Reading at Ó Bhéal, The Long Valley, Cork

Anyone in Cork? Please come along and break me in gently to the Cork Poetry. I'm reading on Monday.

When: Monday March 8th 8.30 for 9.00pm
Where: Upstairs at The Long Valley, Winthrop Street, Cork.
They say

Guest poets begin about 10.00pm for between 30-45 minutes, after which there is the usual open-mic session. Be sure to come early to get good seats so it may be a late night.

Entrance is free
Full bar available.

2010 Cúirt New Writing Prize

The Cúirt International Festival of Literature has announced the details of the 2010 Cúirt New Writing Prize which offers emerging writers a chance to receive recognition at an internationally recognised literary event.

Previous winners include: Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Ciarán O’Rourke (2009)

Prize: €1000 cash prize presented at the opening of Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway on Tuesday 20th April 2010.

Only entries from writers who have not had a collection of their work published or who do not currently have a collection under consideration for publication will be considered.

Submissions may be either poetry or fiction.

Deadline: Friday 26th March 2010

Poetry: 3 poems, each under 40 lines
Fiction: up to 2500 words

Entries must be sent in hard copy only:

Details here.

Radio Butty at Dublin Book Festival

If you're around, do call into Radio Butty. An experienced to be recommended.

Saturday, 6 March, noon to midnight

Upstairs at the Lord Edward Pub, 23 Christ Church Place Dublin 8

The Good Room
Pop into author Kate Kerrigan’s Good Room - the best china will be out and it’s  your chance for a cosy mingle with Dublin’s lovely laydee nov’lists who’ll be   dropping by for chit-chats over tea. There’ll be a custard cream there with your name on it. The day includes the Good Room Games and The Priests Tea Party.  See below for further details

Captain Butty 6pm to midnight
Attention all you book-lovers, spectacle- wearing librarians and beavering biographers  - Dublin Book Festival’s professsor-in- residence, the right honourable Captain Butty will be appearing on March 6th, aided by his trusty assistants Tommy Subjunctive and Dr Niamh Litotes, who will be spinning the discs and unearthing steamy nuggets about the love lives and curious peccadilloes of such shadow-hugging library attenders as W.B. Yeats, Dr Conkey Swiddlington-Snot and Stew ‘I Call Him Henry’ Mc Elligott, author of ‘100000000078 books you must read before you die’. 

Schedule of Events:

Good Room opens with Angeles - decade rosary

12.05 to 1pm – Boxty with Brunker.

Good Room Hostess Kate Kerrigan interviews media darling and best selling novelist Amanda Brunker  over plates of home-made Boxty which they'll be making FROM SCRATCH. 

1pm-2pm Ladies who Lunge.

A hang sangwich lunch where guests best selling novelists and TV stars Claudia Carroll and Anita Notaro discuss the state of the Irish male and how the Irish female in fiction had changed.

2-3pm: Good Room games.

An hour of madness where you can Bring Your Girlfriend to Meet My Mother (to see if he/she is Suitable Marriage Material), Get the Messages for Mammy, or guess how many marbles  are in the jar of the Child Who Can Be Seen and Not Heard. Free custard creams for everyone! 

3-4pm Kate Kerrigan
Kate Kerrigan reads from her new novel Ellis Island (with special guest, the dfamous balladeer Dolores O’Flaherty from Dungannon)

4-5pm Open poetry slam- and party pieces

3-4pm Priests tea Party
Father Tony presides over an hour of sing-along folk hymns, Who Can Say The Quickest Mass competition and Guess The Saint

6pm: Angeles

6.01pm to midnight – Captain Butty rocks the airwaves with classic tunes and on-the-hoof interviews and we’ll Hucklebuck ‘til dawn. 
 
Look forward to seeing you there - no chips allowed. 

Your friend 

C.Butty’ (Patrick McCabe)

PJ O'Connor Radio Play for RTE competition

I missed any announcement about this but it's open for submissions. This year it's 55 minutes.

Have you ever considered writing for radio? There are many opportunities and a good way to break in is to try for the RTE P.J. O'Connor competition. Here's the gen:

The aim of the competition is to encourage new writers to radio drama and to increase awareness of the possibilities and scope of radio as a medium in the field of drama.

Rules: For the first time RTÉ Radio Drama is inviting candidates to submit radio plays of 55 minutes in duration (rule of thumb is one page per minute when properly formatted)
Prizes: €3,000 for first prize, €2,000 second, €3,000 third prize.
All plays are planned to be recorded and broadcast. They shortlist between 12 and 20.

If you are a new writer in this medium, there is a great weekend course they offer shortlisted writers in writing for radio. And you may get lucky too. Sometimes they record and broadcast shortlisted plays and you are paid the standard RTE rates.

Deadline: March 31st 2009
Tips: Listen to lots of radio drama. You can get the BBC afternoon play online for a week.

Details here:

Dublin Valentine Talks

With the lovable Dermot Bolger.

A public conversation between Dermot Bolger, Peter Sheridan and Carlo Gébler.

No relationship shapes our character so much as the intense, early relationship that we have with our parents. In this unique and frank public conversation, the poet and novelist Dermot Bolger talks to two of Ireland's leading writers about their relationships with their own parents, during their childhoods and adult lives, and how these relationships have helped to form their own personalities and outlook.

Dates & Times: Wed. 3rd March @ 8pm
Tickets: €5
Where: Axis, Ballymun

Want the Poetry Divas 1, first Poetry Pamphlet?

Do you want your own copy of the Poetry Divas first poetry pamphlet, entitled Poetry Divas 1, printed (not published, we reserve the right to publish these poems elsewhere) by Diva Press?Scared we'll sell out before you get to see us?
Want to own this priceless collectors' item now?

Click here
5 Euro excluding P&P

and one will soon be winging its way to you for your reading enjoyment.
We've had a good few enquires so I thought I'd set it up so it's easy to do.
Please don't feel obliged!

TFE's writing prompt

Not writing much this last while so here's one coming at TFE's writing prompt for the Poetry Bus on the after life somewhat slant.

(Taken down for rework)