Official launch of Night & Day

Please come to official launch of NIGHT & DAY, the amazing anthology of writing from South Dublin, edited by the wonderfully generous, highly talented and somewhat hairy Dermot Bolger.

When: 7pm on THURSDAY 4th of December
Where: The new arts centre in Tallaght called RED right beside Tallaght library.

Wine reception. New Island will have the book on sale at a reduced price of €10 on the night and it will be hitting the bookshops very shortly.

The night will also see the launch of EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, Dermot's new collection.

Will I be reading? Yes, briefly from my series of Haiku.

Here's a taster for you:

Low maintenance shrubs,
groomed Tellytubby grass hills
feed hares and rabbits

Five Tuesday bunnies -
fur moons orbiting mother
Monday there were six

Today, four bunnies
nervous hops, white tails flagging -
something’s in the brush

Tabby cat’s tail whips,
baby rabbit in her jaws -
we pause, traumatised

Poetry Ireland Introductions

The lovely Poetry Ireland are looking for inviting submissions for their Introductions 2009, a series of readings in the Spring which offer poets working towards a first collection, and with a track record of publication in journals and magazines, an opportunity to read their work in public. (they pay too, or they used to before the R-word hit us)

To apply for the series, send six poems and a short literary-biography to Introductions, Poetry Ireland, 2 Proud’s Lane, off St Stephen’s Green, D2 before
Friday, 9 January, 2009.

So if you've a decent, published back catalogue, what have you got to lose? Go for it.

And if you don't think you have a published history, why not start sending out to magazines now? Search my blog for suggested magazines. And maybe you can apply next year.
Click here to find out more

New Media. New Audience?

Anti-Piracy Ad from The IT Crowd (says it's no longer available but you can still google it on youtube)

This is what happens to people who break copyright!

I saw this at the Arts Council conference on New Media and how to use it to promote and develop the Arts from Ireland. It was a day long thing and full of interesting ideas and conversations. I've been dwelling on some of the themes since. Some questions raised include:

- Why are so few artists and arts organisations on the web in more than a shallow profile?
- What's in it for us? Should artists be using the internet purely as a fantastically powerful method for collaboration and sharing or should we remember that artists have to live and shouldn't do everything for free?
- What about copyright protection?
- Who blogs and why? Is it pure self-promotion or narcicism?
- some huge percentage of the internet is powered/paid for by porn.
- a lot of the rest is rubbish/full of flaming and teenage angst.
- How do you select what you need?
- Does it actually do anything for the arts audience or do you only reach a subset of your existing audience?
- Remember each generation uses technology in a different way. Yes, there are grey/silver bloggers but they are the exception.
- children still need protection.
- How can we use it to earn money?
- What exactly is twitter anyway?
- I know how to podcast now so watch out! (or should I say listen out)
- and I met some lovely people too. Hello world

Thanks for a terrifically well organised conference including chocolate biscuits with the gallons of tea. I do wonder what the arts council wanted to get out of it. Perhaps it should have been arranged as a more collaborative event with less time from the panels and more time for discussion from the floor. What do you think?

Poetry Landscape

Looks like I didn't win the Patrick Kavanagh. Again. Anyone know who did?

Meanwhile, the Geological Survey of Ireland, as part of 2008 International Year of Planet Earth, presents an evening of spoken word highlighting the links between rock, landscape, nature and people.

The line-up is rather good, including poets Moyra Donaldson, David Smylie, Janet Shepperson, Stephen Gharbaoui and Mark Cooper, and will conclude current Ireland Chair of Poetry Michael Longley.

Where: Geological Survey of Ireland, Beggars Bush, Haddington Road, D4
When: Friday 28 November @ 5.30pm

T: 048 90388462 E:gsni@detini.gov.uk

Stop sniggering at the back

The annual bad sex award is up for grabs. That's bad sex in fiction actually started originally by Auberon Waugh to discourage "unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels".

The Gate of Air by James Buchan
Sashenka by Simon Montefiore
To Love, Honour and Betray by Kathy Lette
Triptych of a Young Wolf by Ann Allestree
and the winner Shire Hell by Rachel Johnson

Sex is really hard to write. But if the story really warrants following the protagonists through the bedroom door (or wherever your action takes place) you owe it to the reader not to shy from the task.

The only tip I can think of is to use a touch of humour and not too many gynecological details.

Writing Prompts

Here are some ideas to prompt some creative writing. Sometimes I do such an exercise as a way of warming up. Sometimes we start our creative writers' group meetings with a 5 minute session.

- You have a scar on your face or body. Write an alternative version of how you got it.
- Describe a river from the point of view of someone who is bereaved or nervous about getting married or pregnant.
- Open a book at random and use the first full sentence on the page as your starting line.
- Start with "it was a dark and stormy night" and have the words bamboozle, niche and guard somewhere in the story.
- spend 5 mins writing a story that last 5 mins, then spend 5 mins writing a story that last 5 seconds.

First Lines

- Her favorite word was "ghastly."
- She appeared to be ...
- By the time the lie had spread so far and wide that everyone believed it to be the truth, it was too late.
- I don't know what possessed me to visit the palm reader.
- Nothing ever happened on my street.
- Anita was often wrong.
- Russell had no tact.

Davy Byrne's Irish Writing Award

This prestigious, big money competition is running again. Last won by Ann Enright, somewhat better known now as last year's Booker winner. 1,110 entries that year. Shortlist included the fabulous Kevin Barry and Philip O'Ceallaigh.

Deadline: postmarked 2nd February 2009
Judge: Richard Ford. (Presumably the entries are filtered by the Stingy Fly) Judged anonymously.
Entry Fee: €10 (You can pay online but still have to post your entry)
Prize:€25,000 1st prize for a short story from an Irish writer. 5 runners up at €1000 each
Rules: Must be citizen of or normally resident in Ireland. Other ones here.

There's no word limit but the competition will be frenetic. It organised by the Stinging Fly in association with the Irish Times so high profile.
Shortlist to be announced late May/early June.

Richard Ford said

What any good judge wishes I suppose I wish for me—to have a brain that’s inquisitive and energetic enough to relish ‘the new;’ to not just prefer stories that are like my own stories, and yet to not shy away from those, either—in other words to recognise excellence in whatever form, style, length, etc. it comes in. I’d like to be won over, for the choice to be easy, for the chosen short story to dictate all the terms of its own brilliance and for me to be just a helpless celebrant. And… I’m not interested in the patented Irishness of any story. If an Irish writer writes it, it’s Irish enough for me—and even that feels a bit confining. In any case, the reader—the story’s charmed intended—can tweeze out what the winning story’s ‘cultural significance’ is, what it’s ‘saying’ about Ireland and history and the future, if indeed it’s saying anything at all.