Category: Writing Festival

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

Fire: New Anthology Cover Reveal

Editors Niamh Boyce and Shauna Gilligan are delighted to reveal the cover for Fire: Brigid and the Sacred Feminine (Arlen House: Dublin, 2024)

Save the date:

Fire: Brigid and the Sacred Feminine an anthology of art and writing (Eds Niamh Boyce and Shauna Gilligan) will be launched at Naas Library and Cultural Centre at 6.45pm on Thursday, 26th September by Lucina Russell, Lecturer in Art & Design Teacher Education, Limerick School of Art. This is part of the Kildare Readers’ Festival 2024. Copies of a special limited edition to celebrate 50 years of Arlen House will be available at the launch only!

We are thrilled to feature “Snakelady” by the brilliant Noël O’Callaghan as the cover art – see more of her work here. Keep posted for more on this exciting new anthology on the themes of Brigid, the Sacred Feminine and the heritage of Kildare.

This anthology  – the result of the Holy Cows Project started by Shauna Gilligan – was made possible with a 2024 Brigid 1500 / Kildare County Council Arts Act Grant.

Writing Festival, Writing Workshops

Writing Workshop: Blackrock Library

These days my teaching and workshop facilitation is within educational institutions so it is wonderful to be working with fellow writer Sara Mullen giving a workshop in a community setting. Join us in Blackrock Library, Tuesday 11th June 6pm – 7.30pm. Max 12 places. To book, email blackrocklib@dlrcoco.ie or Tel (01) 288 8117

Supported by the Creative Ireland Programme and DLR Libraries.

Contemplation, Writing Festival, Writing Life

Dublin Book Festival Event: An Emotional Impact

It’s rare that I get a chance to attend literary events these days so I was really glad that I was able to attend Irish PEN/Pen na hÉireann and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, in association with Dublin City Council event “Culture in a Time of War”.

Screenshot from Dublin Book Festival Website

Three women spoke – individually then together in conversation – about holding culture, identity, literature and art close and tight, and preserving and rebuilding during a time of war. Tetyana Teren and Olha Mukha spoke of volunteers working hard to rebuild libraries, salvage cultural artefacts and preserve a culture that is under attack.

Culture in a Time of War, a packed event, was held in the beautiful Royal Irish Academy building on Dawson Street (Photograph: Shauna Gilligan)

Poet, essayist, and Professor of Cultural Studies Iryna Starovoyt spoke powerfully of how culture is a sensory system which helps us tell evil from good. Culture in and of itself is all-inclusive. Writers not only mirror and tell stories but they preserve the human face of humanity during a time of war, “living on the edge of pain”. Culture, in short, helps build bridges and brings people together.

It struck me, as these writers spoke, that it is not just a time of war, it is war that was and continues to be waged. This event – and the act of attending events like these – feels part of the preservation and restoration of culture and enacted what Iryna spoke about: it brought people together.

What stays with me is the memory of the empty chair on the Royal Irish Academy stage (you can see the chair in the photograph above, on the right of the stage). This empty chair was in memory of writer and Ukrainian rights activist Victoria Amelina, who had accepted an invitation to speak at this very event but who died from injuries suffered in a Russian missile attack in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on 27 June 2023.

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