Tubbercurry Literary Festival Competitions

Entries are being accepted for three writing competitions being run in association with the third annual Tubbercurry Literary Festival, in County Sligo.

There is a short story competition; a poetry competition and a rhyming poetry competition to be entered.

Short Story -
Prizes: €100 or €50.
Open to original unpublished short stories in the English language. Limit 1,500 words.
Entry fee €10 per story. There is no restriction on the number of entries.

Poetry competitions:
Free Verse Competition
Prizes: €100 or €50.
Open to original unpublished poems in the English language. Limit 200 lines.

Rhyming Verse Competition:
Prizes: €100 or €50.
Entry fee €10 per poem. There is no restriction on the number of entries
Open to original unpublished poems in the English language. Limit 200 lines.

The author’s identity or contact details must not appear on any poem but be supplied on a separate cover sheet.

Entries must be typed on one side of A4 paper.

Post entries to: Tubbercurry Literary Festival, Rhyming Poetry Competition, Leyney Writers, 25 Ballina Road, Tubbercurry, County Sligo.

Winners will be publicly announced at Tubbercurry Old Fair Day and will be notified in advance so they will be able to read their winning entries at the evening event at Teach Laighne on August 12, 2008.

Deadline: 13th June

Galaxy Award Winners Announced

These awards, the Nibbies are more, I think, populist and popular. Books that real people buy and read.

JK Rowling won the Outstanding Achievement award, for Harry Potter, her fifth Nibbie. Gordon Brown (is he a reading Prime Minister?), who presented the award, said: 'She has joined a distinguished line of British authors whose work has got the whole country reading, and whose books will be read for many years to come by successive generations.'

Ian McEwan won the Author of the Year award for On Chesil Beach, which was also named the Book of the Year. Not sure I'm too keen on this. It's a bit like a commiseration because he didn't win any of the biggies. I didn't enjoy the extract in the Guardian so I didn't get the book.

Russell Brand won the biography category with My Booky Wook. This has been recommended to me.
Khaled Hosseini was voted the 'Richard & Judy' Best Read by the general public for A Thousand Splendid Suns. this is usually a reliable recommendation and I have this under my bed pending reading.
Patricia Cornwell won the crime thriller award for her novel Book of the Dead.
Costa-winner Catherine O'Flynn took home the Waterstone's Newcomer of the Year accolade for her novel What Was Lost. Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman secured the popular non-fiction prize for Long Way Down. (Loved the TV programme; they're so blokie and don't always get on)
The popular fiction award went to Kim Edwards for The Memory Keeper's Daughter.
Geri Halliwell presented children's author Francesca Simon with the Children's Book of the Year for Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman.

Two Rivers Meet

The wonderfully inventive whitehousepoets are working with some poets from Newcastle, joining the Shannon and the Tyne.

A special edition of the White House Poets' journal entitled Two Rivers Meet: Poetry from the Shannon and the Tyne will be launched featuring poets from both Limerick and Newcastle.

A delegation of poets from Newcastle will attend a civic reception at Limerick City Hall followed by the launch at The White House on O'Connell Street. The event marks the cultural twinning of the two cities through cultural and literary exchange.

The White House, 52 O'Connell St, Limerick

T: 086 8657494 / 087 2996409

Maybe we could do something similar, the Thames and the Liffey. Any suggestions?

Sh*tty First Draft

Check out these tutorials featuring Jack Black. You have to give yourself permission to write a fairly dodgy first draft, yes, all the way to the end, otherwise you can never get to the better 2nd draft, even better 3rd draft and so on until you've typed your fingers to the bone.

Hennessy

Hi,

Well I didn't win the Hennessy award but, as everyone keeps saying, it's brilliant just to be nominated. I was extremely ungracious and slightly violent in a quiet way, which is most unlike me. So sorry to anyone I dissed or swore at or whatever. Really, I'm a nice person! Anyway, it was a great event. I talked to loads of extremely talented, charming, kind, enthusiastic and good looking people. Sorry I missed Evelyn. I thought I talked to everyone. I'm hoping the nive PR lady will send me some of the many, many photos. It was just like a wedding, lots of standing around and photos and talking to people you thught you recognised but turned out not to be a relative from your side but someone you saw once at a book launch, type of thing.

Shortlist and winners with all the links I could dredge up:
First Fiction:
Evelyn Walsh - The Lump
Brian Kirk - Worm
Tony O'Reilly - A Living Thing
WINNER Michael O'Higgins - The Great Escape
Dan MacGuill - The Knife
Simon Henderson - Scene From A Bar - Remember Giselle

Emerging Fiction:
Nicola Jennings - Muscle Memory
WINNER and OVERALL WINNER Valerie Sirr - Summer Rain
Mark Kilroy - Bog People
Kate Demspey - I Don't Watch the End
Mary Burke - Shakespeare's Daughter
Lawrence Byrne - Housekeeping

Emerging Poetry:
Bernadette McCarrick - Christmas, Villenelle
Monica Ni Choilean - The Proposal
Michelle O'Sullivan - The Kiss of Judas, Reverie, Future Tense
Michael Massey - Old Men Ride Old Hondas, In Stillness, The Glint of a Winchester
Aoife Casby - Bringing Tea to the men working with Maloney's combine...
WINNER Mary Madec - In Other Words

I'm over it now (really) and writing away so I hope you are all doing the same.

Orange Shortlist

Here's some more books worth looking for, the Orange prize shortlist for women writers.

Among the first-timers on the list is Sadie Jones, with The Outcast, a portrait of small-town hypocrisy described by The Times as "elegantly written".

Another first-timer is Heather O'Neill, for Lullabies for Little Criminals, and Patricia Wood, for Lottery.

Nancy Huston was selected with Fault Lines, her eleventh novel, and Charlotte Mendelson for her third novel, When We Were Bad, a story about Liberal Jews in England.

Rose Tremain was selected for her tenth novel, The Road Home, a story about Lev, a modern-day economic migrant from Poland.

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London on June 4.

Missing were Anne Enright and A. L. Kennedy, whose book 'Day,' I would love to readl it won the Costa. Also missing Deborah Moggach and Linda Grant who were on the Orange longlist last month.

PJ O'Connor RTE Radio Play Competition

I'm really confused, concerned and possibly angry. The deadline for this competition was March 18th 2008 and yet there is an announcement on their website of the shortlist on 15th March 2008. How can that be? Most of the plays are submitted in the last week. Weren't they a little concerned that they only got 150 plays when in 2007 they got 200, in 2006 they got 235 and in 2005 they got 365?

An independent panel of actors and writers read all of the plays and chose a total of 13 for the shortlist. The short listed plays are now being read by a panel of judges, Danish theatre critic and playwright Jesper Bergmann, director and producer Selina Cartmell and chaired by actor and writer Mark O'Halloran (Adam and Paul/Garage)

1) Piano Lessons by Sarah Brennan from Donnybrook, Dublin

2) At the Hop by Wayne Denniston from Newtownforbes, Co. Longford

3) Lust for Money by Philip Doherty from Gortnakesh, Co. Cavan

4) 10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10! by Kevin Gildea from Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin

5) Get a Life by Ciarán Gray from North Strand in Dublin

6) The Lottery by Shay Linehan from Dun Laoghaire, Dublin

7) Something's Been Lost by Felim MacDermott from Knocknacarragh, Galway

8) Said the Bear to the Woman by Martin Malone from Kildare Town

9) Living Room by Andrea McCartney from Belfast

10) Will You Swap Knees With Me by John McManus from Knocknacarragh, Galway

11) Home Is Where the Heartache Is by Muireann Ní Aoláin from Ashbourne, Co. Meath

12) Deliver Us From Evil by Billy O'Callaghan from Douglas, Cork

13) Thinking Ahead by Jack Olohan from Rathfarnham, Dublin

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in the RTÉ Donnybrook studios on Tuesday 6 May at 6:30pm

What about mine? I sent it on March 12th, pleased to be in early. Who do I call?