Some Cultural Blogs to peruse

Arts Management Ireland I may have highlighted before blog about arts management and cultural policy.

Cultural Corner Temple Bar Blog talks about the many and varied cultural happenings in Temple Bar, Dublin. Let's hope the funding remains.

Pursued by a Bear is an Irish Time Cultural Blog by Fiona.

Denise Rushe blogs at Virtual Existence on arts events.

The Performance Corporation blog. Not too sure what they do but they get big big grants to do it so they must be doing something and doing it right.

Aoife is the Association of Irish Festival Events.

Aisling Ryan blogs about cultural event management and occasionally has tickets to give away.

Dante and the Lobster is a great name for an arty blog by Medbh, mainly reviews.

The Playwrights' Group

Anyone with an interest in writing for the stage should try and get to Dublin for this evening - forwarded on by blog friend Fin.

The Playwrights Group's next meeting will be joined by the literary managers of The Abbey, Fishamble and Druid (plus others TBC) for an informal conversation on commissioning, new writing and artistic policy plus practical issues on how to make sure your unsolicited script gets read and considered.

Where: Filmbase, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin.

When: Monday May 11th at 8pm

No Grants Gallery Temple Bar

I'm featured in this initiative from Temple Bar Cultural Information Centre. Do come down between May 1st – 15th and check out the works on show. The photo above is the inspiration to my illustration. I'm reading on lunchtime Tuesday 5th May 1pm so please come along if you can as I'd hate to read to an empty room. I'll be at the open mic night the same day too if you can make it there instead.

Creative Writing Exhibition at the No Grants Gallery, Temple Bar, 12 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. This celebration, including all forms of writing such as poetry and lyrics, showcases a range of works from both established and up-coming writers.

Each piece of work is framed and on exhibition. Writers (who are usually not visual artists!) illustrated their writing with imagery.

Lunchtime readings will also take place throughout the 2 weeks so log on to www.templebar.ie for more details soon. The exhibition will officially launch on Tuesday May 5th will an open-mic evening from 6 – 8pm offering everyone an opportunity to discuss the written word.

Revival Whitehouse Poets

Call for submissions Issue 12 of Revival.

Deadline: 31st May 2009

Email or post.
32 lines max; lines longer than 65 characters, including spaces, will run over onto the next line as it is an A5 chapbook.

Rejection

I've heard of two people who have won different categories of the Listowel competitions. I've heard nothing so I have to presume I haven't won the Poetry collection prize. Bummer.

And I didn't get shortlisted for the Francis MacManus story on RTE radio with what I must say was a terrific story. I'll have to revisit it. (Actually I haven't read it since I sent it so I'll probably cringe.)

Here are the lucky buggers who got it which include a good few people who already have short story collections published and at least one member of Aosdana. Hearty congratulations to all. Looking forward to listening to them later on in the year.

1. "The Other Side of Nowhere" by Elizabeth Carty, Dunsaney, Co. Meath.

2. "The Body" by John Austin Connolly, Booterstown, Co. Dublin.

3. "African Finch" by Richard Cotter, Carrigline, Co. Cork.

4. "Out of Sight" by Geraldine Creed, Shankill, Dublin 18.

5. "Purgatory" by Paul Duffy, Baldoyle, Co. Dublin.

6. "Molly's Last Performance" by Des Feeney, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford.

7. "Hay" by Ciaran Folan, An Spideal, Co. Na Gaillimhe.

8. "Race" by Andrew Fox, Skerries, Co. Dublin.

9. "Wish You Were" by Anthony Glavin, Whitehall, Dublin 9.

10. "Romance" by Alastair Hadden, Ballinteer, Dublin 16.

11. "Commas and Comas" by Rachel Hegarty, Raheny, Dublin 5.

12. "One In A Million" by Kay Inckle, Basin Street, Dublin 8.

13. "Hired Help" by Fidelma Kelly, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.

14. "Ten" by David Keohane, Shannon, Co. Clare.

15. "Thursday Market" by Martin Malone, Kildare Town.

16. "Tipping Point" by Anna May Mangan, Wembley, Middlesex.

17. "An Irishman in Berlin" by David Andrew Mc Ilroy, Brussels.

18. "Centre of Small Hell" by Geraldine Mills, Rosscahill, Co. Galway.

19. "Mare Rubrum" by Helena Mulkerns, Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford.

20. "Emperors of Speed" by Mary O'Donnell, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.

21. "Only Four Girls" by Ita Ryan, Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry.

22. "Home Help" by Dolores Walshe, Virginia, Co. Cavan.

Boyle Arts Festival

Boyle Arts Festival have a poetry competition, judged this year by Galway's Pete Mullineaux.

Deadline: 15th June 2009
Fee: €5 per poem. Cheques or postal orders made payable to Boyle Arts Festival.
Prizes: €300 for the winning poem and €50 for the four runners up.
In addition there will be ten highly recommended poems. Prizes will be awarded on Sunday 26th July at a ceremony during the Boyle Arts Festival. All winners will be invited to attend and to read their poem.

(I was a recommended poet years ago.)

Maximum length of poem is 40 lines. Use the entry form from the website.

Where: Poetry Competition, Boyle Arts Festival, King House, Boyle, Co. Roscommon
The website www.boylearts.com is in the process of being updated.

Track Record for Poetry

According to Happenstance, the chapbook publisher, you have to have been published in at least 3 of these reputable magazines before it's worth thinking about a collection or chapbook.

Acumen, Anon, Chapman, Envoi, Frogmore Press, Iota, Manifold (not sure this is still going), Mslexia, Obsessed with Pipework, Other Poetry, Parameter, Poetry Nation Review, Poetry London, Poetry Nottingham/Assent, Poetry Review, Poetry Scotland, Poetry Wales, Poetry Ireland, Raindog , Seam, Spume (now defunct), Staple, Smiths Knoll, The Dark Horse, The Reader, The Rialto, The London Magazine, The SHOp, The North, The Spectator, H Q Magazine (The Haiku Quarterly).

(Online) The Worm
Snakeskin

I tick Poetry Ireland and The Shop. I've been rejected by some more (Smiths Knoll, Mslexia, Envoi, Rialto (but it was a long time ago)) but haven't submitted to quite a few.

While we're on the subject, I don't really see the point of chapbooks. There's next to no publicity and no distribution and who buys them anyway? Only people who know you. No one who's going to take you up and publish your first collection. It's supposed to look good on your CV but it's too close to vanity publishing for my liking. There's not money in it, if anything it costs money. Do they really impress publishers? Anyone know?