23-30 April, 2017

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The Arts Council’s new, upgraded CULTUREFOX events guide is now live. Free, faster, easy to use – and personalised for you. Never miss out again. Welcome to Cúirt Contents International Festival Official Opening 6 Début Panel 29 of Literature Cúirt Table Quiz 6 Conor O’Callaghan & A. L. Kennedy 30 Anne Kennedy Writers’ Salon and Residency 7 Digital Literature & Art: In Person: World Poets 8 Interface as Creative Device 30 The 2017 Cúirt Festival aims to Launch: Song of Songs 2.0 8 Damon Galgut & Eimear McBride 31 www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature excite and engage its audience and Seisiúin na Cúirte 9 Elaine Feeney & Josh Idehen 32 provide a platform for some of the Fruition 9 Claire-Louise Bennett & Mia Gallagher 33 most innovative and loved writers Found in Translation? Songs from a room: My Fellow Sponges 34 across venues in Galway City and France, Ireland and the legacy of Michel Déon 11 An Focal: Grá 35 County. Launch of Horseman, Pass by! 11 Dermot Healy: Writing the Sky 36 Each year the festival continues to grow: this year Film: Un taxi mauve / The Purple Taxi 11 Claire Hennessy, Shirley Anne McMillian we are proud to introduce LABS as Gaeilge, a day of Frédéric Vitoux 11 & Dave Rudden 37 workshops for children through Irish. There are two new masterclasses in sports writing and writing for a young Launch: Rise 12 Jay Griffiths, Richard Hamblyn, adult audience. The Anne Kennedy Memorial Lecture has evolved to become a mentored residency, platforming Calasanctius College Book Launch 12 Gaia Vince & Paul Kingsnorth 38 and nurturing emerging poets. While growing bigger we The Sacrificial Wind 13 An interview with Rick O’Shea 39 still nurture our roots. Poetry readings open and close the Town Hall Theatre programme. Established and Consensual 13 Sophie Hannah & Denise Mina 40 début writers are presented side by side. Cúirt/Over the Edge New Writing Showcase 14 Stephen Burt, Theresa Muñoz & Jacob Polley 41

On behalf of the Galway Arts Centre Board of Directors ROPES Launch 15 City Lit Talks Back 41 and the Cúirt team, we would like to thank all of the Persona 15 Simon Armitage & Terrance Hayes 42 participating writers, the funding bodies, sponsors and the Cúirt audience in city and county, in schools and David Butler, Yrsa Daley-Ward & Kerrie O’Brien 16 Bardic Brunch 43 theatres, in kitchens and libraries. It is the dedication of Martina Evans, & Mary O’Malley 17 Sara Baume, Jenni Fagan & Paul Kingsnorth 44 the audience that continues to support this festival into its 32nd year. Booking Information Songs from a room: Sive 18 Fermata 45 Book online at: Merlin Coverley & Michael Winter 19 Far From Literature We Were Reared 46 Maeve Mulrennan, Programmer www.cuirt.ie or www.tht.ie Tara O’Connor, Manager Oisín Fagan & Ross Raisin 20 An Evening with William McCarthy 47 Paraic Breathnach, Producer Box Office Jami Attenberg, Sinéad Gleeson & Cheryl Tan 21 Cúirt Labs 48 April 2017 Town Hall Theatre, Courthouse Square Spoken Word Platform 22 Workshops 52 Galway, Ireland Ó Íochtar Mara – Saothar Chaitlín Maude 23 Pop-up Literature 54 00353 (0) 91 569777 No Childhood Back in Our Day 23 Exhibitions 55 Early Bird Tickets John Boyne & Kit de Waal 24 Library Events 56 Early bird tickets available until Tuesday 20 Launch: Poems for Patience 26 Plaque Unveilings 58 March. (Early bird price does not apply to Simon Armitage & Terrance Hayes). Songs from a room: Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola 27 and Cúirt Bursary 58 Pete Mullineaux, Mark Wagenaar & William Wall 28 Day by day 62 Daytime Readings Ticket Map 64 Bundle Attend 4 daytime readings (before 8.00pm) for the price of 3.

Cover design by Marielle MacLeman 4 5 Official Opening Anne Kennedy Venue Hotel Meyrick Writers’ Salon Date Sunday 23 April Time 7.00pm Price Free and Residency Come along to the official opening of Cúirt 2017. Be entertained Cúirt International Festival of Literature www.cuirt.ie with music from Galway Youth Jazz Orchestra and the musings of The Writers’ Salon is an afternoon of poetry readings and audience Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre some special guest speakers. participation. Each guest will read from their work, followed by a panel discussion about writing. The audience is invited to join the discussion with Date: Monday 24 April an opportunity for questions. The Salon is a relaxed environment where Refreshments are provided and a great night is guaranteed! Time: 2.00pm writers from all walks of life can discuss aspects of writing with a panel of published writers who will share their pearls of wisdom. Price: €5

The Anne Kennedy Residency was developed to support writers by creating Refreshments provided. a platform to mingle in a social arena, and promote the exchange of ideas, guidance and encouragement. Sarah Clancy has been acting as a mentor to emerging writer Daniel Mulcahy as part of the Anne Kennedy Residency.

The event is open to everyone, and will particularly benefit those pursuing a career in writing.

Jenna Clake is studying for a PhD in Antony Huen is a PhD student at Creative Writing at the University of the University of York, researching Birmingham; her research focuses contemporary poets’ appropriation on the feminine and feminist Absurd of artistic material. His recent in twenty-first century British and publications include a poem in Cha: American poetry. She is the Arts and An Asian Literary Journal, a book Poetry Editor of the Birmingham review in Eborakon, and a chapter Journal of Literature and Language. in the edited volume, Exploring Her debut collection is forthcoming Creative Writing (Cambridge from Eyewear in 2017. Scholars Publishing). He is one of Eyewear Publishing’s Best New Sarah Clancy is a page and British and Irish Poets 2017. performance poet from Galway. She has published three collections of Daniel Mulcahy is a third year poetry, the most recent The Truth student of Creative Writing at NUI and Other Stories from Salmon Galway. Recently he has had poems Poetry in 2014. Her work has been published in The Galway Review, published in the US, Canada, the UK with more work set to be published and in translation in Mexico, Poland, in the near future. Daniel earnestly Slovenia and Italy. She is slowly hopes to continue to develop as a working on a new collection. writer, performer and human being Join us for a night of quizzing and craic in the Galway Venue The Galway Arms for as long as he is able. Elaine Cosgrove’s work has been Date Thursday 06 April Arms with Quiz Masters Vinnie Browne and Gerry published in The Stinging Fly Paul Nash studied at Trinity College Time 8.00pm Magazine (Featured Poet, Winter , where he received a PhD Hanberry overseeing proceedings on the night. 2015), The Penny Dreadful, The in modern literature and film. Price €40 per table of four Bohemyth, and New Binary Press. After contract lecturing in TCD, Elaine was selected for the 2017 Maynooth University, and the (Includes a complimentary drink and finger food) It promises to be a night of fun and entertainment with Fifty Best New British & Irish Poets National College of Art and Design Anthology (Eyewear Publishing), he taught in London state schools. some friendly rivalry thrown in to keep us on our toes! and longlisted for the 2016 London He returned to Dublin during the Magazine Poetry Prize. Her debut Celtic Tiger to work in a software collection of poetry will be published company. He is also an active by Dedalus Press in 2017. songwriter and has written and self-published a novel Whispering Crates. 6 7 In Person: Seisiún na World Poets Cúirte

Launched at Cúirt, In Person: World Poets is an international collaboration Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre between Bloodaxe Books and award-winning film-maker Pamela Robertson- In Seán Tyrrell Pearce, who worked with Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley on this sequel to Date: Monday 24 April Person: 30 Poets (2008), the world’s first poetry DVD-anthology. Her style Time: 5.30pm of filming combines directness and simplicity, sensitivity and warmth – the The Cúirt session this year will celebrate musician Seán Tyrrell. Seán has been Venue: The Crane Bar perfect combination for the intimate readings by poets from around the Price: €5 recording music for over forty years. During the 1960s, he performed with world included in this highlights film. It’s as if the poets were sitting in a room

Cúirt International Festival of Literature Johnny Mulhearn, Davy Graham, Rambling Jack Elliot and Paul Simon. Date: Monday 24 April www.cuirt.ie with you, giving informal, one-to-one readings to you in person. In 1992 he produced a traditional operatic version of Cúirt An Mheán Oíche (The Midnight Court) by , which was regarded by critics as the Time: 8.00pm This hour-long film features a selection from the nine hours of footage on In hit of Galway Arts Festival. In 1994 his first solo project Cry of a Dreamer was Price: €10/€8 Person: World Poets. All of the poems are included in the book which comes released worldwide and voted Best Folk Album of the Year by Folk Roots and with three DVDs. The project covers poets from many parts of the world, Hotpress. He has performed at major festivals and concert halls and on TV including America, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Guyana, and radio in Ireland, England, Europe, Australia and the USA. India, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Romania and Sweden, as well as from Britain and Ireland. Seán will be joined by Ronan Browne, Johnny Mulherne, Liam Lewis, Steve Hanks and Fergus Feeley. Pamela Robertson-Pearce’s films include IMAGO: Meret Oppenheim (1996), winner of the Swiss Film Board’s Prize for Outstanding Quality and the Gold Apple Award at the National Educational Film and Video Festival in America. Bloodaxe editor and founder Neil Astley’s many books include the Staying Alive trilogy of anthologies. Fregoli presents Fruition: A New Book Launch: Plays Project

Song of Songs Last October Fregoli Theatre released an open call for short original plays, five pieces from four new writers were selected. These works were selected Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre for brilliantly conceived characters, imaginative use of language, and the Date: Monday 24 April potential to create a world that an audience can become immediately 2.0: New & Selected immersed in. We are very excited to debut the following five pieces for Time: 8.30pm performance. The performance of all five pieces is approximately 70 minutes, Price: €10 / €8 Poems by Kevin Higgins and suitable for those aged 14 years plus. Find me in Spring Wristbands The Streets are Ours Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems by Rory O Sullivan by Orla McGovern by Robert Higgins is published by Salmon and Venue: The House Hotel includes a substantial number of new poems as well as selections from his six Billy Duffy, a 10 year old aspiring Smuggling cans, messers and banter Two ageing boy racers gather in previous poetry collections. Date: Monday 24 April hunter with an overactive at the gate - all part of a normal day the car park of a local Tesco on the imagination, sees his father throw for Jimmy and Jono, two bouncers. evening their old friend is due to Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He teaches Time: 7.30pm the body of a rotten deer off a cliff. But for Jono, today is different. return from abroad. poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute, Price: Free Or so he was told it was a deer. Today is when there is no way to and is Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway Summer School. Kevin has published What repercussions can a child’s keep a lid on it. four collections of poetry with Salmon, The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), Frightening New misunderstanding bring? Furniture (2010), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), and his best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face (2005), which was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Tick Tock Collection by an Irish poet. His poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Afterimage by Orla McGovern Modern and features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade by Jonathon Ryan A mother and daughter with a –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, April 2014). A collection of A window, a sink, a bookshelf, three strained relationship. A realisation Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published by Salmon Poetry items taken for granted, three of time. A last chance to speak in in 2012 and 2016 - The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in items that dictate three characters. between the moments. early 2016. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most read Afterimage is a short exploration of living poet in Ireland.” the small victories, the big losses and the surreality in between. 8 9 This year Cúirt, in collaboration with the French Also on Tuesday Conference: Found Film: Un taxi mauve / Embassy and NUI, Galway, pays tribute to the memory of Michel Déon, renowned French 11.00am Pop-up with Miquel in Translation? France, The Purple Taxi Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Venue: An Taibhdhearc writer, and resident of Tynagh, Co. Galway from Bell, Book and Candle Ireland and the legacy of the late 1960s until his death on 28 December Date: Tuesday 25 April 3.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Michel Déon 2016. In recognition of his major contribution to Time: 4.00pm Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Venue: Moore Institute Seminar Room, The Dough Bros Price: Free French literature, and of his generosity to NUIG, Hardiman Research Building, NUI Galway

the Galway City Library and other local bodies, 4.00pm Plaque Date: Tuesday 25 April Director: Yves Boisset. Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Fred Unveiling: Grattan Road Astaire, Philippe Noiret, Peter Ustinov, David Kelly, Niall the events organised for Tuesday, 25 April are Time: 9.30am Buggy et al. Filmed in the west of Ireland in 1977, based dedicated to his memory. 4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Price: Free on the 1973 novel by Michel Déon. Cúirt International Festival of Literature Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: The film rapidly became a point of reference for the www.cuirt.ie To register email [email protected] Man of Aran The Quiet Michel Déon Sonny Molloy’s French vision of Ireland, like or Michel Déon was born in Paris in 1919. He began studying law there in 1937, but was Man. Against a backdrop of magnificent scenery and mobilised during WW2. In 1942, he remained in the free zone, returning to Paris in 1944, Speakers are: Sarah Berthaud (on theoretical aspects of local life, it recounts the drama which brings together an where he worked as a journalist and began his first novel. In the following decades he 7.00pm Placing The Word translation), Marie Blom (on translating humour in Roddy assortment of individuals, including the French narrator, continued to write, while frequently living abroad. From 1963 to 1968, he lived in Greece, Exhibition Opening: Black Doyle’s writing), Gavin Bowd (on translating Michel who for various reasons find themselves in a remote part but eventually settled in Tynagh, Co. Galway with his wife and children. A member of Gate Cultural Centre the Académie française since 1978, he is the author of more than 50 works, which have Houellebecq), and Clíona Ní Ríordáin (on translating of Ireland. received many prizes, among them the Prix Interallié for Les poneys sauvages (1970) and Michel Déon). the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française for Un taxi mauve (1973). Frédéric Vitoux He leaves an enduring literary legacy as one of the leading voices of the ‘lost generations’ Book Launch: of the 1930s and 1940s and as an independent observer of late twentieth-century society. Venue: An Taibhdhearc Michel Déon est né en 1919, à Paris. En 1937 il s’inscrit en droit à Paris, mais est mobilisé Horseman, Pass by! Date: Tuesday 25 April au début de la deuxième guerre mondiale. Après 1942 il reste en zone sud jusqu’en 1944, puis regagne Paris où il travaille comme journaliste et prépare son premier roman. À by Michel Déon, translated Time: 8.00pm partir de 1946 il séjourne souvent à l’étranger et publie régulièrement des romans. De 1962 à 1968 il habite en Grèce, mais finit par s’installer à Tynagh, Co. Galway avec sa by Clíona Ní Ríordáin Price: €10/€8 femme et leurs deux enfants. Membre de l’Académie française depuis 1978, il est l’auteur de plus de 50 ouvrages et a reçu de nombreux prix, parmi lesquels le Prix Interallié pour Venue: Aula Maxima, NUI Galway The reading will be in French, with translation of extracts Les poneys sauvages (1970) et le Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française pour Un available, and discussion in French and English. taxi mauve (1973). Date: Tuesday 25 April Time: 2.00pm French writer, novelist and essayist, Frédéric Vitoux was born in Il nous laisse un héritage littéraire de grande valeur, et est maintenant considéré comme Paris in 1944. In addition to his novels and biographical writing, he l’une des voix les plus importantes des ‘générations perdues’ des années 1930 et 40. Price: Free was for many years a film critic and literary columnist. In 2001, he was elected to the Académie française. His work has been widely translated, and has won many awards, including the Goncourt These reflective essays about Déon’s life and experiences Prize for Biography for his Vie de Céline (1988), and the Grand Prix in the west of Ireland describe the colourful and varied du Roman de l’Académie française for La Comédie de Terracina personalities that he came across since he and his family (1994). Recent publications include Jours inquiets dans l’île Saint- settled there in the mid 1970s. From his friendship with Louis (2012), Les Désengagés (2015), set in Paris in May ’68, and John McGahern and Ulick O’Connor to Tim, the sturdy Au Rendez-vous des Mariniers (Fayard, 2016). old postman who prefers his wind-blown country round to retirement in sunny California, Horseman, Pass By! is Frédéric Vitoux. Écrivain français, romancier et essayiste, né le 19 août 1944. Longtemps critique cinématographique et alive with fascinating characters and encounters. chroniqueur littéraire à l’hebdomadaire Le Nouvel Observateur. Élu The book launch will be accompanied by a display of à l’Académie française en 2001. Ses ouvrages ont été traduits en Michel Déon’s books. une dizaine de langues, et ont été couronnés de nombreux prix, y compris le prix Goncourt de la Biographie pour La Vie de Céline “Horseman, pass by! is filled with nostalgia, humour, colour, (1988) et le Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française pour La and ghosts. It is a declaration of love for Ireland”. Comédie de Terracina (1994). Parmi ses derniers ouvrages parus : Le Magazine Littéraire Jours inquiets dans l’île Saint-Louis (2012), Les Désengagés (2015) et Au Rendez-vous des Mariniers (Fayard, 2016).

“Our lives would be all the richer if we read a Michel Déon novel”. William Boyd “Déon is an outrageous storyteller”. Times Literary Supplement

10 11 Book Launch: The Sacrificial Rise by Elaine Feeney Wind by Lorna Shaughnessy “An absolutely extraordinary poet… Directed by Max Hafler in the world of Kate Tempest meets Warsan Shire and we’ll throw in Tom “Blame is a coin passed down from hand to hand: it Venue: The Town Hall Studio McIntyre for the rural influences. starts off hidden in the fists of powerful men”

Cúirt International Festival of Literature Date: Tuesday 25 – Fri 28 April www.cuirt.ie Brilliant.” RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena This spoken word poetry performance event uses movement, rhythm, Time: 8.00pm Elaine Feeney is an award-winning poet. She was born in Galway masks, words and music. It explores the blame game, the engine and in 1979. She has published three collections of poetry, Indiscipline machinery of war, and examines our seeming helplessness in the wake of Price: €10/€8 (Maverick Press, 2007), Where’s Katie? (Salmon Poetry, 2010) and The Radio was Gospel (Salmon Poetry, 2013). Most recently, her work catastrophe, through the characters surrounding the start of the Trojan War. The audience becomes judge and jury not just of the characters Lorna Shaughnessy was born in Belfast has appeared in Stonecutter Journal (US), The Wide Shore (US), The and lives in Co. Galway. She has published but of themselves too. This project emerged from a section in Lorna Stinging Fly (IRE), The Manchester Review (UK), Solas Nua (US), New three poetry collections, Torching the Anchored, Writing (Canada), Pilgrimage Magazine (US) and Oxford Poetry Shaughnessy’s most recent work, published by Salmon. Brown River, Witness Trees and Anchored (UK). Elaine was recently commissioned by Liz Roche Company (Salmon Poetry), and a chapbook, Song to write the poetic narrative to Wrongheaded, a feature stage The performers are Catherine Denning, Michael Irwin and Orla Tubridy. of the Forgotten Shulamite (Lapwing). Her production accompanied by a film directed by Mary Wycherley. It work was selected for the Forward Book of premiered at the 2016 Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival. The piece is Venue: Bite Club Poetry, 2009. included in her new collection, Rise (Salmon Poetry, 2017). A post-performance discussion will take place on Thursday, 27 April. Date: Tuesday 25 April Max Hafler is a theatre tutor, director and Time: 6.00pm writer who now specialises primarily in Michael Chekhov Technique and Voice. His Price: Free book, Teaching Voice, was published by Nick Hern Books in 2016. He recently set up Chekhov Training and Performance Ireland to make the West of Ireland a hub for the Calasanctius acting technique. College Book Launch Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway present Consensual by Evan Placey At Calasanctius College the students have come Venue: Calasanctius College, Oranmore together to launch their annual book, a collection of their skills, talents, and creative ability. Here you will find fact Date: Tuesday 25 April and fiction, art and photography, poetry and opinion. Time: 7.00pm Our book explores the experiences of adolescents as they move towards adulthood. These young artists bring Price: Free An explosive play that explores what happens when buried secrets catch up Venue Nun’s Island Theatre a clarity and freshness to familiar artistic forms that must with you. Diane, Head of Year 11, hasn’t seen Freddie since that night six be seen to be believed. years earlier when he was fifteen. She thinks he took advantage of her. He Date Tuesday 25 - Sat 29 April thinks she groomed him for months. Neither is sure. But when it comes to Time 8.00pm Music, art and readings will complement each other sex and consent, are there really any blurred lines? in a fantastic evening of creativity, refreshments and Price €14/€12 entertainment. Directed by Andrew Flynn.

12 13 Also on Wednesday Cúirt/ ROPES 11.00am Pop-up with Miquel Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Over the Edge Launch 11.00am Reading & Discussion with Michael Winter: Ballybane Library ROPES is a Literary and Arts Journal produced solely by the students of the Venue: Town Hall Theatre Bar Masters in Literature and Publishing at NUI Galway. Launching at Cúirt, all New Writing proceeds will be in aid of Pieta House, a nationwide charity that focuses on Date: Wednesday, 26 April 12.00pm Kitchen Reading with helping those dealing with issues such as suicide and self-harm. Alan McMonagle & Kerrie Time: 5.00pm O’Brien: Tuam Showcase The theme of this year’s publication is ‘Silence’ and features work from Price: Free writers such as Brian Leyden and Kevin Higgins. ROPES 2017 also contains an 12.00pm Kitchen Reading with Cúirt International Festival of Literature array of exciting art, photography, prose, poetry and drama from new and up www.cuirt.ie Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan & Pete and coming artists and writers. Mullineaux: Ballinasloe Highlighting emerging talent in poetry and fiction, The New Writing Venue: Town Hall Theatre 1.00pm Little John Nee Plaque Showcase features readers and Date: Wednesday 26 April Unveiling: Threadneedle Road winners from the popular Over the Edge Literary Series in Galway and Time: 3.00pm 3.00pm Pop-up with Miquel the 2017 Cúirt New Writing Prize. Price: Free Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: This event is a firm favourite amongst Sheridans Cheesemongers Cúirt audiences, and one not to be missed. Winners of the 2017 Cúirt New Writing Prize (to be announced on www.cuirt.ie) will join the showcase line-up to read their winning entries. 4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Anam Theatre presents Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Rena Garrett is a graduate of the MA Dock 1 Seafood Bar & Restaurant in Writing from NUI Galway. She has participated in poetry workshops at Galway 8.00pm The Sacrificial Wind: Arts Centre. Her poetry has been published in The Moth Magazine, and Spontaneity. PERSONA Town Hall Theatre Studio org and was shortlisted for the Galway Rape Crisis Centre Short Story Competition 8.00pm Consensual: 2016. Rena was a Featured Reader at the Nun’s Island Theatre August 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Joyce’s Eileen P Keane is from North Connemara, Co. Galway. She has completed the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. Eileen has written Love Letters and performed for theatre and stage and her CD Spaces was released in 2014. She writes poetry, memoir and non-fiction. Her poems to Nora appear in the latest edition of The Galway Review and her Flash Fiction was shortlisted Venue Tigh Nora, Cross St. To be or not to be, that is the question… for Allingham Festival 2015. Eileen was a Venue Nun’s Island Theatre Date Wed 26 to Friday 28 April Featured Reader at the March 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading. When the outside world and her roles within it become too much to bear, Date Wed 26 to Friday 28 April Time 3.00pm actress Elizabeth Harker ceases to speak and move. Declared physically and Time 6.00pm Price Free mentally sound, she is sent to her doctor’s seaside cottage where she is looked after by Alma. A close and complex relationship develops between Price €10/€8 Approximately 20 minutes duration Una Mannion teaches Performing Arts the two women which crosses the bounds of sanity, identity and reality. in IT Sligo. In March 2016, her poetry A theatrical reading of ’s was published in the New Irish Writing This work-in-progress adaption from Anam Theatre explores transposing the page in and her fiction love letters to Nora Barnacle. famously disintegrative form of Ingmar Bergman’s radical, minimalist classic was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize. She won the Yeats’ Society’s Seamus from the cinema to theatre and pursues its urgent question of whether it is When the young Joyce met Nora Heaney Prize and came second place possible to cease to be without ceasing to live. in 1904 it marked the beginning of in Dromineer Flash Fiction 2015. She has a long relationship that eventually been shortlisted in the Listowel, Bridport, Adapted by Sarah O’Toole from Ingmar Bergman’s 1965 screenplay led to marriage and continued Fish Memoir and other competitions. She Design by Elaine Mears until Joyce’s death. Joyce’s love recently completed an MA in Writing at NUI letters give an insight into this Galway. She lives in Sligo with her husband intense, intimate and often inspiring and three children. Una was a Featured Reader at the May 2016 Over The Edge: relationship. Open Reading. 14 15 David Butler, Martina Evans, Yrsa Daley-Ward Vona Groarke & & Kerrie O’Brien Mary O’Malley Venue: Town Hall Theatre Venue Town Hall Theatre Date: Wednesday 26 April Date Wednesday 26 April

Cúirt International Festival of Literature Time: 8.30pm www.cuirt.ie Time 6.30pm Price: €16/€13 Price €10/8

City of David Butler is a novelist, poet and playwright. His most recent novel Martina Evans was born in County and has lived in London for 28 years. Dis (New Island) was shortlisted for the 2015 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. She is a poet and novelist, the author of eleven books of prose and poetry. In 2016 David received a Per Cent Literary Arts Commission to compose Her awards include the Premio Ciampi International Prize for Poetry. Burnfort a poetry sequence for Blackrock Library. Literary prizes include the Fish Las Vegas was short-listed for the Irish Times 2015. The Short Story contest, Poetry Ireland’s Ted McNulty prize, and the Brendan Windows of Graceland: New and Selected Poems was published by Carcanet All the Barbaric Glass Kennelly award for poetry. , David’s second poetry in July 2016. collection, was published by Doire press in March. All the Barbaric Glass consists of poems written over a five-year period which interrogate nature “I work mainly with dramatic monologues —specifically the sea — in order to broach such perennial human concerns as as I am interested in the human voice as an ageing, loss and love, as well as the prevalence of social media with its (mis) representations of the contemporary world. instrument. Working with memory, history and dreams, I am interested in creating cinematic Kerrie O’ Brien is a writer from Dublin. She has won multiple awards for her poetry and prose and featured in Miscellany, RTÉ Arena, The Stinging Fly, effects.” Poetry Ireland Introductions Series, Cyphers, The Irish Times and Hennessy New Irish Writing among others. She was the Editor of Looking At The Stars, Vona Groarke has published ten titles with Gallery Press, including seven an anthology of Irish writing which raised over €21,000 for the Dublin Simon poetry collections, the latest being Selected Poems (2016). Her most recent Community. She has given talks on art and poetry in the National Gallery publication is a book-length essay on art frames, Four Sides Full, which of Ireland and has spoken about literary activism in universities and literary was the Book on One on RTÉ Radio 1 in January 2017. Her poems have festivals. Illuminate is her debut collection of poetry and was made possible recently appeared in The New Yorker, Threepenny Review, The Guardian and by a literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. It was chosen as a Poetry Review. A former editor of , current selector New Statesman Book of the Year by Sebastian Barry and an Irish Times Book for the UK’s Poetry Book Society and a member of Aosdána, she of the Year by Joseph O’ Connor. teaches poetry in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester. “My poems are raw and powerful reflections on Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara. She served on the council of Poetry lineage, faith and love which explore the concept Ireland and was on the Committee of Cúirt International Poetry Festival of oneness and the transcendent nature of art and for eight years. She has published seven books of poetry, the most recent Valparaiso arising out of her residency on the national marine research creativity.” ship. Playing the Octopus is her latest book of poems. She is working on a memoir of childhood, as well as essays on place. She is a member of Yrsa Daley-Ward is an actor, writer and poet of mixed West Indian and West Aosdána and has won a number of awards for her poetry. She writes for African heritage, born and raised in Lancashire and now living in London. RTE Radio and broadcasts her work regularly. She was the 2016 Arts Council Drawing heavily on her own experiences, Yrsa interweaves each discipline to Writer-in- Residence at University of Limerick. fuse poetry with theatre, music and storytelling and has been writing for as long as she can remember. Her debut collection of poetry and prose, bone, is available on Amazon. Yrsa has performed her work at several theatre and performance spaces in London including the Soho and Lyric theatre, Rich Mix and the Albany. Her poetry has also been exhibited at the Tate Modern. She has worked in South Africa in conjunction with The British Council in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

16 “I tell stories. Some tall, some dark.” 17 Also on Thursday Merlin Coverley 10.00am Poetry workshop with Songs from a Martina Evans: Hotel Meyrick 11.00am Pop-up with Miquel Room: Sive & Michael Winter Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop Sive is a songwriter and multi- Merlin Coverley is the author of six books: London instrumentalist with a voice that Venue: The King’s Head Writing, Psychogeography, Occult London, 12.30pm Lindsay J. Sedgwick “sweeps along displaying folk and Date: Thursday 27 April Utopia, The Art of Wandering, and South. He lives in on Writing for TV & Film: GMIT jazz influences with the confidence London. Moving between geography and mythology, CCAM of one who knows.” Her unique Time: 1.00pm literature and history, South is the first book to look sound weaves together her love for at all things Southern in one volume. It examines the Price: €10/€8 1.30pm Screenwriting workshop the craft of song writing with her South as a symbol of freedom and escape, the South Cúirt International Festival of Literature www.cuirt.ie with Lyndsay Sedgwick: GMIT enthusiasm for experimentation and as the location of Northern visions of Utopia, and the CCAM intricate arrangements. South as the imagined site of decadence, poverty and backwardness. From Tahiti to the streets of Peckham, 2.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Sive released her debut album to critical acclaim in 2012 and since then from Naples to New Orleans, Merlin Coverley’s brilliant Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: has toured extensively across Ireland, The UK, Europe and New Zealand, and wide-ranging study throws light on how and why the Galway University Hospital sharing stages with the likes of Kila, Mick Flannery, John Spillane and idea of the South, in all its forms, has come to exert such Gemma Hayes. Her second album The Roaring Girl will be released in a powerful hold on our imaginations. 3.00pm Joyce’s letters to Nora: April. Tigh Nora “My work explores the relationship “Keeps the toes tapping and both ears alert. between places, both real and Venue: Town Hall Theatre 4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel Brilliant stuff. Sive is a real find.” Date: Thursday 27 April Barceló & Sarah Maria Griffin: imagined, and those who write about Jackie Hayden, Tigh Neachtain them, especially in respect to my own Time 1.00 pm Price €10/€8 6.00pm Persona: city, London. I am also interested in Nun’s Island Theatre the relationship between walking and

6.00pm Sports Writing workshop writing, and in the literary tradition Michael Winter has published two collections of stories, with Gerard Siggins: Hotel which this has inspired.” five novels, and one work of non-fiction. He has won Meyrick the CBC short story contest and is the only writer ever to win the Notable Author award, conferred by the 8.00pm The Sacrificial Wind: Writers Trust. His novel Minister Without Portfolio was a Town Hall Theatre Studio Canada Reads finalist and he’s been twice nominated for the Giller Prize. His most recent book, Into the Blizzard, 8.00pm Consensual: sets out to retrace the steps of the Newfoundland Nun’s Island Theatre Regiment during the First World War. He divides his time between Toronto and Newfoundland. 10.00pm Festival Club: Hotel Meyrick “In June a few years ago I set out to visit some of the World War One battlefields of Europe – the slope and valley and river and plain that the Newfoundland Regiment trained on, and fought over and through and under.”

Part unconventional history, part memoir-travelogue, part philosophical inquiry, Michael Winter uniquely captures the extraordinary lives and landscapes, both in Europe and at home, scarred by a war that is just now disappearing from living memory. In subtle and surprising ways, he also tells the hidden story of the very act of remembering – of how the past bleeds into the present and the present corrals and shapes the past.

18 19 Oisín Fagan & Jami Attenberg, Sinéad Ross Raisin Gleeson & Cheryl Tan

The Oisín Fagan is a writer and activist. He has previously been published in Venue: Galway Arts Centre Jami Attenberg is The New York Times best-selling author of five novels, Venue: Town Hall Theatre Stinging Fly, New Planet Cabaret and Young Irelanders and his work has including The Middlesteins and Saint Mazie. She has contributed essays featured at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. In 2016, he won the inaugural Date: Thursday 27 April about sex, urban life, and food to The New York Times Magazine, The Date: Thursday 27 April Penny Dreadful Novella Prize for The Hierophants. Hostages, published by Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Lenny Letter. She lives in Brooklyn, Time: 5.00pm Time: 6.30pm New Island, is his first collection. He is a recipient of the Literature Bursary New York. Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. Price: €10/€8 Price: €10/€8 Powerfully intelligent and wickedly funny, All Grown Up delves into the Cúirt International Festival of Literature www.cuirt.ie “The stories in Hostages are blends of histories, psyche of a flawed but mesmerising character. Readers will recognise themselves in Jami Attenberg’s truthful account of what it means to be a mythologies, revolutions, science fictions and 21st century woman, though they might not always want to admit it. mysteries, all concerned with the possibility of “My books explore the Sinéad Gleeson’s essays have appeared in Granta, Banshee, Winter Papers, intimate folkways and communities to bring about change, and the ability gorse and Autumn. Her short story ‘Counting Bridges’ was longlisted at of normal people to care for others under extreme the 2016 Irish Book Awards. In 2015, she edited The Long Gaze Back: an rhythms of Singapore, Anthology of Irish Women Writers, which won Best Irish Published Book at where I grew up, with a circumstances.” the 2015 Irish Book Awards, and in 2016, The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland, which won in the same category. focus on the collision of Ross Raisin was born in 1979 in West Yorkshire. His first novel, God’s Own She is currently working on a collection of non-fiction and also a novel. She old traditions and heady Country was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for nine literary awards, presents The Book Show on RTE Radio 1. including the Guardian First Book Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. modern materialism, In 2009 Ross Raisin was named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based journalist and author of the new post-colonial gender In 2013 he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British writers. He novel Sarong Party Girls, which was named one of Amazon’s 10 “Best Books lives in London. A Natural delves into the heart of a professional football of the Month” for July 2016. A native of Singapore, she also wrote A Tiger and racial politics, as well club: the pressure, the loneliness, the threat of scandal, the fragility of the In The Kitchen: A Memoir of Food & Family, and was editor of the fiction as the traditional role body and the struggle, on and off the pitch, with conforming to the person anthology Singapore Noir. She was a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, that everybody else expects you to be. In Style magazine and Baltimore Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The of women -- specifically New York Times and The Paris Review. Asian women -- in

society and how that is changing.” Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

20 21 Spoken Word Ó Íochtar Mara - Platform Saothar Chaitlín Maude Venue Ionad Cultúrtha an

This exciting, high-energy event will showcase both poetry and short Venue The King’s Head Phiarsaigh, Rosmuc, Co. na Gaillimhe fiction. Performers will have up to three minutes to present their piece to a panel of three judges with MC Pete Mullineaux overseeing Date Thursday 27 April Date Thursday 27 April proceedings. The top three participants will go on to perform at the Time 6.30pm Time 7.00pm Cúirt Showcase at in September. Price €6 Price €10/€8 Cúirt International Festival of Literature Guest Performer to be announced. www.cuirt.ie Ba dhuine de phríomhfhilí a linne í Open submissions are invited for the Spoken Word Platform and entry is Caitlín Maude (1941 -1982), chomh open to all. Your poem or fiction piece should take up to three minutes maith le bheith ina hamhránaí sean- to perform. nóis, drámadóir, aisteoir, scríbhneoir, oideachasóir agus gníomhaí polaitiúil. Please submit to: Déanann an taibheoir Caitríona Ní Spoken Word Platform, Chonaola míreanna as prós, filíocht Galway Arts Centre, agus amhráin Chaitlín a chur i láthair 47 Dominick Street, ag 7pm Déardaoin 27 Aibreán 2017 Galway in Ionad Cultúrtha an Phiarsaigh, Ros or email [email protected] by Thursday, 13 April. Muc.

*Is i nGaeilge ar fad a bheidh an taispeántas seo. (This event is in the .) No Childhood Back in our

Day Venue: Róisín Dubh (upstairs) Date: Thursday 27 April Time: 10.00pm Price: €10/€8

An evening of song, poetry, social history and tall tales with Seamus Ruttledge, Martina Evans, Sarah- Anne Buckley, Conor Montague and special guests.

Tickets are available from the Town Hall Theatre or www.roisindubh.net

22 23 John Boyne & Kit de Waal “Long before we discovered that he had fathered A brother chosen. A brother left behind. And a two children by two different women, one Venue: Town Hall Theatre family where you’d least expect to find one. in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Date: Thursday 27 April Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have Time 8.30pm Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly Price €16/€13 like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and

Cúirt International Festival of Literature Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West www.cuirt.ie wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to give Jake to strangers. Since Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore”. Jake is white and Leon is not.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell Evoking a Britain of the early eighties, My Name is Leon is a heart-breaking him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? story of love, identity and learning to overcome unbearable loss. Of the At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, and struggling with his sexuality at fierce bond between siblings. And how - just when we least expect it - we a time where to be gay was to be a pariah, he will spend a lifetime coming to manage to find our way home. know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more. Kit de Waal writes about forgotten and overlooked places, where the best stories are found. Her debut novel My Name is Leon, a heart-breaking John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of ten novels for story of love and identity, is a Times and international bestseller, and was adults, five for young readers and a collection of short stories. Perhaps shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. Her prize-winning flash fiction best known for his 2006 multi-award-winning book The Boy in the Striped and short stories appear in various anthologies. In 2016 she founded the Kit Pyjamas, John’s other novels, notably The Absolutist and A History of de Waal Scholarship at Birkbeck University. Loneliness, have been widely praised and are international bestsellers. In 2015, John chaired the panel for the Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary award. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is his most ambitious novel yet.

24 25 Also on Friday Launch Poems Songs from a 10.00am Fiction workshop with Jami Attenberg: Hotel Meyrick 12.00am Pop-up with Miquel for Patience Room: Barceló & Stephen Burt: McDonagh’s Fish & Chip shop Venue: University Hospital, Galway Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola

12.00pm Kitchen Reading with Date: Friday 28 April Lasairfhíona (pronounced Lah-sah-reena) is a singer/songwriter Venue: The King’s Head Damon Galgut, Theresa Muñoz & from Inis Oírr, the Aran Islands in the West of Ireland. Her debut Jacob Polley: Galway City Time: 11.00am album An Raicín Álainn (pronounced An Rackeen Ah-lyn) generated a Date: Friday 28 April Price: Free very favourable response in Ireland and abroad. It was selected by Hot 1.00pm Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, writing Time: 1.00pm

Cúirt International Festival of Literature Press music magazine as one of the best folk albums of 2002. Her second www.cuirt.ie on Food: GMIT Library Poems for Patience is a long running programme established by Galway solo album released in 2005 appropriately called Flame of Wine, a literal Price: €10/€8 University Hospitals Arts Trust in which poems are displayed on the Arts translation of her name, was also very well received. Tracks from the 2.00pm Pop-up with Miquel corridor of the hospital and in waiting areas throughout the hospital and album were used on the award-winning BBC programme Coast. Her new Barceló & Mary O’Malley: associated hospital units. album One Penny Portion demonstrates Lasairfhíona’s rare ability to sing Galway City Library songs from an ancient Gaelic tradition while being equally at home with In the past, the series has featured poems by leading Irish and contemporary songs. 3.00pm Joyce’s letters to Nora: international poets such as , Vona Groarke, Jane Tigh Nora Hirschfield and Colette Bryce.

Since 2013 Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust runs an annual poetry ‘’One Penny Portion is a vibrant and subtle return of 4.00pm Pop-up with Miquel competition. The 2017 winner will be introduced at the launch and will Barceló & Mary O’Malley: a major song stylist.’’ read their winning poem. The Quay’s Pub fRoots Music Magazine

6.00pm Persona: ‘It is great to be able to stop for a minute and ‘’A pure breath of everything that is beautiful about Nun’s Island Theatre forget everything and share in a silent way with the Ireland.” BBC Folk & Acoustic Reviews 8.00pm The Sacrificial Wind: world’

Town Hall Theatre Studio ‘Wonderful collection to ease the mind of even 8.00pm Consensual: Nun’s Island Theatre the most impatient patient!’’

This year’s selection has been chosen by Yrsa Daly-Ward. 10.00pm Festival Club: Hotel Meyrick Yrsa Daley-Ward is a poet, actor and writer. Drawing heavily on her own experiences, Yrsa interweaves each discipline to fuse poetry with theatre, music and storytelling and has been writing for as long as she can remember. Her debut collection of poetry and prose, bone, is available on Amazon.

26 27 Venue: Town Hall Theatre Pete Date: Friday 28 April Début Time: 1.00pm Mullineaux, Price: €10/€8 Panel Mark Wagenaar Venue Town Hall Theatre Date Friday 28 April Time 3.00pm & William Wall Price €10/€8 Cúirt International Festival of Literature www.cuirt.ie Originally from Bristol UK, Pete Mullineaux now lives in Galway and works in development education. His first published poem, aged 13, Paula Cocozza is a staff feature Roisín O’Donnell was born in was recorded on an album along with music by Ewan MacColl and writer at The Guardian and has Sheffield with family roots in Peggy Seeger. He has been featured on RTE’s Arena and published covered everything from soccer Derry. Her stories have been widely in Ireland, UK, USA as well as Spain, France, Japan & India. His to fashion to fourth-wave anthologised in The Long Gaze four collections are: Zen Traffic Lights (Lapwing 2005) A Father’s Day (Salmon feminism. Her writing, which Back, Fugue, Young Irelanders, Poetry 2008) Session (Salmon 2011) and most recently, How to Bake a has also appeared in Vogue, Unthology and The Glass Shore. Planet (Salmon 2016). The Telegraph, the Independent, She has been shortlisted for and the TLS, received the several international prizes, “Pete Mullineaux’s poetry merges the personal and the global, 2013 David Higham Award. such as the Cúirt New Writing while music and visual art are also recurring themes. Wry and philosophical, Paula lives in London with her Prize, the Pushcart Prize, his work has been described by various reviewers as ‘tender & lyrical’, husband, two children, and a garden full of foxes. How the Forward Prize, and the ‘gorgeous and resonant’, ‘grimly funny’ and comparisons made with Brian to Be Human is her first novel. Brighton Prize. Wild Quiet is Patten, Roger McGough and John Cooper-Clarke.” her first collection. Lisa Harding completed an Mark Wagenaar is the winner of the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2016 MPhil in Creative Writing at Amanda Reynolds teaches winner of Red Hen Press’ Benjamin Saltman Prize, for his forthcoming book Trinity College. Her stories Creative Writing in Cheltenham, Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining. His first two books, The Body Distances have been published in The where she lives with her family. (A Hundred Blackbirds Rising), and Voodoo Inverso, won UMass Press’ Dublin Review and The Bath Close To Me is her debut novel. Juniper Prize & U of Wisconsin Press’ Pollak Prize, respectively. His poems Short Story Anthology. She have appeared in or are forthcoming from The New Yorker, 32 Poems, Field, has just been awarded a “Close To Me is a gripping Southern Review, Image, & many others. He holds a PhD in English Literature DLR Professional Development psychological thriller about from the University of North Texas & an MFA from the University of Virginia, Arts grant for her prose writing. secrets and lies, an incredibly and this year he is serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Valparaiso Harvesting is her first novel and accomplished debut novel with University. was inspired by her involvement with a campaign against a quality of prose that will keep sex trafficking run by the Children’s Rights Alliance. the reader gripped from the “Mark Wagenaar’s poems are brimful of the world, generous, fluid, packed first page.” with an avid music, with praise and astonishment. In poem after poem, Alan McMonagle has written for radio, published two Wagenaar renders a sense of ‘a still life with everything in the world,’ not in an collections of short stories, and contributed to many Rhea Boyden (Chair) has attempt to freeze-frame the moment but in order to register everything in the journals in Ireland and North America. Ithaca is his first been published in the Irish moment, in all its registers, as the moment passes.” novel. Times Magazine and had her Documenta Art Show review William Wall is the author of four novels, including This is the Country, “Compelling from start to finish. Read it.” published in Roll Magazine, longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize; three collections of poetry; and Patrick McCabe New York. She is currently two volumes of short stories, including his latest, Hearing Voices/Seeing collaborating with PHEVER. Things (Doire Press). His work has won and been shortlisted for many prizes ‘‘Right from its remarkable opening sentence, this ie TV-Radio in Dublin on including The Virginia Faulkner Award, The Award, the extraordinary debut had me hooked. A fierce, funny, on- various projects including the National Book Award and the Hennessy Award. His work has been translated its-own-terms, beautiful, heartbreaker of a novel.” upcoming Irish Electronic Music into many languages including Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Latvian. He Joseph O’Connor Awards 2017. is the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the only European recipient of the award.

“The stories in Hearing Voices/Seeing Things are inspired by overheard conversations, chance phrases, isolated encounters and each story is a brief, intense, confessional moment in a character’s life. These are stories of ordinary people coping with an extraordinary world, a little lost and uncertain of their future.”

28 29 Conor O’Callaghan Damon Galgut & A.L. Kennedy & Eimear McBride

Conor O’Callaghan is from Newry A.L. Kennedy is the author of 18 Damon Galgut was born in 1963 in Eimear McBride grew up in the Venue: Town Hall Theatre Venue: Town Hall Theatre in County Down, and now lives in books: 6 literary novels, 1 science Pretoria, South Africa, and published west of Ireland and studied acting Manchester. He has published four fiction novel, one storybook for Date: Friday 28 April his first novel when he was 17 years at Drama Centre London. Her debut Date Friday 28 April acclaimed poetry collections: The children, 7 short story collections old. In total he has published 8 novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing Time: 6.30pm History of Rain (1993); Seatown and 3 works of non-fiction. She books, which have won and been took nine years to publish and Time 8.30pm (1999); Fiction (2005); and The Sun was included in the Granta Best Price: €10/€8 shortlisted for numerous awards, subsequently received the Bailey’s Price €16/€13 King (2013). He also wrote the non- of Young British Novelists list on including two shortlistings for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Kerry Cúirt International Festival of Literature Red Mist: Roy Keane www.cuirt.ie fiction book two occasions and has won various Man Booker Prize. He currently lives Group Irish Novel of the Year, the The writers and the Football Civil War (2004). awards in various countries including in Cape Town. Goldsmiths Prize, Desmond Elliot will be He lectures at Sheffield Hallam the 2007 Costa Award and the 2016 Prize and the Geoffrey Faber interviewed by “Damon Galgut’s work covers a variety University in the UK and at Wake Heinrich Heine Preis. Her prose is Memorial Prize. Her short fiction JP O’ Malley, of themes and subjects, ranging from Dubliners 100 The Forest University in North Carolina. published in a number of languages. has appeared in , a freelance Nothing on Earth the personal to the political. He is Long Gaze Back is his first novel. She is also a dramatist for stage, and on Radio 4. She journalist, fascinated by isolated individuals at the Guardian TV, film and radio. She is an essayist occasionally reviews for , cultural critic, odds with history and themselves, TLS New Statesman New York It was a time when nobody called. and commentator in various UK and , and and events often trapped in moral quandaries to Times Book Review Early evening, the hottest August European publications and regularly . curator, which there is no clear solution. ” in living memory. A frightened girl reads her work on BBC radio. She presently “My writing is about finding ways to bangs on a door. A man answers. occasionally writes and performs one based in Budapest. He writes on make language best express the From the moment he invites her person shows and has worked as a literature, culture, international life of the body and the life of the in, his world will never be the same stand up comedian. politics, history, economics, and mind simultaneously. I’m particularly again. Where is her family now? Is society. His work has appeared in a “I was born in Dundee in the NE interested in sex, sexuality, women’s she telling the truth? Can the man be wide range of publications, including: trusted? Beautiful and disturbing, her of Scotland. My work is both dark struggle for self-determination and The Irish Times, The Sunday story – retold in his words – reaches and funny - something that I think modernism’s potential for pushing Independent, The Washington Post, towards those frayed edges of both Scots and Irish people can the conversation about these The Observer, The Irish Examiner, understand. Life is both dark and subjects forward.” reality where each of us, if only once, The Toronto Star, New African, and glimpses something nobody will ever funny. I think art and literature can The Times of Israel. explain. create places where humanity is able to remember itself and the qualities which keep it humane.”

Digital Literature & Art: Interface as Creative Device

This panel discussion brings together different perspectives on digital Venue Galway Arts Centre creative practice, including literary authorship, art, publishing and criticism. It focuses on how new media platforms and interfaces offer new possibilities Date Friday 28 April in the production and reception of literature and art in the 21st century. The session features digital poet Jason Nelson and digital artist Alinta Krauth as Time 5.00pm well as practitioners and scholars from Ireland. Price Free

The event is supported by the Fulbright Commission of Ireland, the Irish Research Council, the European Commission via Marie Curie Actions, and the Moore Institute, NUI Galway.

Digital dci Cultures Initiative

30 31 Also on Saturday Claire-Louise 8.00pm Consensual: Nun’s Island Theatre

10.00pm Festival Club: Bennett & Hotel Meyrick Mia Gallagher Cúirt International Festival of Literature www.cuirt.ie Claire-Louise Bennett writes fiction and essays. Her work has been published Venue: Town Hall Theatre in The Stinging Fly, gorse, The White Review, Harper’s, The New York Times, Date: Saturday 29 April and The Millions, among others. Her first book Pond was published in Ireland in 2015 by the Stinging Fly Press. It was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Time: 12.00pm Prize 2016. Price: €10/€8 “A sharp, funny, and eccentric debut … Pond makes the case for Bennett as an innovative writer of real talent. … [It] reminds us that small things have great depths.” Performance Poetry: Venue Róisín Dubh (upstairs) New York Times Book Review Date Friday 28 April Mia Gallagher was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her short fiction Time 10.00pm has been published in Ireland, the UK, the US and Italy. She won the Irish Elaine Feeney Tatler Literature Award (2007) for her acclaimed debut novel HellFire, which Price €12.50/€10 had its genesis in her time life modelling in Portlaoise Prison. She was also shortlisted for the Hennessy (1991), Fish (2004) and Trevor/Bowen (2011) awards. In addition to writing fiction, Mia is a professional theatre performer & Josh Idehen and playwright and her work has toured widely in Ireland, the UK and Europe.

Elaine Feeney’s work has been widely published, translated and anthologised, including recent Summer/ Autumn 2016 publications in Stonecutter Journal (US), The Wide Shore, A Journal of Global Women’s Writing (US), The Stinging Fly (IRE), The Manchester Review (UK), Solas Nua (US), New Writing (Canada) Pilgrimmage (US), and The Oxford Poetry Review (UK). Feeney has published three collections of poetry, Indiscipline (2007, Maverick Press), Where’s Katie? (2010, Salmon) and The Radio was Gospel (2014, Salmon). Her next collection, Rise is forthcoming and she is working on her first novel and a pilot comedy series that was highly commended by BAFTA. She has performed her work all over the world.

Joshua Idehen is a poet, workshop facilitator, musician and founder of renowned poetry/music magazine Poejazzi, poetry group A Poem Between People and leader of ‘fro-funk band Benin City. His poetry has been published in anthologies alongside luminaries such as Linton Kwesi Johnson. He has performed with Bipolar Sunshine, Dan le Sac, Laura Marling, and Scroobius Pip. He founded and runs the poetry/music events and magazine company, Poejazzi, which released its first free app in 2014 called ‘Poejazzi,’ to celebrate UK spoken word. Poejazzi also produced the sold out critically acclaimed ‘HOWL 2.0’, a reimagining of Allen’s Ginberg’s Howl by London’s up and coming young poets, visual artists and producers.

32 33 Songs from An Focal: a room: Grá

Tá an ócáid seo á reáchtáil ag Cúirt i gcomhar le Oireachtas na Gaeilge. My Fellow Sponges Venue An Taibhdhearc This event is being organised by Cúirt in conjunction with Oireachtas na Gaeilge. Date Saturday 29 April Time 2.00pm Is fís ealaíontóir agus amhránaí neamhspleách í Ceara Conway a bhaineann úsáid as taibhsiú, amhránaíocht agus cleachtaí traidisiúnta in a saothar. Tá Price €10/€8 sí mar ealaíontóir cónaithe le hOifig Ealaíon Luimnigh agus le hOrmston Cúirt International Festival of Literature www.cuirt.ie House, Luimneach faoi láthair. I measc na saothar atá coimisiúnaithe uaithi My Fellow Sponges are an original band based in Galway. The band is the le déanaí tá Breath, Damer House Gallery; Time, Ulster Museum; DUBH, Venue The King’s Head creative union of two singer-songwriters; Donal McConnon with his lyrically- EVA International Ireland’s Biennale (2016), Thin Places (2015) Kings College, Date Saturday 29 April led folk ditties and Anna Mullarkey with her lush and elegant synth-pop London; Vicissitudes (2013), Derry City of Culture agus Making Visible, Irish sound. The two started a band after performing together as actors on a Museum of Modern Art (2014). Sa bhliain 2013, bronnadh scoláireacht Paul Time 1.00pm number of theatre shows in university. They were later joined by David Brady ag an Dámh Chruinniú Éireann Rince agus Ceol ar Cheara. Price €10/€8 Shaughnessy (drums) and Sam Wright (bass). Ceara Conway is an independent Irish visual artist and singer working in 2013 saw the release of their debut album Bonne Nuit. Mostly focused on performance, song and traditional folk practices. She is currently undertaking a more rural sound, the single that received the most attention was ’This an artist’s residency with the Limerick Arts Office and Ormston House, Dream Song’ mainly for the highly-ambitious, surrealist backwards video Limerick. Recent commissions include Breath, Damer House Gallery, Time, which accompanied its release. The follow up album Something Like Light Ulster Museum, DUBH, EVA International Ireland’s Biennale (2016). Thin (2014), displays a much more reflective, piano-driven sound from a band Places (2015) Kings College, London; Vicissitudes (2013), Derry City of ever-willing to explore new possibilities with sound. Last year’s single, ’The Culture and Making Visible, Irish Museum of Modern Art (2014). In 2013 Cold Hand’, has been the bands most successful release to date, gaining Ceara was awarded a Paul Brady Scholarship at the Irish World Academy of nationwide radio-play and convincing music lovers to flock to their shows Music and Dance, UL. during the festival season. Is file, criticeoir agus léachtóir í Caitríona Ní Chléirchín. Is as Gort na Móna, My Fellow Sponges have collaborated with story-tellers, comedians, Scairbh na gCaorach, Co. Mhuineacháin ó dhúchas í. Bhuaigh a céad dancers and brass-ensembles. They have played entire shows improvised, chnuasach Crithloinnir duais an Oireachtais don scríbhneoir úr sa bhliain 2010 under the moniker Community. Their concerts are lively, unpredictable and agus bhuaigh a dara cnuasach An Bhrídeach Sí (2014) duais intimate. They comfortably switch from eerie-electronica to hip-shaking- i 2015. Thiomnaigh sí a dara cnuasach dá máthair a fuair bás anuraidh. bossa-nova, all with a dramatic flair that has stayed with Donal and Anna Foilsíodh filíocht léi in Comhar, Irish Pages, Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, since their theatre days. Feasta,Blaiseadh Pinn, The SHOp, An t-Ultach agus An Guth. Scríobhann sí ailt acadúla agus iriseoireachta agus tá níos mó ná fiche léirmheas scríofa aici san Irish Times, Comhar, Taighde agus Teagasc agus in irisí eile.

Caitríona Ní Chléirchín is an Irish-language poet, critic and lecturer originally from Gortmoney, Emyvale in Co. Monaghan. Her début collection Crithloinnir won the Oireachtas Prize for New Writers in 2010 and her second collection An Bhrídeach Sí published in 2014 has won the Michael Hartnett Prize 2015. She has published poetry in Comhar, Irish Pages, Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, Feasta, Blaiseadh Pinn, The SHOp, An t-Ultach and An Guth. She also writes reviews, academic and journalistic articles and over 20 reviews in The Irish Times, Comhar, Taighde agus Teagasc and others.

Is reacaire ó Lios Tuathail é Séamus Barra Ó Súilleabháin a d’fhreastal ar ollscoil sa Ghaillimh. Chífeá ag caitheamh thairis é ag ócáidí ar nós Reic, an Cabaret Craiceáilte agus Liú Lúnasa. Is minic a bhíonn sé ag obair le ceoltóirí agus thá sé mar leathbhádóir sa togra hip-hop Craos. Is comheagarthóir é don iris Mionlach agus is é Beatha Dhónaill Dhuibh (2016) a chéad chnuasach dánta foilsithe ag Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Séamus Barra Ó Súilleabháin is a raconteur from Listowel who attended university in Galway. He can be seen giving it up at events such as Reic, the Caberet Craiceáilte and Liú Lúnasa. Seamus often works with musicians and he is on the crew of the hip-hop project Craos. He is co-editor of Mionlach magazine and his first collection of poetry Beatha Dhónaill Dhuibh (2016) is published by Cló Iar-Chonnacht. 34 35 Writing the Sky Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy

Edited by Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper

Venue Town Hall Theatre Dermot Healy: Date Saturday 29 April Claire Hennessy, Time 2.00pm Writing the Sky Price €10/€8 Shirley Anne McMillan “Part of the motivation behind publishing this volume is to address the extraordinary neglect of one of Ireland’s most gifted and industrious modern & Dave Rudden writers. The aim is to acknowledge Healy’s immense creative achievement while also establishing an initial body of critical work, drawn from a variety of Claire Hennessy is a writer, editor, Shirley-Anne McMillan lives in Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre vantage points.” book reviewer, and creative writing rural Co. Down. She works as a

Cúirt International Festival of Literature Date: Saturday 29 April www.cuirt.ie teacher based in Dublin. She is writer and the Alternative Chaplain the author of several YA novels, at Shimna Integrated College Tess Gallagher’s Brian Leyden’s Neil Murphy Time: 4.00pm including Nothing Tastes As Good where she runs a high school Gay 12th volume of books include is Professor of (2016) and Like Other Girls (coming Straight Alliance and a Peace and Price: €10/€8 poetry, Is, Is Not, the bestselling Irish and English May 2017). She is the recipient of Integration club. She has a Masters will be published memoir, The literature at NTU, three Arts Council bursaries and in Creative Writing from Manchester by Graywolf Press Home Place and Singapore. He holds masters’ degrees in popular Metropolitan University and in 2013 in 2019. Midnight Sweet Old World: is the author of Lantern: New New & Selected Irish Fiction and literature and creative writing from she won the Society of Children’s Trinity College Dublin. Claire is a Book Writers and Illustrators and Selected Stories. He has Postmodern co-director and co-founder of the Undiscovered Voices competition Poems, is her most complete volume recently contributed to Winter Doubt (2004) and editor of Aidan Big Smoke Writing Factory creative with an extract from her novel, A of poetry available in Ireland. She Papers II edited by Kevin Barry & Higgins: The Fragility of Form writing school in Dublin, co-founder Good Hiding (Atom, 2016). spends time in a cottage on Lough Olivia Smith and Fermata: Writings (2010) and of the revised edition and co-editor of the literary journal Arrow in Co. Sligo in the West of Inspired by Music, edited by Vincent of Higgins’ Balcony of Europe Banshee, and Puffin Ireland editor Ireland where many of her new Woods & Eva Bourke. His new novel (2010). He co-edited (with Keith “I write contemporary at Penguin Random House. She is poems are set, and also lives and is Summer of ’63. Hopper) a multi-volume sequence of powered mostly by tea. Young Adult novels writes in her hometown of Port books on the author, Dermot Healy, set in Northern Ireland Angeles, Washington. Mike published by Dalkey Archive Press, including Dermot Healy: Collected “I am passionate about which explore themes McCormack is Dave Rudden’s first novel, Knights Short Stories (2015), Fighting with Michael Harding the author of feminism and mental relating to various social of the Borrowed Dark, was the 2016 Shadows (2015), Dermot Healy: is an Irish writer, two collections health, but when I’m writing Specsavers’ Children’s Book of Collected Plays (2016), and Dermot issues including teen widely known for of short stories the Year. The sequel, The Forever Getting it in Healy: Writing the Sky - Critical fiction I’m constantly aware his books, plays pregnancy, LGBT issues, Court, will be released on April 6th the Head Essays and Observations (2016). He and columns and it’s not a manifesto, and gender and religion. My 2017. Dave enjoys cats, putting Forensic Songs, is currently completing a book on chronicling life in pens in his beard, and being cruel to Crowe’s Requiem, John Banville. also that humour makes character-driven stories Ireland through and three novels fictional children. the fictitious lens Notes from a Coma and Solar Bones, everything better (even if also demonstrate a strong of ordinary life. He has published which was published in May of last Mary O’Malley it’s quite dark). I always want sense of place and an three novels: Priest (1986), The year. was born in Denizen Hardwick doesn’t Trouble With Sarah Gullion (1988) Connemara. She to make a reader have a awareness of the current believe in magic - until he’s and Bird in the Snow (2008). Eoin McNamee’s served on the moment where they laugh, concerns of young people ambushed by a monster council of Poetry novels include a moment where they cry, in NI.” created from shadows and Keith Hopper Resurrection Man, Ireland and was on teaches later made into the Committee of and a moment where they saved by a word made of Literature and a film, The Blue Cúirt International relate to something in the sunlight. Film Studies Tango, which Poetry Festival for eight years. She story. Most of my work is at Oxford was longlisted has published seven books of poetry, That kind of thing can really University’s for the Booker the most recent Valparaiso arising set in Ireland – it’s where I change your perspective. Department Prize, and Orchid Blue, described by out of her residency on the national know, but it’s also important Playing the Now Denizen is about for Continuing John Burnside in The Guardian as ‘a marine research ship. for there to be versions of Education, and is a Research Fellow political novel of the highest order Octopus is her latest book of poems. to discover that there’s a in the Centre for Irish Studies at St but also that rare phenomenon, a She is working on a memoir of Ireland in fiction that aren’t world beyond the one he Mary’s University, Twickenham. He genuinely tragic work of art’. He lives childhood, as well as essays on place. old-fashioned, miserable or is the author of Flann O’Brien: A in Sligo. She is a member of Aosdána and knows. A world of living Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post- has won a number of awards for her leprechaun-infested.” darkness where an unseen Modernist (revised edition 2009), and poetry. She writes for RTE Radio and enemy awaits... general editor of the twelve-volume broadcasts her work regularly. She Ireland into Film series (2001–7). He was the 2016 Arts Council Writer-in- is a regular contributor to The Times Residence at University of Limerick. Literary Supplement. 36 37 Jay Griffiths, An interview with Richard Hamblyn, Rick O’Shea

Venue An Taibhdhearc Gaia Vince & Date Saturday 29 April Time 4.30pm Paul Kingsnorth Price €10/€8

Cúirt International Festival of Literature (Chair) www.cuirt.ie

Jay Griffiths is the author Richard Hamblyn’s books include The author of two non-fiction books, One of Tristimania: A Diary of Manic Invention of Clouds (2001), which No, Many Yeses and Real England, Depression; Wild: An Elemental won the Los Angeles Times Book and a poetry collection, Kidland. He Journey; Pip: A Sideways Look Prize and was shortlisted for the is co-founder of the Dark Mountain at Time; Kith: The Riddle of the Samuel Johnson Prize; Terra: Tales of Project, a global network of writers, Childscape and A Love Letter from the Earth (2009), a study of natural artists and thinkers in search of new a Stray Moon with a foreword by disasters; and The Art of Science, an stories for a world on the brink. His John Berger. She has won the Orion anthology of readable science writing new collection of essays Confessions Book Award and the Barnes & Noble from the Babylonians to the Higgs of a Recovering Environmentalist is Discover Award for the best new boson. His latest book, Clouds: published this April. non-fiction writer to be published in Nature and Culture, will be published the USA and was shortlisted for both by Reaktion Books in June. Gaia Vince is a writer and the Orwell Prize and a World Book broadcaster specialising in science Day Prize. “I am an environmental writer, with a and the environment. She has been passion for telling stories that weave the front editor of the journal Nature “Jay Griffiths is one of through layers of human and natural Climate Change, the news editor history. I am particularly interested in of Nature and online editor of New the most perceptive and the cultural cross-currents that flow Scientist. Her work has appeared between the arts and the sciences, lyrical writers working in newspapers and magazines in Rick O’Shea has been a radio presenter with RTÉ 2FM since 2001 and is Venue Town Hall Theatre and am currently working on a book the UK, US and Australia, including also the presenter of The Poetry Programme on RTÉ Radio 1. Starting on today.’” of true stories about half-imagined The Guardian, Science, Scientific Facebook in May 2014, The Rick O’Shea Book club now has over 5,500 Date Saturday 29 April John Burnside, Book of the Year, and remembered places.” American and Australian Geographic. members, making it Ireland’s biggest book club. Time 5.00pm New Statesman She also devises and presents Paul Kingsnorth’s debut novel, science programmes for BBC radio. He hosts public author interviews with guests as diverse as playwright Simon Price €10/€8 The Wake won the 2014 Gordon Her first book, Adventures In The Stephens, authors Anthony Horowitz, Eoin Colfer, Liz Nugent and Donal Burn Prize, was longlisted for the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Ryan, journalist Johann Hari at Dublin’s International Literature Festival, Man Booker Prize, the Folio Prize Heart of the Planet we Made, won Graham Norton at Listowel Writers Week and Michael Chabon at the Dublin and the Desmond Elliot Prize, and the Royal Society Winton Prize for Bloomsday Festival. He has been a panellist and event host at the Lingo was shortlisted for the Goldsmith’s Science Books in 2015. Spoken Word Festival, Bram Stoker Festival, ISLA Festival, Cúirt International Prize. His second novel Beast was Festival of Literature, Dublin One City One Book, as well as performing published in 2016. He is also the spoken word pieces at European Literature Night and the Barnardo’s ‘Under My Bed’ nights.

He is part of the industry voting academy for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards and was a judge for the 2015 UK and Ireland Young Adult Book Prize run by The Bookseller magazine.

38 39 Sophie Hannah Abridged presents & Denise Mina Stephen Burt, Theresa Muñoz Venue: An Taibhdhearc Date: Saturday 29 April Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological Venue: Town Hall Theatre Time: 6.30pm crime fiction, published in 32 languages and 51 territories. In 2014, with the blessing of Agatha Christie’s family and estate, Sophie published a new Date: Saturday 29 April & Jacob Polley Price: €10/€8 Hercule Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, which was a bestseller in more than fifteen countries. In September 2016, her second Poirot novel, Closed Time: 6.30pm Cúirt International Festival of Literature Casket, was published and became an instant Sunday Times top ten www.cuirt.ie Price: €10/€8 Usually active in the visual art environment, Abridged makes a rare bestseller. She lives with her husband, children and dog in Cambridge, where appearance in the live poetry arena with a reading featuring critically she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. acclaimed international poets Jacob Polley, Stephen Burt and Theresa Muñoz. Abridged 0 - 49: Babel. 0-49: Babel The world’s most famous detective – and Agatha Christie’s most famous This will coincide with the Cúirt launch of creation – returns in this new novel from the New York Times bestselling will also feature photography from the Belfast International Photo Festival. author of The Monogram Murders: a diabolically clever mystery soaked in Abridged currently consists of Gregory McCartney and Susanna Galbraith. period atmosphere and loaded with clues, suspense, and danger. Stephen Burt is the author of three poetry collections, Belmont, Parallel Play, and Popular Music, and several collections of critical works. His essay Denise Mina’s first novel Garnethill, published in 1998, won the Crime Writers collection Close Calls with Nonsense was a finalist for the National Book Association John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel. She has now Critics Circle Award. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book published 12 novels and also writes short stories, plays and graphic novels. In Review, London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The 2014 she was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame. Believer, and the Boston Review. Denise presents TV and radio programmes as well as regularly appearing in the media, and has made a film about her own family. She regularly appears at literary festivals in the UK and abroad, leads masterclasses on writing and Theresa Muñoz’s work has appeared in several journals in both Canada and Canadian Literature, Poetry Review was a judge for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction 2014. the United Kingdom, including and Best Scottish Poems. Her debut collection Settle was shortlisted for the William Watt wants answers about his family’s murder. Peter Manuel has Melita Hume Poetry Prize. She writes regular reviews for Scotland’s Herald them. But Peter Manuel is a liar. The Long Drop is an extraordinarily unsettling newspaper and is currently Research Associate at the Newcastle Centre for literary suspense novel based on the notorious case of Scotland’s first Literary Arts. convicted serial killer. Jacob Polley has published four books of poems, winning the 2016 T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry for his fourth book, Jackself. He has also been awarded the 2013 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for The Havocs, and the Somerset Maugham Award for his first novel, Talk of the Town (2009).

This event will be chaired by Gregory McCartney.

Venue: Róisín Dubh City Lit Date: Saturday 29 April Time: 6.00pm Talks Back Price: Free London’s premiere spoken word event at the Róisín Dubh.

A fantastic line-up of writers from the City Literary Institute, London, perform an eclectic mix of poetry, prose, comedy and drama.

Hosts: Conor Montague and Lindsey Booth.

40 41 Simon Armitage Also on Sunday Bardic 11.00am Crime Workshop with Sophie Hannah: Hotel Meyrick

& Terrance Hayes 11.00am Writing for YA with Claire Brunch Hennessy: Hotel Meyrick (Curated by Mike McCormack) Simon Armitage, an award-winning British poet, playwright, novelist, lyricist Venue: Town Hall Theatre and broadcaster, also writes extensively for television and radio. He is the author of almost a dozen collections of poetry, most recently his new Date: Saturday 29 April volume The Unaccompanied and Paper Aeroplane: Selected Poems 1989- Time: 8.30pm 2014. He has also published two novels and three best-selling non-fiction Venue The King’s Head titles, All Points North, Walking Home and Walking Away. Armitage’s Price: €16/€13 writing for television and radio includes the BAFTA-winning film Feltham Date Sunday 30 April Cúirt International Festival of Literature Sings www.cuirt.ie for which he received a prestigious Ivor Novello Award for song- Time 12.00pm writing. Armitage’s translations of medieval verse include his acclaimed Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and his recent translation of Pearl. Armitage is Price €14/€12 Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield and was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford in 2015. He was awarded a CBE in 2010 for services to poetry. “I think of myself as a communicator. I want my poems to be read and to be understood, even if that understanding is on an intuitive or sub-conscious level. Adrian Crowley has made a Yan Ge was Louise Manifold’s I have things to say and I use the poems as vehicles to name for himself as one of the born in Sichuan recent group country’s celebrated lyricists, his Province, China. shows and convey those things. It’s that simple (sort of).” songs delivered in his trademark, Publishing since projects include: rich baritone. To date Crowley 1994, she is the Winter Papers Terrance Hayes, one of the most compelling voices in American poetry, is the has released seven albums with author of eleven edited by Kevin author of five books of poetry; How to Be Drawn (2015), longlisted for the his eighth set for release later in books. Her Barry and 2015 National Book Award in Poetry; Lighthead (2010), winner of the 2010 2017. Adrian also spends time work has been Olivia Smith National Book Award in Poetry; Wind in a Box, winner of a Pushcart Prize writing literary fiction. He has had translated into English, French, (2016), Berlin Open Studios (2016), and Hip Logic, winner of the National Poetry Series, Whiting Writers Award a short story published in ‘Sunday German, Korean, and Hungarian. Becoming: the adventures of and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His poems have appeared in literary Miscellany’ and has had lyrics Being named by People’s Literature Growing up, Baboró International journals and magazines including The New Yorker, The American Poetry published in The Stinging Fly. He is magazine as one of twenty future Arts Festival for Children (2016), Review, Ploughshares, Fence, The Kenyon Review, Jubilat, Harvard Review, currently working on his debut novel. literature masters in China, she is the Wildscreen (2015), and Trauma at the and Poetry. He is a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, in chairperson of China Young Writers’ Science Gallery, Dublin (2015). Visuals Pennsylvania. For the Bardic Brunch, Adrian will Association and a contract writer of provided by Louise Manifold. “First you’ll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, be reading some new pieces, and Sichuan Writers’ Association. She combining his semi-sung / semi- now lives in Dublin with her husband. Mike McCormack his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. spoken ‘story-songs’ with a specially is the author of Then you’ll notice the grace, the tenderness, the composed soundscape. Arja Kajermo two collections has contributed of short stories unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the Mia Gallagher’s cartoons to the Getting it in open and generous way he takes in our world.” short fiction has feminist publisher the Head and been published in Attic Press and Forensic Songs, Cornelius Eady Ireland, the UK, occasionally to and three novels the US and Italy. The Sunday Press, Crowe’s Requiem, Notes from a She won the Irish The Irish Times, Coma and Solar Bones, which was Tatler Literature Image magazine, Magill and others. published in May of last year. Award (2007) for She now draws the strip Tuula in her acclaimed debut novel HellFire. the Sunday edition of Swedish daily She was also shortlisted for Hennessy newspaper Dagens Nyheter. (1991), Fish (2004) and Trevor/Bowen In 2014 she was shortlisted for the (2011) Awards. prestigious Davy Byrnes Award for her short story ‘The Iron Age’, upon which her novel is based. She lives in Dublin.

42 43 Venue Nun’s Island Theatre Venue Nun’s Island Theatre Sara Baume, Date Sunday 30 April fermata: Date Sunday 30 April Time 2.00pm Writings inspired by Music Time 4.00pm Jenni Fagan & Price €10/€8 Price €10/€8 Paul Kingsnorth ‘A pitch perfect book’ Niall MacMonagle, editor of Windharp Readings and music to mark the Artisan House publication fermata: Writings inspired by Music, edited by Eva Bourke and Vincent Woods. Sara Baume won the 2014 Davy Byrnes Short Story Joining the editors at this special Cúirt event will be writers Moya Award, and in 2015 she won the Hennessy New Irish Cannon, Louis de Paor, Mary Noonan, Matthew Sweeney, and Peter Cúirt International Festival of Literature Writing Award and the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her Woods accompanied by musical performances by piper and flute player www.cuirt.ie debut novel Spill Simmer Falter Wither was longlisted for Louise Mulcahy and composer and accordion player, Christy McNamara. the Guardian First Book Award, shortlisted for the Costa fermata First Novel Award, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial (in musical notation a pause, literally a breathing space) contains Prize and has been translated into several languages. Her poems and prose writings from sixty-five contributors - a chorus of second novel A Line Made by Walking was published in diverse and lively voices in response to music, the most beloved of all spring 2017 and prompted Colum McCann to describe the arts. her as ‘a writer of outstanding grace and style’, who ‘writes beyond the time we live in.’ The writing is inspired by singers, composers, musicians, dancers and the music of ‘what happens’. From a lullaby in a dead South African language (Moya Cannon), the pub session (Peter Woods), the Fado Jenni Fagan was born in Scotland. She attended house of Argentina Santos (Mary Noonan), didjeridu (Louis de Paor), Greenwich University and won a scholarship to the to Do Wah Diddy Diddy Do (Matthew Sweeney), all this and far more Royal Holloway MFA where she was awarded an MA in accompanied by incomparable playing from Christy McNamara and Creative Writing. Her critically acclaimed debut novel The Louise Mulcahy. Panopticon was published in 2012 and named one of the Waterstones 11, a selection of the best fiction debuts of fermata: Writings inspired by Music (Artisan House 2016) the year. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart www.artisanhouse.ie Prize and her collection The Dead Queen of Bohemia was named 3:AM Magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year. She was shortlisted for the Dublin Impac, The James Tait Black, and was named one of Granta‘s Best of Young British Novelists.

Paul Kingsnorth’s debut novel, The Wake won the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Folio Prize and the Desmond Elliot Prize, and was shortlisted for the Goldsmith’s Prize. His second novel Beast was published in 2016. He is also the author of two non-fiction books, One No, Many Yeses and Real England, and a poetry collection, Kidland. He is co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project, a global network of writers, artists and thinkers in search of new stories for a world on the brink. His new collection of essays Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist is published this April.

44 45 Far From nocturne. presents Literature We MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE Were Reared An Evening with William McCarthy of Augustines A night of spoken word, After the recent split of his band Augustines, singer-songwriter William Cúirt International Festival of Literature poetry and song McCarthy, is ready to embark on his second solo tour, titled Music For Venue: Loam Restaurant www.cuirt.ie In aid of Galway Rape Crisis The People, in the spring of 2017. Date: Sunday 30 April Centre While Augustines played their final run of shows last autumn, McCarthy Time: 8.00pm (Doors at 7.00pm) can’t keep his feet still. Currently based in Berlin, he will tour Germany Price: €20 once again in April doing what he does best – telling stories, singing songs he’s written over the past decade and a half, and reading from his journals.

Anyone who’s ever been to an Augustines show knows how close McCarthy is to the audience. This show promises to be intimate and unique, and offers fans the chance to get up close and personal. McCarthy will perform his brutally honest songs in a bare, stripped back setting. A life story, in one night, through song.

Aoibheann McCann, Seamus Ruttledge, Steve Bennett and Conor Montague Venue: Róisín Dubh introduce a fantastic array of literary, comedic and musical talent across three stages Date: Sunday 30 April Time: Doors at 8.00pm Guests include Celeste Augé, Elaine Feeney, Trevor Conroy, Miceal Kearney, Sandra Coffey, Price: €10 (all proceeds to GRCC) Aoife Casby, Liz Quirke, Hugo Kelly, Alan McMonagle, Lorna Shaughnessy, Ciaran Tierney, George Shiels, Emma Comerford, Stephen Byrne, Hugo Seale, Aideen Henry, Kernan Andrews, Charlie Adley, Nicole Flattery, Páraic Breathnach, John Donnellan, Johnny Hannon, Gerry Hanberry, Órfhlaith Foyle, Aindrais de Staic, Paul McMahon, Atlantic Rhythm Section.

Tickets available from the Town Hall Theatre or www.roisindubh.net

All proceeds to GRCC.

46 47 Cúirt Labs Cúirt Labs: Cúirt Labs is a series of workshops, talks and performances for children and teenagers. Taking place in Galway Arts Centre, writers, illustrators Young Adult and other creative artists will engage with primary and post primary school groups on weekdays. On Saturday 29th April, teenagers are invited to sign up for a full day of writing and illustration workshops 12 - 18yrs followed by a reading in Nuns Island Theatre. For the first time we are delighted to present LABS as Gaeilge. On Monday 24th April www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature primary school groups are invited to sign up for workshops conducted completely in Irish with children theatre companies Branar and Fíbín.

LABS as Gaeilge Branar and Fíbín Sive, Caroline Busher, Javier Claire Hennessy, Shirley-Anne Monday 24 April Gimenez MacMillan, Dave Rudden, Primary schools: 9.30am - 12.45pm Thursday 27 April Margaret-Anne Suggs €5 per pupil Primary schools: 9.30am - 12.45pm Saturday 29 April 10.00am – 6.00pm €5 per pupil €20, including lunch, refreshments & admission to Tatyana Feeney, Genevieve Ryan, reading at 4.00pm in Nuns Island Theatre. Erika McCann Gerard Siggins, Caroline Busher, Tuesday 25 April Javier Gimenez Primary schools: 9.30am - 12.45pm Friday 28 April €5 per pupil Primary schools: 9.30am - 12.45pm €5 per pupil Lauren O’Neill, Genevieve Ryan, Erika McCann Marc MacLochlainn, Branar Wednesday 26 April Monday 24 April Primary schools: 9.30am - 12.45pm Post-Primary Schools: 1pm - 3pm €5 per pupil William Wall, writer Thursday 27 April Post-Primary Schools: 1pm - 3pm

To book please email [email protected]

48 49 Day by Day

Cúirt Labs

Branar tell big stories Tatyana Feeney Erika McGann lives Genevieve Ryan is Sive is a songwriter Shirley-Anne for little citizens. grew up in Chapel in Dublin in her own an American born and multi- McMillan lives in They strive for a Hill, North Carolina secret clubhouse dancer, teacher instrumentalist rural Co. Down. She simple, elegant form and spent a lot of (which is actually and choreographer with a voice that works as a writer of theatre for young her early childhood an apartment) and who has made sweeps along and the Alternative people that achieves going to the library spends her time Galway her home displaying folk and Chaplain at Shimna intricacy through and listening to solving mysteries since 2006. She jazz influences with Integrated College. the creative use of stories. She still loves and having brilliant has been engaged the confidence of In 2013 she won the www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature few means. A style books and reads as adventures (well, in her own dance one who knows. Her Society of Children’s that stimulates the ability to imagine and much as she can. She is based in County she writes about them anyway). As a practice for over 30 years and has studied unique sound weaves together her love Book Writers and Illustrators ‘Undiscovered challenge, while opening a dialogue with Meath. Most of her artwork is done using kid she loved books filled with action, dance all across the United States. In for the craft of song writing with her Voices’ competition with an extract from their audiences and providing a catalyst for monoprinting, often adding collage or adventure, humour and mystery. She aims 2015 she received her MA in Dance from enthusiasm for experimentation and her novel, A Good Hiding (Atom, 2016). education. watercolor to the finished pieces. She has to create characters that kids will relate the University of Limerick, exploring how intricate arrangements. Sive released her written and illustrated Small Bunny’s Blue to, and that they’ll root for, and she loves cultural influences impact the creative debut album to critical acclaim in 2012 and Dave Rudden’s first Caroline Busher’s Blanket, Little Owl’s Orange Scarf, and the unexpected comedy that can pop out process of dance artists. She is a co- since then has toured extensively across novel, Knights of the novel The Ghosts collaborated with Malachy Doyle on Cillian of any scene. Erika McCann’s series The founder of the Galway Dance Project and is Ireland, The UK, Europe and New Zealand, Borrowed Dark, was of Magnificent agus an Rón. Bubble Street Gang features Cass and currently serving as Chair of the Board. She sharing stages with the likes of Kila, Mick the 2016 Specsavers’ Children is set in her best friends Lex and Nicholas. They is artistic director of her dance company Flannery, John Spillane and Gemma Hayes. Children’s Book of 1848, a time when Fíbín puppetry and investigate crimes, solve mysteries and Off Beaten Path Dance and is the Director Her second album The Roaring Girl will be the Year. Its sequel, magic and ghosts theatre company is have brilliant adventures. They’ve even got of the Genevieve Ryan Dance Academy. released in April. “Keeps the toes tapping The Forever Court, is exist. Theo can based in Connemara, their own secret clubhouse. and both ears alert. Brilliant stuff. Sive is a released this Spring. reveal your secret County Galway. Fíbín Gerard Siggins was real find.” - Jackie Hayden, Hot Press. Dave enjoys cats, thoughts, which creates exciting, Lauren O’Neill is born in Dublin and putting pens in his beard, and being cruel come out of his mouth like a swarm of energetic and highly an illustrator and has lived almost all William Wall is to fictional children. bees. Ginny’s ribs are woven together to visual theatre of the graphic designer his life in the shadow the author of four form a birdcage where a bird called Blue highest professional based in Dublin. of Lansdowne Road; novels, including Margaret Anne perches on a swing. The thought-reading standards for young Originally from he’s been attending This is the Country, Suggs’ specialty is twins read each other’s minds. One audiences through the medium of Irish. To Wexford, she moved rugby matches there longlisted for children’s picture hundred years later the children’s ghosts achieve this, Fíbín uses puppets, masks, to Dublin to study since he was small the 2005 Man books. Her detailed appear on an island off the coast of shadows, music, sound and an array of Vis. Comm. in NCAD enough for his dad Booker Prize; three drawings are Ireland where a boy called Rua befriends visual techniques to develop an aesthetic and now thinks of to lift him over the turnstiles. He worked collections of peppered with them. Caroline Busher has a relentless not previously seen in children’s theatre, the city as home. Since graduating in 2006 for The Sunday Tribune for many years - he poetry; and two charismatic cats thirst for seeking out the bizarre and particularly Irish Language Theatre. she has worked mainly as a designer in began his career as a sports journalist and volumes of short stories, including his and ladybirds that peculiar. As a child she encountered what branding and advertising but has recently was sports editor before moving into news latest, Hearing Voices/Seeing Things bring stories to life. she believed to be a ghost, it dwelled Javier Gimenez begun to focus on illustration full time. and politics as chief sub-editor. Since 2011 (Doire Press). Margaret Anne was born and raised in the beneath the floorboards in a dilapidated is a teacher and Lauren has been an avid reader since he has published seven books, including American deep South, but later moved to cellar. Eoin Colfer declared that: ‘The facilitator based childhood so illustrating books has been a his series about rugby player Eoin Madden: Claire Hennessy is a Dublin, Ireland to complete her Master’s Ghosts of Magnificent Children reads in Galway. He has lifelong ambition. She recently illustrated Rugby Spirit, Rugby Warrior, Rugby writer, editor, book Degree at the National College of Art wonderfully, an excellent and original been working in the cover for Geraldine Mills’ latest book, Rebel, Rugby Flyer and Rugby Runner. reviewer, and creative and Design. Currently, Margaret Anne voice, with shades of Neil Gaiman and language teaching Gold. Gerard enjoys writing fiction for children, writing teacher based is the Promotions Officer for Illustrators Lemony Snicket’. and arts education but still does sportswriting and is cricket in Dublin. She is the Ireland, a dynamic group of professional since the early correspondent of the Sunday Independent. author of several YA illustrators. When she is not drawing, 2000s. He has He has ghostwritten with David Norris on novels, including painting and making things, she teaches facilitated storytelling workshops in the his autobiography A Kick Against The Pricks Nothing Tastes As others in the Illustration department at West of Ireland for the last three years. (2012). Gerard also has a passion for history Good (2016) and Like Ballyfermot College of Further Education. He is currently conducting PhD research and writes newspaper features on many Other Girls (coming May 2017). Margaret Anne lives in County Dublin, in the area of intercultural narratives for historical subjects, as well as editing The near the sea with her dashing husband, children. ’s 1916 magazine series. two amazing sons and a whiny cat. She recently illustrated the award-winning Pigín of Howth.

50 51 Workshops

Poetry Workshop with Fiction Workshop with Writing for YA with Lindsay J. Sedgwick on Martina Evans: Jami Attenberg: Claire Hennessy Writing for TV & Film Towards the Forest Setting the Stakes Venue Hotel Meyrick Venue GMIT CCAM, Monivea Road Date Sunday 30 April Date Thursday 27 April Venue Hotel Meyrick Venue Hotel Meyrick www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature Time 11.00am Time: 12.30pm Date Thursday 27 April Date Friday 28 April Price €25 Price: Free Time 10.00am Time 10.00am Price €25 Price €25 Claire Hennessy is a writer, editor, book reviewer, and A former journalist, Lindsay Jane Sedgwick is a versatile creative writing teacher based in Dublin. She is the and imaginative award-winning screenwriter with over Using poetry, art and film, this workshop will explore How many pages will you read before you walk away author of several YA novels, including Nothing Tastes As 9 hours’ credits for TV and film work. Her ground- forests as a metaphor for human relationships and from a book? Ten, twenty, or fifty? Setting the stakes Good (2016) and Like Other Girls (coming May 2017). breaking series, PUNKY, has been recognized as the transformations - separating the woods from the can hook your reader (or an agent or editor, for that Claire is a co-director and co-founder of the Big Smoke first mainstream cartoon series in the world in which the trees. Particular attention will be paid to the difference matter) immediately. So what does it take to get a reader Writing Factory creative writing school in Dublin, co- main character has special needs (Down’s syndrome) between form and structure in poetry. instantly invested in your story? An irresistible character founder and co-editor of the literary journal Banshee, and and is available worldwide. In addition, she has had 14 or perhaps a suspenseful plot? Or a string of sentences Puffin Ireland editor at Penguin Random House. stage plays produced as well as one radio play for BBC4. Martina Evans will read with Vona Groarke and Mary so gorgeous they simply can’t walk away? She has also been involved in writing game narrative. O’Malley in the Town Hall Theatre on Wednesday, 26 Claire Hennessy will read with Dave Rudden and Shirley She teaches screenwriting in DCU and in Filmbase, April at 8.30pm. For more information see page 17. American novelist Jami Attenberg examines a selection Anne McMillan in Nun’s Island Theatre on Saturday 29 is currently Screenwriter-in-Residence at Maynooth of brilliant and addictive beginnings from short stories April at 4.00pm. For more information see page 37. University, and Kildare Co. Council Library & Arts Service and novels across an array of genres. Workshop a writing and has just published her first novel, Dad’s Red Dress. exercise, discuss what attracts you to a story and outline Sports Writing with the stakes of your own works-in-progress. Workshop with Mark Lindsay Sedgwick will run a Screenwriting workshop at 1.30pm later that day at GMIT, CCAM, Monivea Road Gerard Siggins Jami Attenberg will read with Sinéad Gleeson and Cheryl Wagenaar & the Corrib Lu-Lien Tan in the Town Hall Theatre on Thursday 27, To book email: [email protected] Venue Hotel Meyrick April at 6.30pm. For more information see page 21. Rangers Date Thursday 27 April Award winning poet and former soccer professional Time 6.00pm Crime Workshop with Mark Wagenaar will work with the Corrib Rangers Junior Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Price €25 boys’ and girls’ teams on a poetry workshop followed by Sophie Hannah soccer skills. Tales From the Kitchen Gerard Siggins was born in Dublin and has lived almost Venue Hotel Meyrick all his life in the shadow of Lansdowne Road; he’s been Mark Wagenaar will read with Pete Mullineaux and Writing on Food Date Sunday 30 April William Wall in the Town Hall Theatre on Friday, 28 April attending rugby matches there since he was small Venue GMIT Library, Old Dublin Road enough for his dad to lift him over the turnstiles. He at 1.00pm. For more information see page 28. Time 11.00am worked for the Sunday Tribune for many years - he began Date Friday 28 April his career as a sports journalist and was sports editor Price €25 Time 1.00pm before moving into news and politics as chief sub-editor. Since the newspaper closed in 2011 he has published Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of Price Free seven books, including his series about rugby player psychological crime fiction, published in 32 languages Eoin Madden. Rugby Spirit, Rugby Warrior, Rugby Rebel, and 51 territories. Sophie’s novel The Carrier won the Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based journalist and Rugby Flyer and Rugby Runner are all published by The Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers author of the new novel Sarong Party Girls. A native O’Brien Press. National Book Awards. Two of her crime novels, The of Singapore, she also wrote A Tiger In The Kitchen: A Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been Memoir of Food & Family, and was editor of the fiction In this Masterclass Gerard will show how a life-long adapted for television. anthology Singapore Noir. She was a staff writer at The passion for sport can be channeled into writing about it Wall Street Journal, In Style magazine and Baltimore as a career. He will take a look at the great sportswriters Explore the work of others and develop your own, with Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The New York and their work, the different ways of approaching a Sophie’s expert guidance. Times and The Paris Review. sporting event as a writer, and how you can make a living in this challenging environment. Sophie Hannah will read with Denise Mina in the Town To book email: [email protected] Hall Theatre on Saturday 29 April at 6.30pm. For more information see page 40.

52 53 These 20 minute pop-up events will Pop-up feature music, song and words. Exhibitions Tuesday 25, to Saturday, 29 April Literature Tuesday, 11.00am Bell, Book & Candle, Small Crane Miquel Barceló is a theatre performer, fool, jester, minstrel and Tuesday, 3.00pm Without the Words Placing the Word troubadour. Born in the heart of the Mediterranean, Miquel Illustrators Ireland Venue: Black Gate Cultural Centre, 14 Francis St. has taken inspiration from there to develop his work. Trained The Dough Bros, Upper Abbeygate St at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, he became involved in theatre Galway Arts Centre Date: Tuesday 25 April (Exhibition Opening) at the age of eight and hasn’t stopped since. Tuesday, 4.00pm 23 – 30 April 2017 Time: 7.00pm Sonny Molloy’s, High Street Since 2000 he has been based in Ireland working as a solo Monday – Saturday 10am – 5.30pm, Sunday 12pm – 5.30pm www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature Price: Free artist and with companies Teatro Punto, The Gombeens, Wednesday, 11.00am Macnas, and Branar, with a special emphasis on theatre for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Without the Words is Placing the Word people with intellectual disabilities. an exhibition of over 50 Paintings and prints by Ballybrit Business Park works inspired by a line Dolores Lyne and Margaret He creates a place for celebration where the comical, the Wednesday, 3.00pm from Emily Dickinson’s Irwin poetical and the acrobatic meet the social and the irreverent. well loved poem, Hope is He has toured all over Ireland, the UK, Spain, France, Italy, Sheridans Cheesemongers, Church Yard St. the Thing with Feathers as This exhibition explores Holland and the United States. Wednesday, 4.00pm well as Laureate na nÓg PJ the shared space between Lynch’s “The Big Picture”. words and land, with both Sarah Maria Griffinis a writer from Dublin, Ireland. Her first Dock 1 Seafood Bar & Restaurant, Dock Rd While Dickinson reminds artists responding to land novel, Spare & Found Parts, was published by Greenwillow her readers to always have and seascapes stretching Thursday, 11.00am Books in October 2016. Her nonfiction has appeared in hope, Lynch promotes from the south coast The Irish Times, The Rumpus, Midnight Breakfast, Guts and Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Cornstore Mall visual storytelling and the of Ireland to Inishbofin Winter Pages. Her collection of essays about emigration, Not power of imagination. Island. These are the same Lost, was published by New Island Press in 2013. She was U Thursday, 2.00pm Imagination and hope spaces and places that Magazine’s 30 Under 30 award recipient for literature in 2016. Galway University Hospital, Newcastle Rd make a powerful have inspired writers such She tweets @griffski. combination. In most as Theo Dorgan, Paddy Thursday, 4.00pm circumstances an illustrator will respond to a brief which Bushe, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Bernard Ó Donoghue, Ellen Stephen Burt is the author of three poetry Tigh Neachtain, Cross Street is communicated either through written or spoken word. Cranitch, Eileen Sheehan and . Placing collections, Belmont, Parallel Play, and Popular Music, and Illustrators Ireland tell their visual stories, putting the the Word tucks the words and images together in a most several collections of critical works. Friday, 12.00pm pictures first - without the words. These stories stimulate convivial space, making good bedfellows in the Black the imagination to respond by creating an individual McDonagh’s Fish & Chip Shop, Quay Street Gate Cultural Centre. Mary O’Malley has published seven books of poetry. Playing narrative, not a prescribed story. the Octopus is her latest book of poems. She is working on Friday, 2.00pm Illustrators Ireland is a non-profit organisation that Followed by a reading by Eileen Sheehan. a memoir of childhood, as well as essays on place. supports the development of illustration in Ireland by Galway City Library, St Augustine St. showcasing the work of our members and fostering Dolores Lyne was born in Killarney and is a graduate Friday, 4.00pm links with similar organisations at home and abroad. As of fine art from Waterford Institute of Technology. She a professional organisation we aim to raise the profile of has exhibited widely and is now settled in Connemara, The Quays, Quay St. Irish illustration as a dynamic and cutting edge art form, with work in several national collections including the as well as promoting the work and skills of our individual Arts Council of Ireland and OPW. The current show is an members. extension of her interest in collaborating with writers. Her love of remote places is evident in her paintings. She www.illustratorsireland.com also studied at the Motley Theatre design course in Drury www.childrenslaureate.ie Lane, and holds an Irish Times award for set design. www.galwayartscentre.ie Born in India of Irish parents, Margaret Irwin is a printmaker and painter with roots in Roscommon, who has been living and working in Connemara since 1991. Galway 4040: Portraits She trained in Dublin and Paris. Her work is held in both public and private collections. In 2008, she received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the County Galway of Writers and Others Arts Office. Much of Margaret’s imagery is drawn from the prehistorical and medieval sites in Connemara Kenny’s Bookshop will be holding a portrait exhibition by including a body of work sourced on High Island. Galway 4040: Portraits of Writers John Banahan entitled Inishbofin Island also features. and Others during the week of the festival. Kenny’s Bookshop, Liosban Business Park, Tuam Rd, Galway City, Co. Galway 54 55 Library Events

Reading & Discussion Kitchen Reading in Kitchen Reading Kitchen Reading in with Michael Winter association with in association with association with Venue Ballybane Library Tuam Library Ballinasloe Library Galway City Library Date: Wednesday 26 April Date Wednesday 26 April Date Wednesday 26 April Date Friday 28 April www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature Time: 11.00am Time 12.00pm Time 12.00pm Time 12.00pm Price: Free Price Free Price Free Price Free Writer Michael Winter will give a short reading from Into To host a kitchen reading in your home with writers Alan To host a kitchen reading in your home with writers To host a kitchen reading in your home with writers the Blizzard: Walking the fields of the Newfoundland McMonagle and Kerrie O’Brien, please apply to tuam@ Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan and Pete Mullineaux, please apply Damon Galgut, Theresa Muñoz and Jacob Polley, please Dead. Part unconventional history, part memoir- galwaylibrary.ie, stating why you want to host a kitchen to [email protected], stating why you want to apply to [email protected], stating why you want to host a travelogue, part philosophical inquiry, Michael Winter reading. The Deadline for applications is Friday, 07 April host a kitchen reading. The Deadline for applications is kitchen reading. The Deadline for applications is Friday, uniquely captures the extraordinary lives and landscapes, at 5.00pm. Friday, 07 April at 5.00pm. 07 April at 5.00pm. both in Europe and at home, scarred by a war that is just This is a free event and the audience is limited to those This is a free event and the audience is limited to those This is a free event and the audience is limited to those now disappearing from living memory. invited by the host. invited by the host. invited by the host. Michael Winter will read with Merlin Coverley in the Town Kerrie O’Brien will read with David Butler and Yrsa Daley- Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan will read with Jami Attenberg and Damon Galgut will read with Eimear McBride in the Town Hall Theatre on Thursday, 27 April at 1.00pm. For more Ward in the Town Hall Theatre on Wednesday, 26 April at Sinéad Gleeson in the Town Hall Theatre on Thursday, 27 Hall Theatre on Friday, 28 April at 8.30pm. For more information see page 19. 6.30pm. For more information see page 16. April at 6.30pm. For more information see page 21. information see page 31. To book email: [email protected] Alan McMonagle will read on the Début Panel in the Pete Mullineaux will read with William Wall and Mark Theresa Muñoz and Jacob Polley will read with Stephen Town Hall Theatre on Friday, 28 April at 3.00pm. For Wagenaar in the Town Hall Theatre on Friday, 28 April at Burt in An Taibhdhearc on Saturday, 29 April at 6.30pm. more information see page 29. 1.00pm. For more information see page 28. For more information see page 41.

A 20 minute pop-up event will take place in Galway City Library, St Augustine Street with Miquel Barceló & Mary O’Malley on Friday, 28 April at 2.00pm.

56 57 Plaque Unveilings O’LEARYINSURANCE GROUP Liosban Business Park, Tuam Road, Galway. For many years now Cúirt, in conjunction with Kenny’s Bookshop O’LEARYINSURANCE GROUP and Galway City Council, has unveiled plaques around Galway. 091 778677 These plaques are all linked to writing about Galway and are cast [email protected] Business Park, Tuam Road, Galway. onto bronze or carved into stone, providing a literary trail for Cúirt International Festival of Literature visitors and locals. 091 778677 This year two plaques will be unveiled: For [email protected] of Mind

Tuesday April 25th at 4 pm. Corner of Grattan Road and the new prom. Call O'Learys Today The One-Armed Crucifixion by Paul Durcan, with an illustration by John Behan. For Peace of Mind Wednesday April 26th at 1pm. Junction of Threadneedle Road and the prom. Call O'Learys Today O’LEARYINSURANCE GROUP Liosban Business Park, Tuam Road, Galway. 091 778677 Poetry Ireland & [email protected] For Peace of Mind Cúirt Bursary www.olearyinsurances.ie/galway O’LearyCall Insurances O'Learys (Galway) Limited is regulated by the CentralToday Bank of Ireland

Once again, Poetry Ireland and Cúirt are delighted to offer an emerging younger poet the opportunity to visit the festival and immerse themselves in the poetry programme. The bursary includes tickets to all events and workshops, accommodation for 5 nights, travel costs to Galway and a per diem. Applications are invited from those aged 35 or under who are based on the island of Ireland. www.olearyinsurances.ie/galway To apply please send a short expression of interest statement (no more than a page), outlining why your work would benefit from this support to [email protected] by O’Leary Insurances (Galway) Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland 5.00pm on Friday 31 March.

For full details please see www.poetryireland.ie or www.cuirt.ie.

www.olearyinsurances.ie/galway O’Leary Insurances (Galway) Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland

58 THE CORNSTORE, MIDDLE STREET, GALWAY.

TEL: 091-561766

www.charliebyrne.com [email protected] Sun 23 April Mon 24 April Tue 25 April Wed 26 April Thu 27 April Fri 28 April Sat 29 April Sun 30 April

Official Opening Cúirt Labs as Gaeilge Cúirt Labs Junior Cúirt Labs Junior Cúirt Labs Cúirt Labs Senior Cúirt Labs 12-18 yrs Crime Workshop: Hotel Meyrick / Galway Arts Centre / Galway Arts Centre / Galway Arts Centre / Galway Arts Centre / Galway Arts Centre / Galway Arts Centre / Sophie Hannah 7.00pm 9.30am-12.45pm 9.30am-12.30pm 9.30am-12.30pm 9.30am-12.30pm 9.30am-12.30pm 9.30am-4.30pm Hotel Meyrick / 11.00am

Cúirt Labs post-primary Found in Translation: Pop-up Literature Poetry workshop: Martina Evans Fiction Workshop: Claire-Louise Bennett & Writing for YA Workshop: Galway Arts Centre / Legacy of Michel Déon Hewlett Packard Enterprise / Hotel Meyrick / Jami Attenberg Mia Gallagher Claire Hennessy 1.00pm NUI Galway / 9.30am 11.00am 10.00am Hotel Meyrick / 10.00am Town Hall Theatre / 12.00pm Hotel Meyrick / 11.00am

Anne Kennedy Writers’ Salon Pop-up Literature Reading & Discussion with Pop-up Literature Pop-up Literature Songs from a room: My Fellow Bardic Brunch Nun’s Island Theatre / Bell, Book and Candle / Michael Winter Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop / McDonagh’s Fish & Chip shop / Sponges The King’s Head / 2.00pm 11.00am Ballybane Library / 11.00am 11.00am 12.00pm The King’s Head / 1.00pm 12.00pm

In Person: World Poets Book Launch: Horseman, Pass by! Kitchen Reading with Lindsay J. Sedgwick on Launch: Poems for Patience, An Focal: Grá Sara Baume, Jenni Fagan & Nun’s Island Theatre / by Michel Déon Alan McMonagle & Kerrie O’Brien Writing for TV & Film Yrsa Daley Ward An Taibhdhearc / Paul Kingsnorth 5.30pm Aula Maxima, NUI Galway / 2.00pm Tuam / 12.00pm GMIT CCAM / 12.30pm University College Hospital / 11.00am 2.00pm Nun’s Island Theatre / 2.00pm www.cuirt.ie Cúirt International Festival of Literature Book Launch: Song of Songs: Pop-up Literature Kitchen Reading with Cheryl Lu-Lien Cúirt Labs post-primary Kitchen Reading: Damon Galgut, Dermot Healy: Writing The Sky Fermata 2.0 by Kevin Higgins The Dough Bros / Tan & Pete Mullineaux Galway Arts Centre / Theresa Muñoz & Jacob Polley Town Hall Theatre / Nun’s Island Theatre / The House Hotel / 7.30pm 3.00pm Ballinasloe / 12.00pm 1.00pm Galway City / 12.00pm 2.00pm 4.00pm

Seisiún na Cúirte Film: The Purple Taxi Little John Nee Plaque Unveiling Songs from a room: Sive Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, writing on Food Claire Hennessy, Shirley Anne Far From Literature Seán Tyrrell An Taibhdhearc / Threadneedle Road / The King’s Head / GMIT Library, Old Dublin Road / McMillan & Dave Rudden We Were Reared The Crane Bar / 8.00pm 4.00pm 1.00pm 1.00pm 1.00pm Nun’s Island Theatre / 4.00pm Róisín Dubh / 8.00pm

Fruition by Fregoli Pop-up Literature Pop-up Literature Merlin Coverley & Michael Winter Song from a room: Jay Griffiths, Richard Hamblyn Evening with William McCarthy Nun’s Island Theatre / Sonny Molloy’s / Sheridans Cheesemongers / Town Hall Theatre / Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola & Gaia Vince Loam / 8.30pm 4.00pm 3.00pm 1.00pm The King’s Head / 1.00pm An Taibhdhearc / 4.30pm 8.00pm

Paul Durcan Plaque Unveiling Cúirt/ Over the Edge Screenwriting workshop: Pete Mullineaux, Mark Wagenaar An Interview with Rick O’Shea Grattan Road / New Writing Showcase Lyndsay Sedgwick & William Wall Town Hall Theatre / 4.00pm Town Hall Theatre / 3.00pm GMIT CCAM / 1.30pm Town Hall Theatre / 1.00pm 5.00pm

Book Launch: Rise by Joyce’s letters to Nora Pop-up Literature Pop-up Literature City Lit Talks Back . Elaine Feeney Tigh Nora, Cross Street / Galway University Hospital / Galway City Library / Róisín Dubh / Bite Club / 6.00pm 3.00pm 2.00pm 2.00pm 6.00pm

Placing the Word Exhibition Pop-up Literature Joyce’s letters to Nora Debut Panel Sophie Hannah & Denise Mina Black Gate Cultural Centre / Dock 1 Seafood Bar & Restaurant / Tigh Nora, Cross Street / Town Hall Theatre / Town Hall Theatre / 7.00pm 4.00pm 3.00pm 3.00pm 6.30pm

Book Launch Launch: ROPES Pop-up Literature Joyce’s letters to Nora Abridged Calasanctius College, Oranmore / Town Hall Theatre / Tigh Neachtain / Tigh Nora, Cross Street / An Taibhdhearc / 7.00pm 5.00pm 4.00pm 3.00pm 6.30pm

The Sacrificial Wind Persona Oisín Fagan & Ross Raisin Pop-up Literature Consensual Town Hall Studio / Nun’s Island Theatre / Galway Arts Centre / The Quay’s Pub / Nun’s Island Theatre / 8.00pm 6.00pm 5.00 4.00pm 8.00pm

Frédéric Vitoux David Butler, Yrsa Daley-Ward & Persona Digital Literature and Art: Simon Armitage & An Taibhdhearc / Kerrie O’Brien Nun’s Island Theatre / Interface as Creative Device Terrance Hayes 8.00pm Town Hall Theatre / 6.30pm 6.00pm Galway Arts Centre / 5.00pm Town Hall Theatre / 8.30pm

Consensual The Sacrificial Wind Sports Writing Workshop: Persona Festival Club Nun’s Island Theatre / Town Hall Studio / Gerard Siggins Nun’s Island Theatre / Hotel Meyrick / 8.00pm 8.00pm Hotel Meyrick / 6.00pm 6.00pm 10.00pm

Consensual Jami Attenberg, Sinéad Gleeson AL Kennedy & Conor O’Callaghan Nun’s Island Theatre / & Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan Town Hall Theatre / 8.00pm Town Hall Theatre / 6.30pm 6.30pm

Martina Evans, Vona Groarke Spoken Word Platform The Sacrificial Wind & Mary O’Malley The King’s Head / Town Hall Studio / Booking Information Town Hall Theatre / 8.30pm 6.30pm 8.00pm Cúirt Book online at: Ó Íochtar Mara – Saothar Chaitlín Consensual www.cuirt.ie or www.tht.ie Maude Ionad Cultúrtha an Nun’s Island Theatre / Phiarsaigh / 7.00pm 8.00pm Day Box Office The Sacrificial Wind Damon Galgut & Eimear McBride Town Hall Studio / Town Hall Theatre / Town Hall Theatre, Courthouse Square by 8.00pm 8.30pm Galway, Ireland Consensual Elaine Feeney & Josh Idehen 00353 (0) 91 569777 Nun’s Island Theatre / Róisín Dubh / Day 8.00pm 10.00pm Venues River Corrib

Hotel Meyrick 1 St. Bridgets Place 13 4

Galway Arts Centre 2

Nun’s Island Theatre 3 7 8 8 Bothar Na Mbhan An Taibhdhearc 4 Headford Road

Town Hall Theatre 5

The King’s Head 6 5

Cúirt International Festival of Literature 7 www.cuirt.ie University College Hospital Woodquay

St. Francis St. NUI Galway 8

15 The Crane 9 Galway Eyre St. Cathedral The House Hotel 10 Fairgreen Rd.

Ionad Cultúir an Phiarsaigh, Rosmuc 11 Eglinton St. Eyre Forster St. Róisín Dubh 12 Square Abbeygate St. Upper 16 Station Rd. 13 Cluain Mhuire, GMIT 1

GMIT Dublin Road 14 William St. Bus Eireann Ceannt Train Station

Bowling Green Loam, Fairgreen Road 15

Nuns Island Market St. Bite Club 16 Pop-up Venues Shop St. 2 3 6 5 4 Bell, Book & Candle, Small Crane 1 Middle St. New Rd. Queen St. Mill St. Mainguard St. 7 The Dough Bros, Upper Abbeygate Street 2 3 High St. Bridge St. 11 Druids Sonny Molloy’s, High Street 3 Lane Henry St. 9 Dock Rd. St. Augustine St.

R336 Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Ballybrit Business Park 4

10 Quay12 St. 2 Merchants Rd. Sheridans Cheesemongers, Church Yard St. 5 Canal

Flood St. Dock 1 Seafood Bar & Restaurant, Dock Road 6 Lwr Dominick St. 10 Spanish Parade Dock Rd. Upr Dominick12 St. Spanish Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Cornstore Mall 7 New St. W. The Docks 1 Arch 6 9 William St. W. Galway University Hospital, Newcastle Road 8

Tigh Neachtain, Cross Street 9 Father Griffin Rd. McDonagh’s Fish & Chip Shop, Quay Street 10 Munster Ave. Sea Rd. The Long Walk Galway City Library, St Augustine St. 11

The Quays, Quay St. 12 River Corrib 64 65 Business Partners

Cúirt Staff Cúirt would like to thank Producer: Páraic Breathnach the following people for Programmer: Maeve Mulrennan their help and support: Manager: Tara O’Connor Programme Coordinator: Karen Arnold The Arts Council of Ireland, Galway City Council, Galway Cúirt International Festival of Literature County Council, the board of Galway Arts Centre, www.cuirt.ie Operations Manager: Fiona Hession the staff of the Town Hall Theatre, the staff of An Publicist: Heather Mackey Taibhdhearc, the staff of Charlie Byrne’s bookshop, and this year’s reading panel. Social Media Manager: Jill Murray Peter Rabbitt, Siobhán Arkins, Emer Donoghue, Production Manager: Derval Byrne Elizebeth Keane, Bernie Kelly, Kieran Shaughnessy, Volunteer Coordinator: Siobhán Singleton Josephine Vahey, and the staff of Galway city and county libraries. Accounts: Sinéad Wynne Cúirt Labs: Órla O’Donoghue Jane Conroy and Catherine Gagneux with the support of the French Embassy in Ireland and NUI Galway for Photographer: Boyd Challenger programming events paying tribute to Michel Déon on Cúirt Website: Heaventree Design Tuesday, 25 April.

Graphic Design: Pure Designs Majella Ní Chríocháin and all at Oireachtas na Gaeilge for collaborating with Cúirt on this year’s Irish language Cover Design: Marielle MacLeman programme. Production Crew: Richard Brennan, Denis Browne, Pat We would also like to thank the International Festival Coleman, Anthony Eggitt, Paul Flaherty, David Joyce of Authors and the Canadian Embassy, the American Box Office: Seóna Ní Chonghaile (Manager), Eoin Butler Embassy in Ireland, James C. Harrold, Margaret Flannery, Biggley Byrne, Rob Gaughan, Jimmy McGuire, Thornton, Marie Folan, Jack Gibbons, Conor Kennedy Jim Fennell, Chris Coughlan, John Mannion, Paul Burke, Annie McMahon, Emer McMahon, Jill Murray, Grealish, Ollie Jennings, our interns and our volunteers. Aoife Noone, Finian O’Gorman, Seóna Tully Galway Arts Centre: Judith Bernhardt, Ailbhe Feeney, Andrew Flynn, Mattie Hynes, Victoria Juhasz, Clíona Ryan, Barbara Wojtyra, Eoghain Wynne Cúirt Reading Panel: Karen Arnold, Neil Astley, Derval Byrne, James C. Harrold, Gregory McCartney, David Muñoz Galway Arts Centre Board of Directors: Craig Steven (Chair), Vinny Browne, Michael Burke, Siobhán Calpin, Gerard Hanberry, Louise Manifold, Lillis O’Laoire, Imelda Tierney

66 67 www.cuirt.ie