Tyrone Guthrie Centre Annaghmakerrig

I'm off to my favourite Artists' retreat soon in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Co Monaghan. It's a magical place, full of creative energy and just what I need - a kick up the bum to get writing. I go for a week twice a year if I can and get at least a month's worth of writing done plus I'm it keeps me going for a few months when I get home again.

Annaghmakerrig also have international residence exchanges for former residents in Germany, USA, Spain, Australia and India. Each seems to be for a month so may be hard for many artists to do. I'd love to do one but it would be tough getting away from home. Travel is not included so I hope the Arts Council travel bursaries would cover it.

Irish Publishers

Here's a good link to Sarah Webb's website that lists the big Irish publishers for commercial fiction. It's probably 2 years old but I don't think much has changed. There's also Blackstaff press in Belfast.

Aidan Higgins Festival

The shortlist for the popular Prose Writing Competition, In the Footsteps of Aidan Higgins is:

Animal Loves - by James Anderson
From an abandoned trip, years ago - Barty Begley
Amazing Grace - Nuala Ni Chonchuir
Downstairs - Victoria Neumark
At the Moulin de Kerjean - William Wall

The results of this will be announced on Sunday evening May 6th by Patrick McMahon with readings from the winning entries.

Aidan Higgins has been called arguably Ireland's finest living prose writer. Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain, The Shipping News) calls his prose "ferocious and dazzling...the pure architecture of his sentences takes the breath out of you."

The Writer, Neil Donnelly is the Programme Director of the Aidan Higgins Festival which is taking place this bank holiday weekend, Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th May in Celbridge Co Kildare, where Aidan Higgins was born 80 years ago. The program is a celebration of Aidan's writing, including his early masterpiece ‘Langrishe, Go Down’ set in Celbridge.

The weekend will consist of talks, seminars, film showings and rehearsed readings on Higgins’ work and his influences.

The list of those taking part is impressive and includes:

John Banville, Booker Prize Winning Novelist
Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times Columnist and Biographer
Annie Proulx, Novelist, ‘Brokeback Mountain’, ‘The Shipping News’
Dermot Healy, Novelist, Poet and Playwright
Shane Connaughton, Screenwriter of ‘My Left Foot’
Denis Conway, Award winning Actor
Ingrid Craigie, Actor
Gerry Dukes, Academic and Literary Critic
Pat Laffan, Actor
Bibbi Larsson, Actor
Derek Mahon, Irish Poet
Neil Murphy, Academic
and Aidan Higgins

A fiction masterclass with Dermot Healy is also on offer, limited to 12 places on Saturday morning, May 5th. Applications are now being taken. Price 20 Euros.

Registration forms are available on the www.kildare.ie website or at 9:30 am on Saturday and 10 am on Sunday in Celbridge Abbey.

Tickets are 30 Euros for one day or 50 Euros for the two full days.

Seioge and O'Shea Short Story Competition

Well here are the 14 names of writers whose stories will be appearing the anthology or RTE's Seioge and O'Shea's short story anthology to be published by Poolbeg this autumn. Do the Write Thing. All royalties go to charity (I wonder which) so only fame for me, no fortune. The show gave no idea what sort of stories were chosen. They should have read some extracts to give people a taster.

Ciara Geraghty, Donabate, Co Dublin "Waiting"
Eileen Keane, Newbridge, CO kildare "Tryst"
Elizabeth Bradley, Coolock, Dublin "Dead Ends and New Beginnings"
Ita Roche, Arklow, Co Wicklow "The Locket"
Jackie Walsh, Navan Rd, Dublin, "The Black Wallet"
Jacqueline Ashmore, Santry, Co Dublin "Eton Road"
Kate Dempsey, Maynooth, Co Kildare "The Essential Ingredient"
Katie Ward, Mayor Street, Dublin "Defying Gravity"
Maura McClean, Glengormley, Co Antrim "Mother, Daughters and Frog Legs"
Patricia McAdoo, Moycullen, Co Galway "Fallow Time"
Patrick Brosnan, Brat, Co Wicklow "Baghdad Days"

The top 3 were in the studio:
Antoinette Mangan "Poles Apart"
Ellen McCarthy
Vanessa O'Loughlin

Publisher in Poolbeg and one of the judges was Paula Campbell. As the weeks went on, the writing received improved. As they always do, she mentioned that they had lots of entries that did not adhere to the requirements, particularly with presentation - double spaced etc. So easy to do and so essential. Only one man in the list. I wonder if that was proportional to the entries.

Theatre of the Absurd

Fantastic night with Red Kettle. My actors and director were superb. Eavesdropping on the audience after seemed to offer positive feedback. My cowboy was popular. every woman in the audience wanted to go home with him and every man wanted to be him (even the gay ones.)

Some of the other plays were great, some a bit disjointed. The physical comedy in the suicide one was great. Good timing. There were 3 plays with coffins, a dying person, a dead returned father and Bernard Farrell's set in an undertakers. I loved the Beckett homage but I'm not sure it would take another reading as far as story and understanding goes.

I'm not that good at Beckett. I saw Waiting for Godot finally at The Gate last year which was fantastic, and Krapps Last Tape and a few with the Beckett collection on TV, Play, the one with the lips (Not I?) and the one with the woman buried in sand - very funny. See the Youtube link. Is this Theatre of the Absurd? My play had elements and I need to explore them if I am to turn it into a full length play. Must study Ionescu and Albee apparently.

Red Kettle New Playwrights

Getting very excited about my play. 8 plays in a row tonight at the Royal Court Theatre - lovely with lots of cherubs and chandaliers to look at - and the press and other playwrights and all that and a party after and being put up for the night in a hotel. Hope they repeat the plays after. My actors are Charlie Bonner, Jan O'Sullivan and Michael Power and my director Joe Meagher, a talented bunch.

Fishamble in Dublin did a similar thing with 14 new writers in 2003. Wonder why they didn't repeat it. I would think it would go down well as lunchtime performances or perhaps as film shorts.

http://www.fishamble.com/shorts.htm

Do the Write Thing

Well, I was having a very bad day. My mother was over and we had spent some time chasing rabbits out of my garden as they were eating it all. They wait for the tiny green shoots of new plants to emerge and then eat them. They must have eaten hundreds of euros of bushes and flowers. I used to have a herb garden. The rabbits like herbs. The rabbits like eating roses. The rabbits like eating plants that are supposed to be poisonous for rabbits.

Anyway then I convinced myself that I had lost my daughter's mobile phone, probably in tescos. So I was dreading confessing when my phone rang. It was RTE from Seioge and O'Shea to say I was in the top 50 of the short stories selected for this competition and congratulations and was I a real person and aware of the terms and conditions. I was so I'm in the shortlist to be announced tomorrow. Fingers crossed. THe top 14 go in an anthology published by Poolbeg.