9–19 June 2016
belfastbookfestival.com “The Belfast Book Festival opens up the incredible worlds of litera- ture and the imagination by allowing the best international and local writers to present their work to audiences in the most intimate and congenial of settings. The Arts Council’s support as principal funder reflects our confidence in this festival to extend the appeal of all literary genres so that everyone, from the most tentative to the most seasoned of readers, has the opportunity to experience the full and inimitable pleasure of books.”
Damian Smyth, Head of Literature and Drama, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
“Welcome to the Belfast Book Festival 2016 run by the Crescent Arts Centre. Now firmly established and recognised on the UK, Irish and international literary circuit, we have another incredible programme for all ages, tastes and genres. We are grateful to our funders, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland 9-19 June 2016 and Belfast City Council and to our Events Sponsor Standard Utilities, and other key sponsors the Europa Hotel and Nicholson Bass. Togeth- er by creating a shared experience we all contribute to something magical across the city. Books matter and authors matter. They must be cherished. This is our ethos and vision in our programming for this year’s Belfast Book Festival.” Contents
Deepa Mann-Kler, Chair, Crescent Arts Centre Thursday 9th June 5 Friday 10th June 9 Saturday 11th June 13 Sunday 12th June 19 Booking Information Monday 13th June 25 Tues 14th June 29 Wednesday 15th June 39 Online Thursday 16th June 45 Fri 17th June 50 www.belfastbookfestival.com Sat 18th June 55 Sunday 19th June 61 By Telephone 028 9024 2338 Festival pull out 35 Workshops, Community Outreach, & Weeklong events 66 In Person More Information 69 The Crescent Arts Centre Family Fun Day 70 2 – 4 University Road Belfast, BT7 1NH Thursday 9th June
PROUD TO BE SUPPORTING THE BELFAST BOOK FESTIVAL Alan Glynn Three Voices Carcanet’s New David Park Generation Showcase Paradime Eleanor Hooker, Trevor Gods And Angels With Robert J.E. Simpson Conway & Mel McMahon Helen Tookey, With Malachi O’Doherty With Kate Newmann Caoilinn Hughes & Tara Bergin With Stephen Connolly Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Thursday 9 June – 1.15-2.15pm Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Thursday 9 June – 7.15-8.15pm Tickets: £7 (Incl. light Lunch)/£5 (Event Only) Thursday 9 June – 5-6pm Thursday 9 June – 6-7pm Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4 After a stint as a private contractor in A seventeen-year-old boy visits his Afghanistan, Danny Lynch is back in New estranged mother on Boxing Day; a lecturer Eleanor Hooker’s debut collection, Tara Bergin, raised in Dublin, moved to York. But nothing’s easy. Work is hard to falls in with a group of older men who The Shadow Owner’s Companion was England in 2002. In 2012 she completed find and his girlfriend owes more than inhabit a very different world while learning shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award, her PhD research at Newcastle University $30,000 in student loans. Danny is also to swim; and a detective breaks into his for Best First Irish Collection. Her poetry’s and her debut collection This is Yarrow was haunted by something he witnessed at the former home to spy on his estranged family. been published in journals internationally published in 2013, winning the Seamus base - a fact that could ultimately destroy Bringing together deeply affecting stories and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize Heaney First Collection Prize 2014. him. (2014) and a Forward Prize (2014, 2016). exploring masculinity, loneliness, isolation and longing, Gods and Angels is a masterful In 2016 she won the Bare Fiction Flash Caoilinn Hughes’ first collection, Gathering Then he spots Teddy Trager, tech visionary collection. Fiction prize. Evidence, was published by Carcanet and billionaire. These two men couldn’t be in 2014. Poems from the collection have more different - except for one thing: in Trevor Conway, from Sligo, writes poetry, David Park has written nine previous won the 2012 Patrick Kavanagh Award, appearance, they’re identical. fiction, songs, book reviews, drama and film books including The Light of Amsterdam the 2013 Cúirt New Writing Prize and scripts and has released an album titled (shortlisted for the 2014 International Trócaire / Poetry Ireland Competition. Danny becomes obsessed with Trager, and Morning Zoo. He has an MA in Writing from IMPAC Prize), and The Poets’ Wives, Born in Galway, she completed her BA and before long this member of the ninety-nine NUI Galway, and has been a featured reader (selected as Belfast’s Choice for One City Masters degrees at QUB and moved to New per cent is passing undetected into the at Galway’s Over the Edge series, Tuam Arts One Book 2014). He has won the Authors’ Zealand in 2007 to complete her Ph.D. gilded realm of the one per cent. Festival and Cork’s O Bhéal series. His work Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland has appeared internationally. Arts Award for Literature, the Ewart- Helen Tookey teaches Creative Writing in Alan Glynn’s first novel, The Dark Fields, Biggs Memorial Prize, the American Liverpool. Her short collection Telling the was published in 2002 and later filmed as Mel McMahon co-founded the Abbey Ireland Fund Literary Award and the Fractures, with photographer Alan Ward, Limitless with Bradley Cooper and Robert Press in 1997 with Adrian Rice. His work University of Ulster’s McCrea Literary has appeared widely in journals and was published in 2008. Her verse was De Niro. Winterland (2009) was followed in Award, three times. He has received a anthologies and has been broadcast on anthologised in New Poetries V and in Best 2011 by the Edgar-nominated Bloodland. Major Individual Artist Award from the BBC Radio Ulster. He has been short-listed British Poetry 2013 and 2014. Her debut The third in this ‘globalisation noir’ trilogy, ACNI and been shortlisted for the Irish for the Beehive International Poetry collection, Missel-Child, was published in Graveland, was published in 2013. Novel of the Year Award three times. Prize and was a prize winner in the FSNI 2014 and shortlisted for the 2015 Seamus
International Poetry Competition (2015). Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection. 6 belfastbookfestival.com 7 Kate Tempest Red Pill Presents The Bricks That Built The Houses Abby Oliveira, Erin Fornoff With Jan Carson & Alice McCullough
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Friday Thursday 9 June – 8.30-9.30pm Thursday 9 June – 10pm Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £4
Kate Tempest is an award-winning poet Red Pill are proud to present three of this 10th June (her epic poem Brand New Ancients island’s top spoken word voices coming won the Ted Hughes Prize for poetry together for the first time in this special in 2013) and rapper nominated for the showcase. Award-winning trailblazers, Mercury Music Prize 2014. A storyteller of each of these three poets have made their extraordinary power and humanity, she is mark not just in their home towns of Derry, rapidly becoming one of the most exciting Dublin and Belfast, but on the world stage. and distinctive voices of her generation. A rare treat for any spoken word fan. Not to Her debut novel, The Bricks that Built be missed the Houses, explores a cross-section of contemporary urban life with a powerful moral microscope, giving us intimate stories of hidden lives, and showing us that good intentions don’t always lead to the right decisions. Taking us into the homes and hearts of ordinary people, their families and their communities, Tempest exposes moments of beauty, disappointment, ambition and failure and questions how we live with and love one another. She talks about her novel and her work.
‘Powerful and merciful’ Ali Smith
‘Mesmerising. A genuinely galvanising presence’ Guardian
‘A talent that knows no bounds’ Independent 8 Twinsome Minds Fulbright Scholars Book Launch Julie Janson
Richard Kearney & With Connie Voisine The Edge of Heaven Crocodile Hotel Sheila Gallagher and James Arthur R. B. Kelly with Martin Lynch
Linen Hall Library Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Friday 10 June – 1-2pm Friday 10 June – 5.30-6.30pm Friday 10 June – 6.15-7.15pm Friday 10 June – 7.30-8.30pm Tickets: £6 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: FREE Tickets: £6/£4
Twinsome Minds (a phrase from Finnegans Connie Voisine is the author of, Calle Liberties Press invites you to the launch An epic novel about a young Aboriginal Wake) is a multimedia performed talk Florista. Her previous book, Rare High of R. B. Kelly’s The Edge of Heaven, Winner single mother’s awakening of identity and with text by Richard Kearney and moving Meadow of Which I Might Dream, was a of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair compassion in a remote Northern Territory images by Sheila Gallagher. The original finalist for theLos Angeles Times Book Competition, 2014. community in 1976. This land holds a music score is by Dana Lyn. Award. Her first book, Cathedral of the terrible secret of immense proportions.
The performance re-imagines a series North, won the Associated Writing In the early twenty-second century, the of micro-narratives surrounding 1916 in Program’s Award in Poetry. Educated at habitable world is shrinking. The answer Jane Reynolds is swept up in a year of Dublin and the WWI battlefields of Belgium. Yale University, University of California, is Creo: a bi-level city that towers over the wonders, as she negotiates her place The stories and images of eclipsed history and University of Utah, Voisine teaches the dust bowl of western France. It’s a melting between the black and white societies. She concentrate on ‘twinned’ pairs – family creative writing programme at New Mexico pot of nations, where the dark streets begins teaching on a remote cattle property members, neighbours, school friends, lovers State University and also coordinates the explode with colour, festas and violence. and meets traditional Aboriginal elders who – who ended up on opposite sides during outreach organisation. change her life forever. this time of great upheaval in British-Irish relations. James Arthur was born in Connecticut and But Danae can’t stay hidden forever. Julie Janson is an Australian novelist, and The various scenes explore crossings of grew up in Canada. His first book,Charms Three hundred miles away, a dog-walker’s playwright of Aboriginal descent from the memory and imagination, anecdote and Against Lightning, was published by Copper gruesome discovery sets in motion a chain Buruberongal clan of the Darug Nation of legend, history and myth – as well as loyalty Canyon Press (2012), and his poems have of events that will bring disaster. The sins the Hawkesbury River, NSW. Her family are and love. appeared in The New Yorker, The New of the past are coming back to haunt the descended from the Aboriginal matriarch. Republic, and The American Poetry Review. sunless streets… Through an interplay of storytelling, He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Julie is an established playwright. Her animations, music and poetry, Twinsome Minds: Recovering 1916 mines what is often Poetry Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, A native of Belfast, R.B. Kelly has a PhD play Gunjies was nominated for an lost behind official historical accounts and a Stegner Fellowship, and a Discovery/ in Film Theory and published her doctoral AWGIE Award and received a Highly acts of commemoration, and proposes a The Nation Prize. James is an Assistant thesis, Mark Antony and Popular Culture, Commended Award from the Human transformative work of interpreting the Professor of Poetry at Johns Hopkins with IB Tauris in 2014. Her articles have Rights Commission. Her play The Crocodile Rising for a new generation. University. appeared in magazines and journals across Hotel was shortlisted for the Patrick White the world, and her short story, Blumelena, Playwrights Award and the Griffin Award was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in and was showcased at the Ubud Writers 2012. Festival Bali, 2010. 10 In partnership with Creative Centenaries belfastbookfestival.com 11 The Award Winning David Aaronovitch Shem The Penman… With Stephen Walker Revisited Crescent Arts Centre Written & Performed by Paddy Scully Friday 10 June – 8:30pm Saturday Tickets: £8/£6 The Black Box Friday 10 June – 8pm In July 1961, Yuri Gagarin came to London. Tickets: £10 The Russian cosmonaut was everything the Aaronovitch family wished for - a popular 11th June and handsome embodiment of modern An entertainment based on the life & work communism. of James Joyce. The setting is Switzerland and Joyce is putting the finishing touches But who were they, these ever hopeful, to his latest – but an interfering world war is defiant and historically doomed people? jeopardising its publication! Like a non-magical version of the wizards of J. K. Rowling’s world, they lived secretly In an extraordinary, often comic, stream with and parallel to the non-communist of consciousness, Dublin, its ghosts and majority, sometimes persecuted, sometimes apparitions are evoked giving our hero a ignored, but carrying on their own ways hard time in his Zurich refuge; the gossiping and traditions. Anna Livia washerwomen, dirty Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, Gabriel, Gerty McDowell Party Animals is a memoir of early life and the mob in Barney Kiernan’s pub. All are among communists. David found himself words to him….words…words…and more studying the old secret service files, words’ uncovering the unspoken shame and fears that provided the unconscious background This award winning show has been to his own existence. performed widely, from the UK to Europe and the USA. David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, “Scully expands himself into a whole television and newspapers in the UK pubful of people. Great skill, very funny since the 1980s. His first book, Paddling to indeed” Times Literary Supplement Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo “His evocation of the life and times Histories, was a Sunday Times top ten of James Joyce is a truly remarkable bestseller. performance” The Scotsman 12 Peter Hollywood Writing For Children Templar Poets (I) Dame Fiona Kidman & Anthony Glavin & Young Adults The Infinte Air Sarah Mussi, A.G.R. Moore, With Dawn Wood, Tom Weir, With Jo Egan Shirley-Anne McMillan & Caroline Healy Oliver Comins & Maggie O’Dwyer With Cathy Brown
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Saturday 11 June – 1pm Saturday 11 June – 4pm Saturday 11 June – 5pm Saturday 11 June – 6.15pm Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: Free Tickets: £8/£6
Drowning the Gowns - Venice, 1894. Come along to this panel event and learn Dawn Wood’s first collection,Quarry This enthralling novel, tells the story of the Henry James takes a night-time gondola to about writing for these different audiences was shortlisted in the Aldeburgh First rise and fall of one of the world’s greatest dump armfuls of a recently deceased lady’s and how to avoid common pitfalls. Collection Prize and was followed by aviators, the glamorous and mysterious garments. Caroline Healy is an award winning Connoisseur. Ingathering and Declaration Jean Batten. Irish artist Reuben Ross accidentally graduate of the Seamus Heaney Centre. are her most recent collections. Declaration witnesses this bizarre event and attempts Her short story collection A Stitch in Time takes inspiration from the Hebrew of After breaking records and becoming an to unravel the mystery surrounding it. won Doire Press’s International Chapbook Genesis and the Psalms. icon in the 1930s, Batten suddenly slipped Reuben finds himself adrift and risks losing Short Story Competition. out of view, disappearing to the Caribbean his mind as he discovers that there is more Tom Weir’s The Outsider, won the iOTA with her mother and eventually dying in Caroline is currently working on final to this story. Shots Award and his first collection All obscurity and buried in a pauper’s grave. edits for her next novel with Bloomsbury that Falling was launched in 2015. His years Peter Hollywood’s previous publications Publishing. include Hawks (2013), Jane Alley (1987), living and working abroad, along with living The compelling behind-the-scenes story Lead City & Other Stories (2002) and a Sarah Mussi is a multi-award winning in remote parts of the English Countryside of ‘the Garbo of the skies’ is a fascinating novel, Luggage (2008). author. The Door of No Return won the provide inspiration for his writing. insight into the early days of flying, of Glen Dimplex & Irish Writers’ Children’s mothers and daughters, fame and secrecy. Colours Other than Blue - Maeve is a Book Award. Bomb, 2015, was listed in The In 1995, Oliver Comins’ work was included single mother of a teenage daughter and Guardian New Best Kids Books 2015 list. in Anvil New Poets Two and the editor, Dame Fiona Kidman is a leading works as a Senior Nurse. Grieving over her Carol Ann Duffy, said “…poetry which has contemporary novelist, short story writer father’s recent death, she begins to keep a A.G.R. Moore has self-published two The Unseen Chronicles of Amelia its roots emphatically in the writer’s life.” and poet. She has won numerous awards, notebook, writing down memories of her novels, Black in 2011 (the first in his Unseen Saga Boston childhood, Recent work is published in journals like and has been the recipient of fellowships, series) and a picturesque fable about A Boy The Rialto, Yellow Nib and The Spectator. grants and other significant honours. Gradually another, more subterranean, Named Hogg in 2012. sorrow emerges… Shirley-Anne McMillan, is originally from Maggie O’Dwyer’s first poetry pamphlet, She is President of Honour for the New Boston-born Anthony Glavin first came to Lisburn, and is a writer and schools worker Yes, I’d Love to Dance was followed by her Zealand Book Council, and has been Ireland in 1974. In 1987, he succeeded David in Newcastle, Co. Down. Her Young Adult first collection, Laughter Heard from the awarded an OBE and a Dame Companion Marcus as editor of “New Irish Writing” in novel A Good Hiding (Atom books) is out in Road, shortlisted in 2010 for the Rupert of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her the Irish Press, and has worked for New August 2016. and Eithne Strong Award for Best First services to literature. Island. Collection. 14 belfastbookfestival.com 15 Book Launch The Lifeboat That’s Harry Leslie Smith They Killed The With Sarah Howe, Entertainment Harry’s Last Stand Icecream Man Kayo Chingonyi & Cal Doyle My Life In The Jam, Rick Buckler With Seamus McKee Author George Larmour With Malachi O’Doherty & Stephen Walker The Sunflower Bar The Black Box Crescent Arts Centre Saturday 11 June – 7.30pm Saturday 11 June – 8pm Saturday 11 June – 8.30pm Tickets: Free Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £8/£6 Crescent Arts Centre Saturday 11 June – 7.15pm Tickets: Free Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and We are very pleased to welcome The Jam’s In November 2013, 91-year-old editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & drummer Rick Buckler to this year’s Belfast Yorkshireman, RAF veteran and ex-carpet Windus, 2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and Book Festival line-up. Rick will be joining us salesman Harry Leslie Smith’s Guardian Colourpoint Books invite you to the launch The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer to discuss his book, That’s Entertainment: article ‘This year, I will wear a poppy for the of George Larmour’s, They Killed the Ice of the Year Award, and was shortlisted My Life in the Jam, which is a biography last time’ was shared over 80,000 times on Cream Man. for the Forward Prize for Best First reflecting on Rick’s life inside and outside Facebook and started a huge debate about Collection. Her pamphlet, A Certain Chinese the band. the state of society. “My brother John Larmour was a police Encyclopedia (Tall-lighthouse, 2009), won officer in the RUC. On 11 October 1988 he an Eric Gregory Award from the Society The Jam formed in Woking, Surrey, in 1972. Harry Leslie Smith is a survivor of the was off-duty and looking after my family- of Authors. During their successful career, they had 18 Great Depression and, at 93, an activist for run ice cream parlour, Barnam’s World of consecutive Top 40 singles in the United the poor and for the preservation of social Ice Cream. I was on holiday in Spain with Kayo Chingonyi holds a BA in English Kingdom, from their debut in 1977 to their democracy. my wife and two young daughters at the Literature from The University of Sheffield break-up in December 1982, including four time. and an MA in Creative Writing from number one hits. Now he brings his unique perspective to John was shot dead that night by the IRA. A Royal Holloway, University of London. His bear on NHS cutbacks, benefits policy, teenage couple were also in the parlour and poems have been published in a range Spearheaded by the songwriter Paul Weller, political corruption, food poverty, the cost the gunmen callously opened fire on them of magazines and anthologies including the rhythm section, of Rick Buckler on of education – and much more. From the too. One of the guns they used had been Poetry Review, Magma, Wasafiri, The Best drums and Bruce Foxton on bass guitar deprivation of 1930s Barnsley and the taken from a murdered soldier. The other British Poetry 2011 and 2013 Out Of Bounds were an integral part of The Jam’s sound terror of war to the creation of our welfare was a police-issue pistol that had been used (Bloodaxe, 2012) and The World Record and success. state, Harry has experienced how a great in other killings. (Bloodaxe, 2012). civilisation can rise from the rubble. But at Rick, who still lives in Woking has run a the end of his life, he fears how easily it is My brother’s brutal murder has been gently Cal Doyle’s poetry has appeared in Gorse, successful furniture restoring business as being eroded. immortalised in a poem, The Ice-Cream The Stinging Fly, Poetry (Chicago), and well as working with Time UK, The Gift and Man, by award winning poet, Michael elsewhere. He lives in Cork. From The Jam and managing a number of Harry’s Last Stand is a lyrical, searing Longley. His thoughtful words brought a other musical acts. modern invective that shows what the past degree of comfort to my Mum and Dad, can teach us, and how the future is ours for who died of broken hearts.” the taking. 16 belfastbookfestival.com 17 IRISH PAGES A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY WRITING AN IDEAL GIFT Our Unique and Extraordinary Seamus Heaney Memorial Issues “Heaney” (Vol 8, No 2) & “After Heaney” (Vol 9, No 1)
In the now-celebrated first issue, there is a particular focus on poetry, memoir, reminiscence and literary essays of a non-specialist nature directly relating to the man and his work; but the issue also includes Sunday outstanding writing of all creative genres in a posthumous celebration of the enduring literary imagination in general. The sequel, just published, focuses on the Maestro’s creative, critical and cultural legacy. 12th June IRISH PAGES Ireland’s premier literary journal, combining a large general readership with outstanding writing from Ireland and overseas. “One of the finest literary journals in the English-speaking world – and certainly the best in Ireland.” — Angus McLeod
Order or Subscribe Online: www.irishpages.org Order or Subscribe by Phone: 0044 (0)28 90434800
IRISH PAGES 129 Ormeau Road, Belfast BT7 1SH Tel: +44 (0)28 9043 4800 Email: [email protected] Edited by Chris Agee & Cathal Ó Searcaigh Hubert Butler Witness To The Future A Film By Johnny Gogan With Post Show Talk
Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 12 June – 2.30pm Tickets: Free
Born and raised in Kilkenny, Hubert Butler Widely travelled in the Balkans, Butler wrote (1900-91) – once described as “Ireland’s on a wide variety of subjects concerning his Orwell” – is now widely considered one experience of the region, much of which of the great essayists in English of the remains deeply relevant to the recent twentieth century. Proud of his Protestant history of Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. He heritage while still deeply committed to the lived in Yugoslavia between 1934 and Irish nation, he sought in his life and writing 1937, and spoke Croatian fluently. Many of to ensure that Ireland would grow into an his Balkan essays deal with the genocidal open and pluralistic society. His five volumes Croatian quisling regime (1941-45) and the of essays (The Lilliput Press) are masterful collaborationist role played by the Catholic literature in the tradition of Swift, Yeats Church and, particularly, by Archbishop and Shaw, elegant and humane readings of Stepinac – a topic which embroiled him Irish and European history, and ultimately in a major controversy in 1950s Ireland, hopeful testimony to human progress. and continues to polarize the political and cultural life of independent Croatia, where In this unique and remarkable film by one Stepinac’s proposed canonization has yet to of Ireland’s most innovative film-makers, be progressed. Butler’s life and work are brought to the big screen for the first time. The film follows Historian Roy Foster, poet Chris Agee and his writer’s journey from his Anglo-Irish biographer Robert Tobin lead the film’s childhood and study at Oxford; through his impressive line-up of literary contributors. time in Stalinist Russia (where he worked as Steve Wickham (of The Waterboys) provides a teacher), Nazi Germany (where he helped an original score with a suitably Balkan expedite the escape of Jews), and interwar flavour, whilst the film’s historical sweep Yugoslavia; to his later life as a market- is assisted by rich archive footage. The gardener, writer and public intellectual at publication in August 2016 of Butler’s Maidenhall, Co Kilkenny, where his family sixth volume, Poteen in a Brandy-cask: had lived for a century and a half. Yugolsav Essays, by The Irish Pages Press (in association with The Lilliput Press), has been Butler wrote on a wealth of Irish topics as timed to coincide with Witness to the Future diverse as the Irish Saints, archaeology, and its autumn tour of Croatia. local history, the Anglo-Irish Big House, the Irish Literary Revival, the Churches, Following the screening there will be a nationalism, republicanism, and Partition. discussion featuring Chris Agee, BBC A writer for whom “the ethical imagination” journalist Darragh Maclntyre & Director was paramount, he also wrote many essays Johnny Gogan. addressing twentieth-century cultural nationalism, the dangers of globalization and mass communication, the search for humane community, racialism, Mitteleuropa, Stalinism, and the Holocaust.
20 ACES Literary Templar Poets II Paul Mason Mia Gallagher Beautiful Pictures Of Salon With Ian Harker, Jane Weir, Postcapitalism The Lost Homeland Tom Kelly & Matt Kirkham With Martina Devlin With Rosemary Jenkinson
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Elmwood Hall Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 12 June – 1.30pm Sunday 12 June – 5pm Sunday 12 June – 5pm Sunday 12 June – 6.30pm Tickets: Free Tickets: Free Tickets: £10/£8 Tickets: £6/£4
Join the literature recipients of the Arts In Ian Harker’s debut collection, The End Over the past two centuries or so, A bomb blast in the London Underground Council of Northern Ireland’s ACES award of the Sky, an astronaut discovers that stars capitalism has undergone continual change rips through space and time, unearthing for a showcase of writing depth and talent, are not quite as he expected and TS Eliot - economic cycles that lurch from boom to four stories that whirl, collide and pass each from some of the country’s most upcoming steams out to sea disguised as an ocean bust - and has always emerged transformed other by. artists. liner; these poems reveal miracles in many and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent guises wherever they take us. history, Paul Mason wonders whether today Georgia flees Dublin, embarking on a road The Artists Career Enhancement Scheme we are on the brink of a change so big, so trip spiked with the hidden dangers of (ACES) is made annually to professional Jane Weir was joint winner of the Jackson profound, that this time capitalism itself, her past and present. In the 1970s, as the artists working in music, visual arts, Dawson Award for poetry (2003). The has reached its limits and is changing into Madden family begins to disintegrate, a literature and participatory arts, allowing Way I Dressed During the Revolution, something wholly new. disruptive stranger arrives who will bind them to develop their professional artistic was shortlisted in the Glen Dimplex New them, briefly. While the underground bomb careers, and is the most prestigious award Writers Award and she was the winner of At the heart of this change is information ticks down, an elderly German woman, bestowed by the Arts Council annually. the Wigtown Poetry Competition, 2008. technology: a revolution that, as Mason recounts her own war story to a film crew. shows, has the potential to reshape utterly And all along a parallel reality, we are led The line-up includes: Tom Kelly’s The Hoopoe at the execution, our familiar notions of work, production and through an unsettling and volatile Museum Villebois was written during several years value; and to destroy an economy based on of Curiosities. Darren Anderson (novelist), Colin of researching Amazonian wetlands. markets and private ownership - in fact, he The past crosses and weaves with the Dardis (poet), Andrew Eaton (poet), Although these poems appear to inhabit contends, it is already doing so. present and the fragmented lives of four Emma Heatherington (novelist), Hilary the natural world, they intersect with deep people become a haunting whole. McCollum (playwright), Chelley McLear human preoccupations. In this groundbreaking, Sunday Times top (poet and storyteller), Maria McManus ten book, Mason, the former award-winning Mia Gallagher’s debut novel, HellFire, (poet), Geraldine O’Kane (poet) and Lesley Matt Kirkham’s first collection, The Lost Channel 4 presenter shows how, from the was widely acclaimed and received the Richardson (novelist). Museums won the 2006 Rupert and ashes of the recent financial crisis, we have Irish Tatler Women of the Year Literature Eithne Strong Prize for best first collection the chance to create a more socially just Award in 2007. Mia has received several in Ireland. His second collection, The Dumbo and sustainable global economy. Literature Bursaries from the Arts Council of Octopus, explores the fabric and life of a Co. Ireland and has been writer-in-residence in Down smallholding. many different environments.
22 belfastbookfestival.com 23 Alec Connon Breakneck The Activist Hamlet With Tanya Jones With Timothy Mooney Monday Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 12 June – 8pm Sunday 12 June – 8.30pm Tickets: £6 / £4 Tickets: Free 13th June In The Activist, Tom Durant believes that Chicago actor, Timothy Mooney recklessly he can help solve some of the gravest slices Shakespeare’s four-hour masterpiece problems facing the ocean by putting his to a breathlessly inspiring and hilarious life on the line. hour-long one-man romp! Removing a dozen actors and three hours of melancholy, Join author, Alec Connon, and local activist, Mooney resurfaces the impact of the Tanya Jones, as they discuss the role that greatest play of all time. No “melancholy activism can play in a healthy democracy. Dane,” his breakneck performance reveals Hamlet as a complex, dangerous cat-and- Alec has been involved in successful mouse, as two powerful players fight to the campaigns to stop Shell’s Arctic drilling, the death over who gets to be king! building of the Keystone XL pipeline, and in the fossil fuel divestment movement. He “Breakneck Hamlet” has already appeared also recently helped to organize one of the at fringe festivals in Kansas City, largest ever acts of civil disobedience in the Minneapolis and Indianapolis. This summer history of the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Tim is interrupting his performance tour through the U.S. and Canada to try it out in This conversation will cover the history of the land of his forebears. social movements - from woman’s suffrage to the Civil Rights marches and the anti- KCMetropolis.org called it “A whirlwind of Apartheid movement - and discuss their wonderful. Hold onto your seats and watch achievements, and how similar movements a master at his work.” Marc Gonzales calls it could affect our future. “one for the fringe festival ages… a one-man Hamlet done right!” while Nuvo Magazine The Activist was recently named Book of describes it as running “rings around that the Month by Coast Magazine and Alec other performance by Mel Gibson.” was featured in BBC Wildlife magazine.
24 A Poetry Tour Martina Devlin Rob Doyle & Up By The Roots With Sinéad Morrissey, Of Ireland About Sisterland Frankie Gaffney Piers Hellawell & The Fidelio Trio With Kevin Quinn With Margaret Ward With Paul McVeigh Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Monday 13 June – 8.15pm Monday 13 June – 1.15pm Monday 13 June – 5.30pm Monday 13 June – 7-8pm Tickets: £10/£8 Tickets: £7 (inc. Light Lunch) / £5 (event only) Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4 Beethoven - Piano Trio, Op 70 ‘Ghost’ Piers Hellawell/Sinéad Morrissey – Up By Follow poet and critic Kevin Quinn as Welcome to Sisterland. A world ruled by Dublin Seven is the violent story of Shane, The Roots he introduces and reads over 20 poems women. A world designed to be perfect. a small-time dealer. Having just left school Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht written about places around Ireland. and keen to assert his independence, he Among our guides along the way are Here, women and men are kept separate. loses himself in the Celtic Tiger nightlife. A highlight of this year’s Festival. Featuring the Fidelio Trio, poet Sinéad Morrissey Derek Mahon writing about Portrush, Women lead highly controlled and suffocating lives, while men are subordinate Soon his life is drugs, music and gangsters. and composer Piers Hellawell, they Louis MacNeice on Carrickfergus and, less present their collaborative work. well known, Cushendun, Paul Muldoon – used for labour and breeding. But as the Celtic Tiger ends, so does Shane’s luck. Up by the Roots approaches the relation on The Burren, Patrick Kavanagh on Sisterland’s leaders have been watching Monaghan, Philip Larkin on both Belfast of music and text in a new way; the Constance and recognise that she’s special. Frankie Gaffney came of age in Dublin, interaction of trio and poetic texts respects, and Dublin, Michael Longley on Mayo and Selected to reproduce, she finds herself immersed in the city’s underworld. In his though later dissolves, the bounds between the redoubtable Francis Mahony on those alone with a man for the first time. But the mid-twenties he left this behind attending these separate territories. Three pieces glorious bells of Shandon. mate chosen for her isn’t what she expected Trinity College to study English Literature. for piano trio are interleaved with three poems. However, such is the volatility, the – and she begins to see a darker side to alternations become more subversive. As Kevin Quinn has published poetry in Sisterland. A man roams a Dublin industrial park and meets a strange vagrant. A woman takes music seeps into poem and poetry becomes anrange of journals in Britain and Ireland. sound, we move closer to an operatic scena. His talks on poets and poetry have found Constance’s misgivings about the regime part in an unusual sleep experiment. A audiences in venues such as the Linen Hall mount. Is she the only one who questions Nietzsche - obsessed man clings to his The Fidelio Trio have been shortlisted for Library, Down and Fermanagh Museums as this unequal society, or are there other girlfriend’s red shoes. the prestigious 2016 Royal Philharmonic well as in schools and colleges. doubters? Society Ensemble Award, following a Layering narratives and splicing fiction with long collaborative relationship with Piers Martina Devlin is a bestselling author non-fiction, This is the Ritual tells of the Hellawell. It seemed appropriate that, and award-winning journalist. She started ecstatic, the desperate and the uncertain. the Fidelio Trio based in London should collaborate with an English composer writing fiction after winning aHennessy Rob Doyle’s acclaimed debut, Here Are working in Belfast; the catalyst being Literary Award for her first short story in Belfast poet, Sinéad Morrissey. the 1996, and has won or been shortlisted the Young Men, was chosen as a book of for a variety of literary awards including the the year by the Irish Times, Independent, Royal Society of Literature’s VS Pritchett Sunday Times and Sunday Business Post, Prize. and shortlisted in the Irish Book Awards.
26 belfastbookfestival.com 27 Tuesday 14th June ‘Golden Thread Gallery is delighted to recommend Standard Utilities as an excellent Telecoms provider. They have improved our telecoms system without increasing the costs
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E: [email protected] | W: www.hellosu.com | T: 028 9051 1266 The Week I Ruined My Life Caroline Grace Cassidy With Denise Watson
Crescent Arts Centre Tuesday 14 June – 5.30pm Tickets: £6/£4
Ali never had any doubts when she glided up the type of woman to have an affair – is she? the aisle to marry childhood sweetheart, Colin. Caroline Grace-Cassidy is a writer and Hyeonseo Lee But two children and twelve years can change actress. She trained at the Gaiety School of Caroline Barry things. When she decides to go back to work Acting before her first role on BAFTA award- The Girl With after being a stay at home mother for years, winning Custers Last Stand Up. She has The Dolocher things go from bad to worse. appeared on BBC, RTE, TG4 and TV3, alongside With Wendy Austin Seven Names feature films. Ali finds her dream job at the City Arts Sams Book Ad.qxp_LayoutCentre despite 1Colin’s 11/05/2016 protests. 10:29 When shePage 1 Cassidy has published four novels. and Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre meets artist-in-residence Owen O’ Neill, she written, produced and directed five short films Tuesday 14 June – 1.15pm Tuesday14 June – 5.30pm can’t help but compare him to Colin. He is and has been a regular panellist for the Midday everything her husband isn’t any more. Ali isn’t show on TV3 since 2012. Tickets: £7 (inc. Light Lunch) / £5 (Event only) Tickets: £8/£6
Victorian London had Jack the Ripper. Hyeonseo Lee is a North Korean defector Georgian Dublin had the Dolocher... and human rights activist who now lives in South Korea. STABLISHED IN 1938, Nicholson Bass are a genuine third-generation family owned The Dolocher is stalking the alleyways of Dublin. Half man, half pig, this terrifying As a teenager she escaped from North E business. The company started out as a letterpress printer and fancy boxmaker, creature has unleashed panic on the streets. Korea and later guided her family to Can it really be the evil spirit of a murderer freedom through China and Laos. producing packaging for clients including Rowntree Mackintosh and Cadbury’s, Dublin. who has cheated the hangman’s noose She has recently completed writing her by taking his own life in his prison cell, memoir, The Girl With Seven Names (2015). depriving the mob of their rightful revenge? Over 5 million people have viewed her Following a recent remodelling we have introduced continuous improvement practices Or is there some other strange supernatural TED Talk about her life in North Korea, her and now offer complete solutions for the marketing, communications and business to explanation? escape to China and struggle to bring her family to freedom. business industries. We are proud to add digital printing, packaging, fulfilment, This terror has come at the perfect time for down-at-heel writer Solomon Fish. Hyeonseo has given testimony about North warehousing and logistics to our traditional core business of litho printing. With his new broadsheet reporting ever Korean human rights in front of a special more gruesome stories of the mysterious panel of the UN Security Council. Dolocher, sales are growing daily and She spends much of her time travelling From casebound books to company stationery, at fuelling the city’s fear. But when the across the globe and speaking out for North Dolocher starts killing and Solomon himself Korean human rights and refugee issues. is set upon, he realises that there’s more to She has also written articles for the New EST. 1938 the story than he could ever have imagined. York Times, Wall Street Journal and the London School of Economics Big Ideas blog With the help of his fearless landlady, Nicholson Bass and has been interviewed by the BBC, CNN, C Solomon goes after the Dolocher, torn and CBS News. we between reason and superstition. The Dolocher is Caroline Barry’s first foray CONNECT : INSPIRE : PRINT into adult fiction, inspired by a little known Dublin ghost story. T: 028 9034 2433 E: [email protected] W: www.nicholsonbass.com 30 Doire Press Irish Women Short Evening Story Writers With Stephanie Conn, Simon With Jan Carson, Mary Morrissy, Lewis & Michael J. Whelan Roisīn O’Donnell & Rosemary Jenkinson
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Tuesday 14 June – 6:45pm Tuesday 14 June – 8pm Tickets: Free Tickets: £6/£4
Stephanie Conn was shortlisted for the Jan Carson is a writer and community arts Patrick Kavanagh Award (2012) and development officer based in Belfast.Malcolm Anam Cara Competition. The following Orange Disappears was published by Liberties year she was shortlisted in the Red Line Press, in 2014. Her short stories have appeared in Poetry Competition with work selected for many journals and in 2014 she received an Arts the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. Council NI Artist’s Career Enhancement Bursary. In 2015 she was awarded the Yeovil Poetry Her short story collection, Children’s Children was Prize and the Seamus Heaney Award for published in 2016. New Writing. Mary Morrissy has published three novels – Simon Lewis won the Hennessy Prize Mother of Pearl, The Pretender and The Rising of for Emerging Poetry and was runner up Bella Casey – and a collection of short stories, A in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award Lazy Eye (1993). She has won a Hennessy Award in 2015. He has been shortlisted for the and a Lannan Literary Foundation Award and Listowel Poetry and Bridport Prizes and currently teaches at University College Cork. received commendations in the Gregory O’Donoghue Prize and Dromineer Rosemary Jenkinson is from Belfast. Her plays Literary Prize. include The Bonefire (Stewart Parker BBC Radio Award), Basra Boy, White Star of the North, Ghosts Michael J. Whelan is an award winning of Drumglass, Planet Belfast, Stitched Up and poet, writer and historian. He was 2nd Here Comes the Night. Writing for radio includes Place Winner in the Patrick Kavanagh Castlereagh to Kandahar (BBC Radio 3) and The International Poetry Awards 2011 (short- Blackthorn Tree (BBC Radio 4). Aphrodite’s Kiss, listed 2012), and 3rd Place Winner in the was published by Whittrick Press in 2016. Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Awards 2012. His books The Battle of Jadotville & Roisīn O’Donnell’s work has been published Allegiances Compromised examine Irish in journals and anthologies internationally, military history. Michael’s poetry has been featuring in Young Irelanders (2015), and in the widely published. award-winning anthology The Long Gaze Back (2015). Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Forward Prize, she has been shortlisted for several international writing awards, including the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the Brighton Prize, the Wasafiri New Writing Prize and the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award 2016.
32 belfastbookfestival.com 33 James Runcie: Musical Truth The Grantchester With Mark Devlin Mysteries Crescent Arts Centre At a Glance With Malachi O’Doherty Tuesday 14 June – 8:30pm Tickets: £6/£4 Strand Arts Centre Festival Tuesday 14 June – 6pm To most people, the music industry Tickets: £8/£6 represents a source of harmless fun and entertainment. Beneath the glossy veneer, however, lies the devastating truth of who The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of really controls these institutions, and the Pull Out crime fiction books of short stories by the deeply malevolent agendas for which British author James Runcie, set during they’re being used. the 1950s in Grantchester, a village near Musical Truth is the culmination of his five Cambridge in England. The books feature years of research into the true nature of the clergyman-detective Canon Sidney the industry - from dark occult rituals, to Chambers. mind-controlled artists. This book shows In October 2014, ITV launched how these agendas fit into the much wider Grantchester, a prime-time series starring picture of what’s really going on in the James Norton as Sidney Chambers, with world, and - crucially - how the power lies the second season airing in March 2016 with us to bring it all to an end. Mark Devlin is a UK-based club and radio James Runcie was born in 1959, educated DJ and music journalist. His first book was at Marlborough College, Cambridge Tales From The Flipside. In more recent University and Bristol Old Vic Theatre years he has begun speaking about the dark School. He was a founder member of The Late Show, and made documentary films forces that have been manipulating and for the BBC for fifteen years. He is an controlling the mainstream music industry award-winning film-maker, director, literary for decades, and how this ties into what is curator and the author of seven novels. He really going on in the world. is Visiting Professor at Bath Spa University, and the Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He lives in London and Edinburgh. 34 Thursday 9th June Wednesday 15th June
Alan Glynn - Paradime 1.15 - 2.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 / £5 Tara West & Dr Harry Barry 1:15pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 / £5
Three Voices 5 - 6pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Neil Mackay: The Wolf Trial 5.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Carcanet’s New Generation Showcase 6 - 7pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Liam Beckett: Full Throttle 6.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
David Park Gods and Angels 7.15 - 8.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Rebecca De Saintonge One Yellow Door 6.45pm Moravian Church £6 / £4
Kate Tempest 8.30 - 9.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Blood on the Rose/ Fuil Ar An Ros 7.30pm Culturlann McAdam O Fiaich £8 / £6
Red Pill Presents 10:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £4 Hollie McNish 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6
Friday 10th June Noir at the Bar 8.30pm The Errigle Inn £6 / £4
Twinsome Minds 1 - 2pm The Linenhall Library £6 Evan Marshall Spirit of 58' 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Fulbright Scholars 5.30 - 6.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Paul Clements 8.30pm Moravian Church £6 / £4 The Red Pill Scrabble Showcase 10:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £4 Book launch: The Edge of Heaven 6.15 - 7.15pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Thursday 16th June Julie Janson: Crocodile Hotel 7.30 - 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Jane Talbot 1.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 /£5 The Award Winning: Shem the Penman… Revisited 8:00pm The Black Box £10 Exhibition - Everything leaves marks 5pm - 7pm Common Grounds Cafe Free David Aaronvitcch: Party Animals 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Alex Cox 6:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Saturday 11th June Jason Johnston & Steve Cavanagh 6pm Strand Arts Centre £6 / £4 Peter Hollywood & Anthony Glavin 1:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Dermot Bolger & Kevin Curran 6.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Writing for Children & Young Adults 4:00 - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Andrea Carter Treacherous Strand 8:00pm Strand Arts Centre £6 / £4 Templar Poets 1 5:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Being Boycie: John Challis 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £12/ £10 Dame Fiona Kidman 6.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6/£4 Book Launch: They killed the Icecream Man 7.15pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Friday 17th June The Lifeboat 7.30pm The Sunflower Free Henrietta McKervey & Ann O'Loughlin 1.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 /£5 That’s entertainment - Rick Buckler 8:00pm The Black Box £8 / £6 The Third Inkling 1:00pm Linen Hall Library £6 Harry's Last Stand 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Padraig Regan: Delicious 4:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Sunday 12th June The Long Gaze Back 5:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Hubert Butler: Witness to the Future 2.30pm - 4.45pm Crescent Arts Centre Free The Business of Books 6:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Aces Literary Salon 1.30pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Kevin Smith: Voyage of the Dolphin 7:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Templar Poets II 5:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Northern Lights 8:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Paul Mason 5:00pm Elmwood Hall £10 / £8 Saturday 18th June Mia Gallagher 6.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Brian Kirk: Rising Son 11.30am Crescent Arts Centre £6/£4 Alec Connon 8:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Everest and Beyond 1pm – 2pm Crescent Arts Centre £6/£4
Breakneck Hamlet 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Jad Adams 12.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 / £5
Monday 13th June Writing Fiction 2.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
A Poetry Tour of Ireland 1.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 / £5 Book Launch: The Best Medicine 3pm - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Martina Devlin: About Sisterland 5.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 The Roof Walkers 4.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Rob Doyle & Frankie Gaffney 7.00 - 8.00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Lorna Shaughnessy & Órfhlaith Foyle 6.00pm - 7.00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Up By the Roots 8.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £10 / £8 Reflections of WWI - A Musical Journey 6.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Tuesday 14th June Ian Sansom 7.45pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Caroline Barry: The Dolocher 1.15pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 / £5 Poetry Slam 8.30pm - Midnight Crescent Arts Centre £4
Hyeonseo Lee: The Girl with Seven Names 5.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 Sunday 19th June
The Week I Ruined My Life By Caroline Grace Cassidy 5.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 Carlo Gébler 12.30pm - 1.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 /£5
Doire Press Evening 6.45pm Crescent Arts Centre Free Dangerous Women - Elizabeth Buchan, Clare Mulley & Isabelle Grey 2.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Irish Women Short Story Writers 8:00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 A Poem for a Song 4.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £7 / £5
James Runcie: The Grantchester Mysteries 6:00pm Strand Arts Centre £8 / £6 Julie Peakman 4.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4
Musical Truth 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 The Future Always Makes me So Thirsty 7.00pm Crescent Arts Centre £6 / £4 The Trouble with Women is Men 8.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £8 / £6 YORK STREET NORTH STREET
ROYAL AVE.
OXFORD STREET
HIGH STREET DONEGALL PL.
VICTORIA STREET
DONEGALL SQUARE NORTH
GREAT VICTORIA STREET DONEGALL SQUARE SOUTH Wednesday BRIDGE STREET 15th June
ORMEAU RD
DUBLIN ROAD
DONEGALL PASS
1. Crescent Arts Centre 2. Elmwood Hall, Queens University 3. The Black Box 4. Strand Arts Cenrte LOWER CRESCENT 5. Moravain Church
BOTANIC AVENUE BOTANIC 6. Common Ground Cafe 7. Eason UNIVERSITY STREET 8. The Sunflower Bar 9. The Errigle Inn 10. Linen Hall Library 11. Waterstones UNIVERSITY ROAD 12. Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich
38 Tara West & Neil Mackay Liam Beckett Rebecca Dr Harry Barry The Wolf Trial Full Throttle De Saintonge With Sarah Travers With James Runcie With Adrian Logan One Yellow Door
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Moravian Church Wednesday 15 June – 1.15pm Wednesday 15 June – 5.30pm Wednesday 15 June – 6.30pm Wednesday 15 June – 6.45pm Tickets: £7 (Incl. Light Lunch) /£5 (Event only) Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4
Tara West and Dr Harry Barry focus on The Name of the Rose meets American When road racing fan Liam Beckett ‘So now, my love, I know the worst. Your their experiences of suffering from anxiety Psycho in this brilliant historical epic. offered a young Robert Dunlop the use of brain is shrinking inside your skull. You are and depression, and in Harry’s case, a workshop at his house in Ballymoney, he going to disintegrate very slowly, mind and working with sufferers. Inspired by the first ever documented didn’t realise that that it would change both body. You will feel our loving in rags and account of a serial killer in world history. In Tara’s immersive and brilliantly written of their lives forever. your God absent and I will hold you to my memoir Happy Dark, she tells readers about In the second half of the 16th century, breast and cradle the shell of your skull, for her battle with depression and how she has Paulus Melchior, lawyer, academic, and Now, for the first time, Beckett talks you will have gone, my lover, my dear one. learnt to cope with it, makeing the darkness enlightened rationalist, travels with his candidly about their incredible partnership I am your wife. We will see this illness as a visible. young assistant Willy Lessinger to the – the struggle to get Robert to believe in journey we take together.’ Tara West is based in Belfast. Her first isolated German town of Bideburg where himself, the long nights spent perfecting the novel, Fodder, was published to wide- local landowner, Peter Stumpf, is accused bikes, life on the road and in the paddock The first words Rebecca wrote in her journal spread critical acclaim and established of brutally murdering dozens of people. A and Dunlop’s determination to race and when Jack was diagnosed with Lewy her reputation as a fresh and original new society still trapped in a medieval mindset, win, often against terrifying odds. Body Dementia. She faced keeping the writer. the townsfolk clamour for the killer to be integrity of their relationship intact while tried as a werewolf. If their demands are Beckett was at Dunlop’s side every step avoiding her own destruction as their world Countless people in Britain and Ireland live in fear and worry, where anxiety is crippling met, his blameless wife and children will of the way, for his victories at the North gradually diminished. She survived by their capacity to live normally. In Flagging also be executed in the most barbaric way West 200 and the Ulster Grand Prix, for his taking a lover. One Yellow Door explores the Anxiety, Dr Harry Barry lays bare this imaginable as agents of Satan and creatures incredible fight to race again after his near- conflicting emotions of infidelity where one hidden world and shares what routinely contaminated by wolf blood. death crash at the Isle of Man TT, and for the partner is severely disabled. goes on in the ‘emotional mind’ of that terrible crash that tragically cut Dunlop’s life person. Neil Mackay is a multi-award winning short in 2008. Rebecca has worked with the BBC, Granada investigative journalist, newspaper Television, is a regular contributor to Dr Harry Barry is a medical doctor with a executive, non-fiction author, radio particular interest in mental health and has Liam Beckett was born in Ballymoney. He Woman’s Hour and You and Yours. She broadcaster and film-maker. He has won extensive experience of dealing with issues is a sports pundit on BBC Radio Ulster and has written for The Weekend Guardian, The over 20 national and international awards such as depression, addiction and anxiety. writes a weekly football column for The Independent and The Telegraph. for his newspaper journalism. He is the author of the best-selling Flagging Newsletter. series. His last film was nominated for a BAFTA.
40 belfastbookfestival.com 41 Blood On The Rose Hollie McNish Noir At The Bar Evan Marshall Nobody Told Me: /Fuil Ar An Rós Poetry And Parenthood Curated By Gerard Brennan Spirit Of ’58 The Poems Of 1916 With Chelley McLear With Adrian Logan
Cultúrlann Mcadam Ó Fiaich Crescent Arts Centre The Errigle Inn Crescent Arts Centre Wednesday 15 June – 7.30pm Wednesday 15 June – 8.30pm Wednesday 15 June – 8:30pm Wednesday 15 June – 8:30pm Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4
The Blood on the Rose/Fuil ar an Rós With Kate Tempest describing her poetry Literary history is littered by wasted writers. In the summer of 1958 tiny Northern Ireland recording came about when Gabriel as welcoming, galvanising and beautiful, The pen and the bottle have gone hand in stood just one game away from a semi- Rosenstock had the idea of celebrating her fans range from Robin Ince, to Marian hand since the first scribble. The Northern final appearance in the World Cup against the artistic contribution of many of the Keyes to most of the UKs midwives. Hollie Irish crime fiction set embody this spirit. the mighty Brazil. The heroic story of this signatories of The Proclamation, and Tristan McNish is a poet whose readings are not to Join Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville, uniquely blessed squad of players, led by Rosenstock had the idea to record poems be missed! Steve Cavanagh, Kelly Creighton and the peerless Danny Blanchflower, takes and songs of 1916. Gerard Brennan as they trade harsh words in the Munich Air Disaster, a fight against She is an Arts Foundation Fellow in Spoken for hard liquor. Sabbath Observers within the IFA who Together with Artistic Director Cathal Word, has garnered over two million tried to stop them going to the tournament, Quinn, they thrashed out the content of the YouTube views for her online poetry This is Noir at the Bar. and a violent win-or-bust struggle against CD. It was recorded in December 2015 in performances and was the first poet to Italy to qualify. And yet it has almost been Stoneybatter, mixed in January 2016 and record at Abbey Road Studios. forgotten. launched February 2016. Three tracks were premiered in Pearse St The book is a unique blend of poetry and Spirit of ‘58 tells the story of how Northern Library as part of the launch by Dublin City storytelling, taken straight from Hollie’s Irish football came of age under the Council of its 1916 commemorations: personal diaries. As she states herself it is management of Peter Doherty, and the The Watchword of Labour by James not a polished collection; rather, it is a very team’s journey from also-rans to being Connolly candid, at times gutting, at others hilarious, two games away from the World Cup final look at her experiences from pregnancy of 1958. Including interviews with all the Easter 1916 by WB Yeats I see his blood to the pre-school drop off. Expect strong surviving players, the book finally tells the upon the rose/ An fhuil is léir dom ar an language as she talks colours, cravings, full story of Northern Ireland’s greatest ever rós by Joseph Plunkett, translated into politics, transformers, sex, tree climbing, team. A gripping rollercoaster of a story Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock. This staged feeding, train journeys, lots and lots of love brought to you by Evan Marshall that will performance of the CD should be an event and occasionally locking herself in toilets to thrill football and sports fans. not to be missed! cry a little.
42 In partnership with Creative Centenaries belfastbookfestival.com 43 Paul Clements The Red Pill Wandering Ireland’s Scrabble Showcase The Wild Atlantic Way With Special Guest Hollie McNish Thursday Moravian Church Crescent Arts Centre Wednesday 15 June – 8:30pm Wednesday 15 June – 10pm Tickets: £6 / £4 Tickets: £4 16th June Following the spirit of the world’s longest An eclectic lineup of spoken word coastal driving route, Paul Clements sets performers battle it out in a game of giant out to discover the real west of Ireland. scrabble, showcasing some of the best Along the way he encounters memorable of slam-winning spoken word poetry characters and presents a unique portrait from the North and South of Ireland. Join of their lives. We meet the last man us for a fun night of wordplay featuring standing on a remote Galway island, listen top spoken word artists including David to the banter at Puck Fair, and hear from Braziel, Elizabeth McGeown, Mel Bradley, a descendant of the original sixteenth- Rory Jones, Patricia Devlin-Hill, Alice century wild Atlantic woman. Tagging McCullough, Erin Fornoff, Hollie McNish along on his meandering journey is the and more… swashbuckling presence of the Celtic sea god, Manannan Mac Lir.
For his first travel book in 1991, Paul hitchhiked the same route. Now retracing his steps along the Wild Atlantic Way - this time by car and bike, on horseback and on foot - he looks at how Ireland has changed and realises everyone still has a story to tell.
Paul Clements is a journalist, broadcaster and writer. He is the author of a trilogy of travel books about Ireland: Burren Country, The Height of Nonsense and Irish Shores.
44 Jane Talbot Exhibition Alex Cox Jason Johnson & Growing Stories Everything Leaves Marks An Introduction Steve Cavanagh Out Of The Ground Jan Carson & Orla McAdam To Film With Gerard Brennan
Crescent Arts Centre Common Grounds Cafe Crescent Arts Centre Strand Arts Centre Thursday 16 June – 1.15-2.15pm Thursday 16 June - 5pm-7pm Thursday 16 June – 6pm Thursday 16 June – 6pm Tickets: £7 (Incl. Light Lunch) /£5 (Event Only) Tickets: Free Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £6/£4
In Growing Stories Out of the Ground, Jane During 2016 writer, Jan Carson collaborated Picasso apparently said, “When critics Jason Johnson’s novels focus on people Talbot will talk about how her collection with visual artist, Orla McAdam to produce get together, they talk about theory. facing extreme situations. Woundlicker of dark faerie tales, The Faerie Thorn and a series of images in response to the fifteen When painters get together, they talk (2005), a serial killer’s confession. Alina other stories grew out of some of the North short stories in Carson’s most recent about turpentine.’ Critics, academics, and (2006), the hunt for a vanished sex worker. Coast’s most magical places. Jane will read collection, Children’s Children (Liberties theoreticians talk theory. That is what they His latest is Aloysius Tempo (2015), an from her Edge Hill Prize longlisted collection Press, 2016). “Everything Leaves Marks” know. Artists talk about their processes unkempt, maverick assassin recruited by as well as exploring the importance of place is an attempt to explore the concepts of in making art. This is my attempt to apply the Irish government.
and the impact of the oral tradition on her legacy and inheritance. The exhibition what I know to a beginning study of film.’ ‘A lean, tight thriller with a steely grip on writing. will run in Common Grounds throughout the Book Festival with a showcase event We are excited to be joined by Maverick the attention and a plot as compulsive and propulsive as a Jason Bourne movie...’ - Jane Talbot is a storyteller, writer and featuring live music and readings. No British Filmmaker, Alex Cox. His book is for Irish Independent. Jason is from Enniskillen lifelong fan of faerie tales. She studied booking required. aspiring filmmakers, but also for students, and lives in Belfast. modern and medieval languages at and for people generally interested in university, developing a special interest grounding themselves in this particular art In The Plea, David Child, major client of a in Old Norse myths and legends. Over form - from a filmmaker’s perspective. corrupt law firm, is arrested for murder. the last 30 years she has ranged far and The FBI ask Eddie Flynn to secure Child as wide, travelling extensively in Europe and Alex is responsible for directing a host his client and force him to testify against following the scent of magic until it led her of acclaimed films fromSleep Is for the firm. Eddie is convinced the man is to Northern Ireland in 2011. During 2016 Big Sissies, Repo Man, Straight to Hell, Walker innocent and must prove it while keeping Telly Theatre Company will be developing a and Highway Patrolman to Death and his wife safe. new piece of physical theatre based on The the Compass, Revenger’s Tragedy and Faerie Thorn and other stories. Searchers 2.0. From 1987 to 1994, he Steve Cavanagh is a practicing lawyer. presented the acclaimed BBC TV series In 2015 he received an ACES award for ‘Moviedrome’, bringing unknown or Literature. His first novel, The Defence forgotten films to new audiences. was longlisted for the Crime Writer’s Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. The Plea is his second novel.
46 belfastbookfestival.com 47 Dermot Bolger Andrea Carter Being Boycie Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated The & Kevin Curran Treacherous Strand John Challis Modern World With Anthony Toner With Gerard Brennan With Nuala McKeever With John O’Doherty
Crescent Arts Centre Strand Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Thursday 16 June – 6:30pm Thursday 16 June – 8pm Thursday 16 June – 8.30pm Thursday 16 June – 8.30pm Tickets: £8/£6 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £12/10 Tickets: £6/£4
Dublin 2011: Neil, twenty-six is A woman’s body washes up on a remote Enjoy an intimate evening with John In a hugely ambitious study which crosses unemployed, disillusioned and leaving for beach on the Inishowen peninsula. Challis, one of the nation’s greatest comedy continents, languages, and almost a Canada. Before he can his grandmother Partially-clothed, with a strange tattoo on actors, best known as Boycie in BBC1’s Only century, Gregory Woods identifies the asks him to read his great-grandfather’s ways in which homosexuality has helped recently discovered memoirs. Neil delays her thigh, she is identified as Marguerite Fools and Horses. In this one-off show the his departure again. With his girlfriend Etienne, a French woman who has been national treasure will reveal secrets from shape Western culture. Extending from the in Canada growing impatient, and his living in the area. Solicitor Benedicta ‘Ben’ the set with stories and anecdotes from his trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation grandmother’s pleas for him to stay in O’Keeffe is consumed by guilt; Marguerite dazzling career. era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of Ireland, Neil faces a choice. was her client, and for the second time homosexuality one of the measures of in her life Ben has failed someone who Having worked with some of the biggest Kevin Curran has a master’s degree in modernity. Anglo-Irish Literature from UCD. His short needed her, with tragic consequences. So names in show business, he’ll be spilling the fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly and when local Sergeant Tom Molloy dismisses beans about Only Fools and Horses co-stars Woods shines a revealing light on the the anthology Young Irelanders. Citizens is Marguerite’s death as the suicide of a like Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst his second novel. diverse, informal networks of gay people in disturbed and lonely woman, Ben cannot and friends and fellow performers like The the arts and other creative fields. Uneasily The Lonely Sea and Sky is based on a real- let it lie. Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Oliver Reed and called “the Homintern” by those suspicious life rescue in 1943, when the Kerlogue’s George Best. He’ll also recall tales from his of an international homosexual conspiracy. crew risked their lives to save 168 drowning Treacherous Strand is the second Inishowen time in Dr Who, Coronation Street and other While providing some defense against German sailors – members of the navy that Mystery. TV classics. dominant heterosexual exclusion, the killed Jack’s father. Forced to choose who to grouping brought solidarity, celebrated save and who to leave behind, the Kerlogue talent, and, in doing so, invigorated the grows so dangerously overloaded that no Andrea Carter graduated in Law from Mr Challis will also meet fans after the show one knows if they will survive… Trinity College, Dublin. In 2005 she during a meet and greet to sign autographs majority culture. transferred to the Bar and moved to Dublin and pose for pictures, while signing copies Dermot Bolger has written eleven critically to practise as a barrister. She grew up in of his autobiography, Being Boycie, and From 1990 to 2013 Gregory Woods worked at Nottingham Trent University, where acclaimed novels, including The Journey Ballyfin, Co Laois.Death at Whitewater novel, Reggie: A Stag At Bay. Home and Tanglewood along with nine he was appointed to a Chair in Gay and Church is her first novel. collections of poems. His numerous awards Lesbian Studies, the first such appointment include The Samuel Beckett Prize. in the United Kingdom. On retirement, he was duly appointed Emeritus Professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies.
48 In partnership with Creative Centenaries belfastbookfestival.com 49 Henrietta McKervey Charles Williams & Ann O’Loughlin The Third Inkling Friday With Marie-Louise Muir With Roger Courtney Crescent Arts Centre Linen Hall Library Friday 17 June – 1.15pm Friday 17 June – 1-2pm 17th June Tickets: £7 (Incl. Light Lunch) /£5 (Event only) Tickets: £6 Henrietta McKervey’s latest novel The This is the first full biography ofCharles Heart of Everything, tells the story of Williams (1886-1945), an extraordinary estranged adult children forced to reunite and controversial figure who was a central when their mother disappears. An Irish member of The Inklings, a group of Oxford Times Book Club choice, it was described as writers that included C.S. Lewis and ‘a tour-de-force’ by Frank McGuinness. Her J.R.R. Tolkien. The third member, Charles 2015 novel What Becomes Of Us was the Williams’s was the strangest, most multi winner of a Hennessy First Fiction Award talented, and most controversial member of and the UCD Maeve Binchy Travel Award. the group.
William was a pioneering fantasy writer, Sisters Ella and Roberta live in separate who still has a cult following. C.S. Lewis wings of their crumbling Irish mansion and thought his poems on King Arthur and the haven’t spoken for decades. Torn apart by a Holy Grail were among the best poetry of dark family secret, they only communicate the twentieth century. But Williams was full through bitter notes they leave for each of contradictions. An influential theologian, other. With the bank threatening, Ella tries Williams was also deeply involved in the to save the family home by opening a café occult, experimenting extensively with in the ballroom, which intensifies the war magic, practising erotically tinged rituals, between them. and acquiring a following of devoted disciples. A leading journalist, Ann O’Loughlin has covered all major news events of the Written by Grevel Lindop, former last three decades. Ann spent most of her Professor of Romantic and Early Victorian career with independent newspapers and Studies at the University of Manchester. is currently a senior journalist with the Irish Lindop draws on a wealth of documents, Examiner newspaper. letters and private papers in this fascinating biography. belfastbookfestival.com 51 Padraig Regan The Long The Business Of Books Kevin Smith Delicious Gaze Back An Insider Guide The Voyage Of The Dolphin With Stephen Connolly Sinéad Gleeson, Bernie McGill, E.M.Reapy With Publishing Ireland With Colin Dardis & Manuela Moser Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Friday 17 June –5pm Friday 17 June – 6pm Friday 17 June – 7pm Friday 17 June – 4pm Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: Free Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: Free The Long Gaze Back, edited by Sinéad How does an idea that forms in an author’s Gentlemen,’ Fitzmaurice’s eyes gleamed Gleeson, is an exhilarating anthology of thirty mind end up as the book? The processes and he revealed many teeth, ‘lace up your Poetry from Padraig Regan; food from The short stories by some of the most gifted of book publishing are a mystery to most stoutest boots and pack your warmest Lifeboat. In March of this year The Lifeboat women writers this island has ever produced. – and that’s why Publishing Ireland are underwear. We’re all off to the bloody published Delicious, a debut pamphlet of thrilled to announce ‘The Business of Books: Arctic!’ poems by Padraig Regan. The pamphlet’s Niamh Boyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Maeve An Insider Guide’. On June 17th a panel nineteen poems include a wide variety of Brennan, Mary Costello, June Caldwell, comprising some of the best and brightest It is Dublin in the spring of 1916: while war cheeses, breads, fruit and vegetables: Savoy Lucy Caldwell, Evelyn Conlon, Anne of the literary world will be answering all rages across Europe and rebellion threatens cabbage, melons, a breakfast of apples, Devlin, Maria Edgeworth, Anne Enright, the questions you haven’t even thought of the Irish capital, three young College friends Peach Melba, Roqueforte, to name just a Christine Dwyer Hickey, Norah Hoult, yet. This is your chance to learn everything embark on a foolhardy seafaring mission to few. Padraig will read from the pamphlet Mary Lavin, Eimear McBride, Molly McCloskey, Bernie McGill, Lisa McInerney, about the business of books – from find the lost skeleton of an Irish giant. With and this late afternoon event will be Belinda McKeon, Siobhán Mannion, publishing and bookselling, to promotion mishaps, mischief, and a little romance, accompanied by a selection of freshly-made Lia Mills, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Éilís Ní and media. Panel members include Ruth their voyage is a hilarious odyssey round food from the duo behind The Lifeboat, Dhuibhne, Kate O’Brien, Roisín O’Donnell, Hegarty –publisher with the RIA, Patsy the edges of history and into a curious Stephen Connolly and Manuela Moser. E.M. Reapy, Charlotte Riddell, Eimear Horton –publisher with Blackstaff Press, adventure that will change their lives Ryan, Anakana Schofield, Somerville & journalist Freya McClements, and forever. Ross, Susan Stairs. Alison Allen of Easons, with more to be Ernest Shackleton meets P.G.Wodehouse Sinéad Gleeson is a writer, broadcaster, critic announced. in this heart-warming tale of three men who presents The Book Show on RTE Radio 1. The event aims to celebrate Irish publishing in a ship (to say nothing of a dog, a foul- Bernie McGill is the author of Sleepwalkers, and literature, from North and South. The mouthed Scotsman and an iguana…) a collection of stories short-listed in 2014 for expert panel will discuss the recent highs the Edge Hill Short Story Prize,. of publishing and bookselling, and the Kevin Smith was born in London and grew up in Northern Ireland. A former journalist, E.M. Reapy represented Ireland and was differences in the industry in the different he worked for a number of years as a listed for the PEN International: New Voices parts of the island. Award. foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe.
52 In partnership with Creative Centenaries 53 Northern Lights With Publishing Ireland
Crescent Arts Centre Friday 17 June – 8pm Tickets: Free
Northern Irish literature is going from with the names which are both emerging strength to strength, and here at Publishing and established. The diverse and lively list Ireland we want to celebrate the explosion of readers will include Jan Carson, R.B. of fresh talent in recent years. High quality Kelly, Tony Macaulay, Peter Hollywood, and a strong literary voice are a tall order, Moyra Donaldson, Jason Johnson, Tara and will dominate this evening’s panel event West and Kelly Creighton, with more to be of Northern Ireland’s finest writers. This a announced shortly. Saturday wonderful chance to become acquainted 18th June
BELFAST’S BRIGHTEST NEW DESIGN STUDIO SPECIALISING IN ILLUSTRATION
AN AGENCY FEATURING 20 OF THE BEST LOCAL ILLUSTRATORS AROUND: JACKY SHERIDAN, STEPHEN MAURICE GRAHAM, ANDY HAMILTON, DAVID MCMILLAN AND MORE
T: 028 9032 5644 E: [email protected] usfolk.co.uk Brian Kirk Everest Jad Adams Writing Fiction Women And The Vote: The Rising Son and Beyond Anthony J. Quinn A World History With Matt Dickinson & Leigh Russell With Jad Adams Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Saturday 18th June - 11.30am Saturday 18 June – 1pm – 2pm Crescent Arts Centre Saturday 18 June – 2.30pm Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4 Saturday 18 June – 12.30-1:30pm Tickets: £6 /£4 Tickets: £7 (Incl. Light Lunch)/ £5 (Event only) Brian Kirk is an award winning poet and A lunchtime of adventure with an illustrated Coming up with an idea for a book can writer from Dublin. He was shortlisted for talk from mountaineer and acclaimed Before 1893 no woman anywhere in the happen in a matter or seconds, but how can Hennessy New Irish Writer Awards for author Matt Dickinson. world had the vote in a national election. A this idea be then crafted into an absorbing story? Bestselling crime authors, Leigh fiction in 2008 and 2011. He was selected hundred years later almost all countries had Matt Dickinson is an award-winning writer enfranchised women, and it was a sign of Russell and Anthony J. Quinn, will reveal for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series and filmmaker with a passion for climbing backwardness not to have done so. their tricks to writing engaging fiction in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Patrick and adventure. During his filmmaking and providing their reader with the right Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2014 and 2015. career he has worked as a director and This is the story of how this momentous balance of fact and fiction. change came about. The first genuinely His novel for adults Winter Journey was cameraman for National Geographic global history of women and the vote, it Anthony J. Quinn is an Irish writer and shortlisted for the Today Show/New Island television, the Discovery Channel and the takes the story of women in politics from journalist. His debut novel Disappeared was Get Your Novel Published Competition BBC. His film projects have taken him to the earliest times to the present day, selected as a Times Book of the Year 2014 Antarctica, Africa and the Himalaya, often in revealing startling new connections across in 2014. He has been shortlisted twice and led the Daily Mail to mark Quinn as a the company of the world’s leading climbers time and national boundaries - from Europe for the PJ O’Connor Award with RTE ‘star in the making’. His short stories have and expeditioners. and North America to Asia, Africa, Latin for radio drama. The Rising Son, his first America, and the Muslim world post-9/11. twice been shortlisted for a Hennessy/New novel for children (10 – 14 years), was Irish Writing award. An absolute must for mountaineers, published in December 2015. His maternal Controversially, Jad Adams rejects the expeditioners, travellers and those who widely accepted idea that success was Grandfather was a member of the Royal Leigh Russell studied at the University of simply enjoy fantastic stories and amazing primarily a result of the pressure group Kent, gaining a Masters degree in English Irish Constabulary (RIC) while his Grand photographs! politics of the suffragists and their and American Literature. Her first novel, Aunt was quartermaster for Cumann na supporters. Ultimately, he argues, it was Cut Short, was shortlisted for the CWA John nationalism, not feminism, that was the mBan during 1916. Consequently he has a Creasey New Blood Dagger Award in 2010. most important factor in winning women balanced view of history. He blogs at: the vote. www.briankirkwriter.com. Jad Adams is an independent historian who specialises in radical characters from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and ‘the decadence’ of the 1890s.
56 belfastbookfestival.com 57 Things are going wrong for Philip Wright: detentions, broken specs, an English teacher who thinks he’s a poet and a mother who’s started acting weird. She no longer laughs at his jokes, cries a lot and bakes wholemeal buns.
And then there’s The Yeti, The Goddess, The Meerkats and Philip’s best friend Ang. Oh, yes, and Mrs Chihuahua next door and her annoying mutt. Not to mention Philip’s hero, a certain TV comedian.
A hilarious take on life, love, glasses – and medicine
'Funny, moving and strangely empowering in its determination to laugh in the face of the seemingly unbearable, it's hard Christine Hamill to believe that it's a first novel.' — John Connolly, author of The Book of Lost Things Book Launch Lorna Shaughnessy & Reflections Of WWI – The Best Medicine The Roof Walkers Órfhlaith Foyle A Musical Journey By Christine Hamill With Keith Henderson With Ruth Carr With Tracey McRory
Published in £6.99 UK only Christine Hamill
Crescent'Look, just Arts buy it. YouCentre won't regret the decision.' Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Little Island — John Connolly www.littleisland.ie Cover Design – The Project Twins Saturday 18 June – 3pm Saturday 18 June – 4.30pm Saturday 18 June – 6-7pm Saturday 18 June – 6.30pm Tickets: Free Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £6/£4
Philip is twelve years old and life is pretty June will mark the 150th year anniversary Lorna Shaughnessy has published When Tracey McRory discovered her great- good. He gets on with his mum and gets of the Fenian raids that sparked Canada’s a chapbook with Lapwing Press and uncle’s WWI journals, little did she realise by pretty well at school - in spite of girl, Confederation. three poetry collections, Her work was the journey it would take her on.... teacher, bully and - er - poetry problems. selected for the Forward Book of Poetry Tracey (4 times All Ireland Fiddle Champion Philip’s happy-go-lucky life is disrupted Keith Henderson’s historical novel The Roof and her poems have been published in and a noted Harpist) visited the Battlefields when his mother gets breast cancer. Bad Walkers captures those critical moments The Recorder, The North, La Jornada and of WW1 for the first time in 2001 and since enough that your mother is seriously ill - with both flair and authenticity. The novel Prometeo, as well as Irish journals. She is a then has composed music highlighting the stories of men and women from the but could she not have developed a less touches on a number of themes of interest translator of Spanish and South American island of Ireland who fought and died. Her embarrassing kind of cancer - toe cancer, to Belfast readers: separation and partition, Poetry; her most recent translation was WW1 compositions embrace both musical maybe, or ear cancer? both within North America and from by Galician writer Manuel Rivas, The cultures in Ireland and are performed Great Britain. The Canadian government’s Disappearance of Snow, which was by both flute bands and traditional Irish Philip’s attempts to cope with his situation response to violent threats from the IRA. shortlisted for the UK Poetry Society’s groups. are both hilarious and touching. Through Spying, informing, and their effects. 2013 Popescu Prize for translation. it all, he’s writing letters to his hero, the Tracey’s granduncle Father James McRory, comedian Harry Hill,looking for advice. A Keith Henderson has published two Órfhlaith Foyle’s first full poetry collection (Inishowen, Donegal), was shot and hilarious take on the unfunny subject of previous novels, The Restoration and The Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma was published wounded as he ministered to soldiers amid cancer; this book brings one of modern life’s Beekeeper, Staying Canadian, political by Arlen House and short-listed for the the horrors of the trenches at the Battle of most prevalent illnesses into the light and essays as Quebec columnist for the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award in 2011 Passchendaele on the Western Front. gives it a human face Financial Post, and prize-winning short and chosen as Book of the Year by Scotland stories in The Pagan Nuptials of Julia. His On Sunday newspaper. A search, which began at home, moved Christine first book wasB is for Breast third novel, Acqua Sacra, will appear this to Belfast and Belgium before its final Cancer, a non fiction work for adults based Fall. Keith led a Quebec political party Órfhlaith’s second short story collection unforeseen climax in the USA, Tracey uses film, imagery, music and narrative to bring on her own experiences. during the separatist referendum of 1995 Clemency Browne Dreams of Gin was the audience on an emotional journey and championed English language rights chosen as Book of the Year by The Irish through the battlefields of WW1. and the strategy of partitioning Quebec Times newspaper. should ever Quebec partition Canada, positions covered in full-length articles in Her work has been published in The Dublin the LA and NY Times as well as on CBS 60 Review, New Irish Writing and The 58 Minutes. Stinging Fly. In partnership with Creative Centenaries 59 How Not To The Festival Write A Novel Poetry Slam With Ian Sansom Sunday Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Saturday 18 June – 7.45pm Saturday 18 June – 8.30pm Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £4 19th June Ian Sansom is the author of a dozen books. Purely Poetry presents The Belfast Book In this illustrated lecture and reading, Ian Festival Poetry Slam. shares his experiences, reveals his mistakes, and asks how and why authors begin, Open to all poets, we invite you to ‘take continue, and end. the mic’ and enter our annual poetry slam competition. Share your work in front of a How do writers make us laugh, cry, squirm lively audience, with new readers always and do all those other things they tend to do welcome. - intriguing us, infuriating us, and making us want to lie down and weep for the plight To enter, just register at the start of the of human civilisation? night; names will be drawn out at random, with each poet invited onstage to read by For anyone who intends to write an epoch- our resident emcee, Colin Dardis. defining masterpiece, achieve literary cult status, or who foolishly believes they have a You have three minutes in which to book in them! compete, our judges scoring on delivery and poetical quality and deciding who Ian Sansom is a former Guardian columnist gets through to the next round. There’s and writes for The London Review of Books, three rounds in all with the outright winner The Spectator and The New Statesman. He declared Slam Champion 2016! presents for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3 and is the author of The Truth About Babies (2002), Ring Road (2004), Paper: An Elegy (2012), and the Mobile Library series. His most recent novel, Westmorland Alone (2016) is the third in the bestselling 44-book County Guides series.
60 Carlo Gébler Dangerous Women A Poem for a Song The Pleasure’s
Elizabeth Buchan, Clare Mulley Antrim Community Choir, All Mine With Ian Sansom & Isabelle Grey The Henry Girls & Ruth Carr With Julie Peakman
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 19 June – 12.30-1.30pm Sunday 19 June – 2.30pm Sunday 19 June – 4.30pm Sunday 19 June – 4.30pm Tickets: £7 (Inc. Light Lunch) £5 (Event only) Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £7/£5 Tickets: £6/£4
Join us for this fascinating insight into the Elizabeth Buchan’s heroine in I Can’t A journey into a world of lyrical texts, songs Best-selling author Julie Peakman reveals career of one of our great writers, Carlo Begin to Tell You is British-born Kay and poems that capture the heartbeat of everything you every need to know (and Gébler. Eberstern. When the Nazis occupy her what it is to be human. plenty you don’t) in a talk about the wide adopted country of Denmark, Kay faces a range of sexual activity over the last 2,000 He is the author of The Eleventh Summer, life-changing dilemma and finds herself With a selection of wonderful poetry and years. Her recent book The Pleasure’s All The Cure, How to Murder a Man, A operating in a covert world of intelligence, arrangements of new and old music, ‘Poem Mine shows how homosexuality was usual Good Day for A Dog and The Dead Eight resistance and sacrifice. Weaving together For A Song’ brings a delightful new twist to in ancient Greece, but punishable by death (shortlisted for the Kerry Irish Fiction Prize), the voices of people hidden behind secret the performance of poetry. in the medieval world; how ‘Child Love’ the short story collections W.9. & Other identities who risked their lives to protect was acceptable in the Victorian period but Lives and The Wing Orderly’s Tales, and others that they would never know, the Antrim Community Choir: Although only paedophilia is now a crime; and how both several works of non-fiction including novel dramatizes a clandestine war from a 3 years old, this accomplished and dynamic bestiality and necrophilia have been decried the memoirs Father & I, Confessions of a new and intensely moving perspective. choir have performed extensively around throughout the ages. Catastrophist and The Projectionist, the Northern Ireland and are renowned for Story of Ernest Gébler and the narrative Clare Mulley is the award-winning author innovative and unexpected performances. Carefully researched as well as a fascinating history, The Siege of Derry. He has also of two biographies. The Woman Who Saved read, and featuring a wide array of written plays for both radio and the stage, the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Ruth Carr a poet, editor and creative illustrations, The Pleasure’s All Mine including Dance of Death, 10 Rounds (short Jebb, won the Daily Mail Biographers’ Club writing tutor. She produced the first reaches conclusions that are surprising, and listed for the Ewart-Biggs Prize), Charles Prize. The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and anthology of women writers to come out of sometimes shocking. This is an essential & Mary a play for BBC Radio 3 about the Lives of Christine Granville led to her being the North, The Female Line, and has worked volume for anyone interested in the art, lives of the siblings who wrote the classic presented with Poland’s national ‘Bene with many community writing groups to history and culture of sex. children’s introduction to Shakespeare, Merito’ honorary distinction in 2014. produce anthologies of their work. She has Tales from Shakespeare and Belfast by two poetry collections. Julie is also author of Peg Plunkett. Moonlight. The event will be chaired by novelist and Memoirs of an Eighteenth-Century Whore TV screenwriter Isabelle Grey. A former The Henry Girls are 3 sisters whose music (2015), Mighty Lewd Books (a history of Carlo Gébler was born in Dublin and raised non-fiction author, magazine editor and is infused with the rich cultural heritage pornography, 2012) and Lascivious Bodies in London. He now lives outside Enniskillen. journalist she has contributed to long- of their native Donegal combined with a (a history of sex in the eighteenth century, running TV crime dramas from Midsomer transatlantic flavour. They are renowned 2008). Murders. for their captivating live performances. 62 belfastbookfestival.com 63 The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty: The Trouble With New Poets From The North Of Ireland Women Is Men Edited By Sinéad Morrissey With Ruth Madoc and Stephen Connolly & Leo Aylen
Crescent Arts Centre Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 19 June – 7pm Sunday 19 June – 8.30pm Tickets: £6/£4 Tickets: £8/£6
Northern Irish poetry has an unrivalled Sinéad Morrissey has published five Leo’s poems are miniature plays in a In April, 2016, she ran the London Marathon reputation worldwide. Seamus Heaney, collections of poetry with Carcanet Press, variety of settings: a Brixton police station; for Cancer Research UK. Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon and Sinéad including Parallax (2013), which won the Neanderthal Europe; the Cumbrian fells; a Morrissey are just a few of the stellar talents TS Eliot Prize and was shortlisted for Hampstead drawing-room; Medea mocking Leo Aylen has published 9 poetry to have emerged from the North. the Forward Prize for Best Collection, Jason; a fairy-tale garden; a firelight spell- collections, and has been published in 2013. Her other awards include The casting. “The underlying connections forging 100 anthologies, winning prizes in Arvon, Blackstaff Press has always been at the Patrick Kavanagh Award, the Eithne the whole piece into one great organic entity Peterloo, and Bridport, competitions. He has forefront of celebrating this rich poetic talent and Rupert Strong Award, the Michael are profound and muscular, the earth moves, directed a number of films for television, in its landmark anthologies. The future Hartnett Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary stupendous” wrote Simon Callow. Melvyn been nominated for a BAFTA, and co-written always makes me so thirsty: New Poets from Fellowship (U.S.A.) and in 2007 her poem Bragg praises the “visceral intellectualism” of a Hollywood movie Gods & Generals (Warner the North of Ireland continues this tradition, Through the Square Window took first prize Leo’s latest book, and calls it “a triumph”. Bros 2003). In the theatre he has directed his bringing together a new generation of poets in the UK National Poetry Competition. own translation of Sophocles’ Antigone, and who have come to prominence in the last In 2013 she was appointed as the Inaugural Ruth Madoc, for many years a very familiar written lyrics for musicals & a pantomime. decade. Belfast Poet Laureate. face on television, ever since she won He has created and performed in many radio fans as Gladys Pugh in Hi-De-Hi, a huge features, and for several years regularly This event brings together a select group of Stephen Connolly was born in Belfast success she repeated with the very different created poems based on current news the featured poets to read from an anthology in 1989 and was educated at Queen’s character of Dafydd’s Mum in Little Britain, stories for BBC Radio4. He has performed which shows why another generation of University, Belfast. His poems have been most recently was seen on television as his poetry extensively in theatres on three poets from Northern Ireland looks set to published in Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review Mayor Mary Meyer in Stella (Sky 1). She has continents, and has appeared in the Royal dominate the world stage for years to come. and The Irish Review. He has taught at the many other television credits: Casualty, Albert Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, in North Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. Mount Pleasant, Benidorm, Doctors, Big America from New York to San Francisco, Top, Mine all Mine, Jack of Hearts, The Pale British Columbia to Ontario, and extensively Horse, Oliver’s Travels. In the theatre she has in Africa, including to an audience of 3000 performed Vagina Monologues, and worked, Zulus on an open hillside. He and his poetry as actor and singer, in Calendar Girls, Annie, have been the sole subject of 3 American 42nd Street, Pickwick the Musical, and nationwide television programmes. Gypsy.
64 belfastbookfestival.com 65 Workshops, Community Outreach, & Weeklong events
As always, an important element of the festival are our events for children and young people, our educational workshops and our work in the community.
As you will see many of these events are free, and those that aren’t, are a bargain! Just take a look at some of the events we have on offer...
Weeklong Workshops
Fri 10th June Scribes Memior Writing with Sharon Dempsey 11am - 2pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Sat 11th June Reading Rooms Bus 12pm - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Books, bums, bogies & Big Bottom Burps 11am & 2pm Crescent Arts Centre £5/ child
Themed Poetry Workshop with Moyra Donaldson 1.30pm - 4pm Crescent Arts Centre £20 / £16
Sun 12th June In the story garden with Sam Porciello 2pm - 3pm Lower Crescent Park £5/ child
Mon 13th June Young Scribblers with Sharon Dempsey 4pm - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre £5
Mon 13th June Young Scribblers with Sharon Dempsey 4pm - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre £5
Comic Strip Workshop with Ann Harrison 4pm - 5.30pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Tue 14th June Open Arts Creative Writing Reading 10.30am - 11.30am Crescent Arts Centre Free
Once Upon a Time for Babies with Sam Porciello 10.30am Crescent Arts Centre £5/ baby
Silk Screen Printing with Kat St Angelo 3.30pm - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Wed 15th June Once Upon a Time for Babies with Sam Porciello 10.30am Crescent Arts Centre £5/ baby
Thur 16th June Once Upon a Time for Babies with Sam Porciello 10.30am Crescent Arts Centre £5/ baby
Crescent Writers Groups Open Reading 8:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Pass it On Belfast Book All festival CAC Cafe Free
Fri 17th June Crescent Arts Book Club Tea Party 7:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Sat 18th June Reading Rooms Bus 12pm - 5pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
Book Binding with Jenna Kirkwood 10.30am - 4.30pm Crescent Arts Centre £45*
Sun 19th June Remembering Ann Zell Poetry Reading 6:00pm Crescent Arts Centre Free
In the story garden with Sam Porciello 2pm - 3pm Lower Crescent Park £5/ child
9 - 19 June Writers in the Community (various) Various City wide Free
* (inc. materials)
66 Booking Information
Online Accessibility Booking your tickets online is easy. Simply go We endeavor to make the Festival as to belfastbookfestival.com, pick your favourite accessible as possible. We recommend that events and pay online through our secure we are notified when booking of any specific system to get an email with your tickets (PDF) requirements so that we can adequately sent to you instantly. provide for your needs and confirm accessibility. A 2 for the price of 1 offer is also In Person/ By Telephone available in the case of an attendee requiring You can purchase your tickets by calling us on assistance – please contact us when booking (028) 9024 2338, or in person by coming to to arrange this. the Crescent Arts Centre. Free Events Refunds Availability for free events is ‘first come, first Festival Tickets cannot be refunded once served’. Tickets for free events should be purchased unless the event is cancelled or booked in advance if specified in individual postponed. In this event, refunds must be event listings. claimed from point of purchase. All tickets for events are non transferable after purchase.
Our Funders Event sponsor Key sponsors
Festival Partners
The Lifeboat
The Belfast Book Festival is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council. The views expressed during the festival are not necessarily shared or endorsed by our funders, the Belfast Book Festival or the Crescent Arts Centre and they do not accept any responsibility or liability for same.
BBF15_programme.indd 69 18/05/2015 17:44 This year why not come along and join the Mad Hatters Tea Party and partake in lots of events we have lined up! Family Fun Day There’s something for children of all ages! There’s story telling, food and drink, entertainment, art workshops and Saturday 18 June 11am-5pm loads and loads of books! Best of all our Family Fun Day is free for everyone to attend!
The Belfast Book Festival’s Family Fun Day is For more information on park events please back in 2016 and is bigger and better than ever! visit: www.belfastcity.gov.uk/events
Family Fun Day
With Time Workshop Description
Kat St Angelo 11.30am - 4.30pm Silkscreen printing Silk Screen Print a book festival FEATURING tote bag Ciara Campbell Drop In Pottery Wheel Drop in workshop Fine & Dandy
Sheena Bleakney 11.30am - 4.30pm Facepainting Market!
Jo Britland From 11.30am until Storytelling workshops 4.30pm Ann Harrison Drop In Charater Creation Character Creation - worksheet to design, colour and take home Fionnuala Duffin Drop In Creative Fun Drop In Crescent Arts Centre
Children's Authors
Ruth Eastham Jo Britland
Matt Dickinson Brian Kirk
Sam Porciello and many, many more...
70 belfastbookfestival.com
belfastbookfestival @belfastbookfest #belfastbook