Category: Contemplation

Book launch, Collaboration, Contemplation, Exhibitions, Writing Festival, Writing Life, Writing News

Launch of FIRE – what a memorable evening!

Contributors and Editors at the launch of FIRE in Naas Library and Cultural Centre (Photo courtesy of Attracta Fahy)
Shauna Gilligan, Editor and Project Lead, Lucina Russell, Lecturer University of Limerick, who launched FIRE and Niamh Boyce, Editor at the launch 26/09/2024.
Image of Noreen Ramsay’s Brigid’s Mantle featured in Fire

Contributors travelled long distances to Kildare – from Cork, Clare, Galway to name a few – in terrible weather to celebrate the coming together of the work but also of the people who contributed, and (most) who were meeting the editors/ fellow artists/ contributors for the first time. Thank you to everyone who travelled to read, to listen, to support. It was – and still is – very much appreciated.

Thank you to my co-editor Niamh Boyce – and good luck to her on her residency in Paris! – and publisher Alan Hayes, Arlen House, a joy to work with.

Thank you to Evelyn and Kevin at Naas Library and Cultural Centre, and to KRF 2024 for the beautiful venue and warm welcome. It was truly a wonderful evening!

Purchasing Details: KENNYS in Ireland (free postage in Ireland) and BLACKWELLS (free worldwide postage)

THANK YOU again to funders, Brigid 1500 and Kildare County Council

Contemplation, Writers Read, Writing Life

On Reading to let writing simmer

I’ve had the fortune of working with some wonderful writers and mentors over the last week or two at The Irish Writers Centre in Dublin. I’m now at the stage where my writing needs to simmer. Writing with feedback. Writing that needs editing. Writing that needs re-writing. It’s always good to have a few projects on the go. Part of this process – for me – is to dive into reading. A few of the books that I’ll be immersing myself in over the next few weeks are pictured below:

  • Fishamble Firsts: An Anthology of First Plays by New Playwrights edited by Jim Culleton (New Island)
  • Good Behaviour by Molly Keane (Virago)
  • This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack (Tramp Press)
  • The Inheritance by Cauvery Madhavan (Hope Road)
  • A Good Enough Mother by Catherine Dunne (Betimes Books)
Contemplation, Exhibitions

Breaking out of writing: inviting art in

There’s always time when breaking a writing practice for browsing, considering, and pottering. This time, Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum in Belfast. From outside to inside – journeys of family and belonging, to community expressions of oppression in murals, to documenting violence, to stretching back through time to love and betrayal.

Exhibition: The Other End of the Rainbow – Kourtney Roy
Botanic Gardens, Belfast (Photo: (c) Shauna Gilligan)
Murals, Memory and Identity at the Ulster Museum
(Photo: (c) Shauna Gilligan)
Caravaggio “The Taking of Christ” at the Ulster Museum
(Photo: (c) Shauna Gilligan)
Threads of Empowerment: Conflict Textiles’ International Journey at The Ulster Museum (Photo: (c) Shauna Gilligan)

Visit:

https://www.belfastphotofestival.com/exhibitions-24

https://www.ulstermuseum.org/