Now in its seventh year, the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2018 will be launched next Thursday, April 13th, at 7pm at 19 Parnell Square, Dublin. Having generated more than 10 publishing deals in the last eight years, the fair has been described by The Irish Times as "a Dragons' Den for writers". Introducing up-and-coming writers to publishers and literary agents, it gives first-time novelists the opportunity to bypass the slush pile, pitch their ideas and place their synopsis and sample chapters directly into the hands of publishers and agents. The event will feature talks by author and former Novel Fair winner Andrea Carter; Dan Bolger, commissioning editor of New Island Books; and author and columnist Martina Devlin, who sat on last year's Novel Fair judging panel. Carter, a qualified barrister and solicitor, was selected as a finalist for Novel Fair 2013 and went on to publish her Death at Whitewater Church and Treacherous Strand (Constable & Robinson), the first two in a series of mysteries set on the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal. Her third novel, The Well of Ice, is due out in October. This event marks the beginning of the Novel Fair 2018 submissions period, which will remain open until October 20th, with the fair itself taking place next February.
Created last year by the 20 embassies (including Estonia, Egypt and Greece – who knew?) of the International Organisation of La Francophonie represented in Ireland, the Prix Littéraire des Ambassadeurs de la Francophonie en Irlande – Ireland Francophonie Ambassadors' Literary Award is awarded to an Irish writer recently translated into French, in partnership with Literature Ireland and the Alliance Française.
The shortlisted authors are Edna O’Brien for Les petites chaises rouges (The Little Red Chairs) translated by Aude de Saint-Loup and Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat; Dermot Bolger for Ensemble séparés (Tanglewood), translated by Marie-Hélène Dumas; Michèle Forbes, Phalène fantôme (Ghost Moth), translated by Anouk Neuhoff; Paul Murray for La Marque et le Vide (The Mark and the Void), translated by Chloé Royer; Joseph O’Connor for Maintenant ou jamais (The Thrill of It All), translated by Carine Chichereau; and Colm Tóibín for Nora Webster, translated by Anna Gibson.
The winning author will be awarded a €1,500 prize. The translator will receive three weeks’ training with Literature Ireland.
To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of George Russell (AE), Ireland's Ambassador to Britain, Dan Mulhall, will give a free public lecture entitled George Russell (AE): Literary Witness to Irish History at 7pm on Monday, April 10th, at the National Library of Ireland. Mulhall, who has maintained a long-term interest in AE's life and work, will explore the career of the poet, painter, mystic and public figure and assess AE's contribution to the shaping of modern Ireland, as a cultural nationalist, an advocate of agricultural co-operation and an editor of two influential journals. nli.ie.
Limerick Writers' Centre presents On Raglan Road – Great Irish Love Songs and the Women Who Inspired Them with Gerard Hanberry at Limerick City Library, the Granary, Michael Street, next Thursday, April 13th, at 7.30pm. Hanberry will give a talk on the fascinating women who inspired some of Ireland's great poems and songs based on his recent publication. Poems explored will include work by Patrick Kavanagh, WB Yeats, Oscar Wilde and others. A musician as well as a wrtier, he will perform a selection of the songs and read the poems as he weaves the stories of how these great works came to be composed.
Out of the Marvellous, an Atelier Pinton tapestry designed by Peter Sis in memory of Seamus Heaney is to be unveiled on April 20th at 6.30pm at Poetry Ireland, 11 Parnell Square East, Dublin.
