European Languages at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology
• Former computer software engineer; full-time writer since 1996
• Numerous poetry collections, fiction and non-fiction publications – has won many prestigious awards
• Regularly featured in The Guardian, The Times, The Scotsman, The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books
• Former Writer in Residence at Dundee University; Currently Professor of Creative Writing at St Andrews University

Kevin MacNeil

• Self described book writer and bike rider.
• Blogs at http://kevinmacneil.posterous.com
• He grew up on the Hebridean Isle of Lewis (Scotland) and now lives in London
• Is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh.
• Books include A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde (Polygon), The Stornoway Way (Penguin), Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides (Canongate), Be Wise Be Otherwise (Canongate) and The Callanish Stoned (Theatre Hebrides).
• His short stories have been published extensively.
• His first book won the Tivoli Europa Giovani International Poetry Prize for best poetry collection published in Europe by a writer under 35.
• The Stornoway Way was a bestseller and is currently being optioned for a film.
• MacNeil was the inaugural Iain Crichton Smith Bilingual Writing Fellow and has held further prestigious writing residencies in Sweden (Uppsala University), Bavaria (Villa Concordia) and a number of other places, including lecturing on the Creative Writing MSc at Edinburgh University.
• The William Campbell and Kevin MacNeil single Local Man Ruins Everything (Fantastic Plastic) was Single of the Week in The Guardian, in The List and on Steve Lamacq’s radio show.
• In September 2009 MacNeil cycled 1300km of the Danube, from source to Budapest, on a single-speed fixed-gear track bike, for two cancer charities; the BBC filmed a documentary about him and his bike ride which took just a dozen cycling days.
• 2011 sees the release of an album We are Visible from Space and a book These Islands, We Sing: An Anthology of Scottish Islands Poetry (Polygon, July 2011).