11.00 Morning Reading / Bantry Bookshop /free
PAUL KESTELL
Paul Kestell published his debut novel Viaréggio through Author House in October 2009 to excellent reviews in the Sunday Independent and the Irish World. The novel has featured on RTÉ Radio One and Cork’s 96FM. Paul’s previous works include a radio play, For a few weeks in June, broadcast on RTE and his short story, Ballinglanna, published by Willow Lake press. Paul lives in West Cork and his second novel Wood Point will be published autumn 2011.
11.30 Heritage Walk with Hazel Vickery / free
Assemble outside Bantry Library, Bridge Street
Are you visiting Bantry and interested in finding out more about the history of the town? Take a walk with Hazel Vickery and learn how Bantry developed over the years. The tour will take about an hour and ends at the Library in time for the lunchtime reading.
13.00 Lunchtime Reading / Bantry Library / free
ELENA GHOROKHOVA
Elena Gorokhova will give a presentation based on her bestselling memoir A Mountain of Crumbs.
Elena Gorokhova grew up in Leningrad in a courtyard that became a more accurate emblem for the Soviet life than the ubiquitous hammer and sickle: a crumbling façade with locked doors and overflowing garbage bins behind them. In 1980 she left the USSR for America, a ravaged suitcase on the KGB inspector’s table with twenty kilograms of what used to be her life. She has a Doctorate in Language Education and has taught English, Linguistics and Russian. Her memoir about life in Soviet Russia, A Mountain of Crumbs, was published in 2010 and was Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. She is married and has a daughter.
14.30 Afternoon Event / Maritime Hotel / €18
MASTER CLASS IN SCREENWRITING WITH PETER SHERIDAN
Some of the topics Peter will cover in this masterclass include: where ideas come from; how to flesh out a basic idea into a full script; how to get it down on paper; the importance of rewriting; the importance of having a mentor to evaluate your work; emotional honesty and literary truth. Participants may bring along a short piece of work, or an outline, for discussion.
Peter Sheridan is the recipient of the Rooney Prize for Literature (1977), two Arts Council Bursaries and has been writer-in-residence at the Abbey Theatre. His plays have been performed in London, Los Angeles and New York. His film credits include The Breakfast (winner of the Prix Arte Europe at the Brest Festival, 1998 and a Canadian Rocky at Banff, 1999) and Borstal Boy. His books include, 44: A Dublin Memoir (nominated for an Irish Times Literary Award) and 47 Roses.
14.30 Afternoon Event / Maritime Hotel / €18
Faber Academy Dublin presents:A Panel Discussion with Gillian Slovo, Hugo Hamilton and Lucy Caldwell, and chair Denyse Woods: WHY WRITE? WHAT IS THE POINT OF CREATIVE WRITING?
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” Orwell, Why I Write, 1947.
What drives people to write? Why do they bother?
To celebrate the launch of Faber Academy Dublin’s 2011 creative writing programme, join four writers who have all asked themselves this question and answered it in their own way. At a time when the questions are more often ‘How do I get published?’ or ‘How do I write better?’ we will take a step back and, in a lively, light-hearted discussion, ask a controversial but fundamental question: what’s the point?
Can’t make it? Or didn’t get the chance to have your say? Continue the discussion online using the hashtag #whywrite. Faber Academy tweets at @faberacademy.
Faber Academy was founded in 2008 in London, and has been in Dublin since 2009. 2011 will see its broadest Dublin programme yet, including the six-month ‘Writing A Novel’ course with James Ryan and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, two poetry courses with Paul Perry, and ‘Write a short story in a weekend’ for new fiction writers, led by Carlo Gébler. Courses begin in October 2011, and are held at the wonderful James Joyce Centre in Dublin.
For more information visit www.faberacademy.co.uk or call Ian Ellard on +44 (0)207 927 3827.
14.30 Children’s Event / St. Brendan’s School Hall / €5
A JOINT READING FEATURING SARAH WEBB, LAURA
CASSIDY AND ALAN MURPHY
Come along and hear these great children’s writers read and chat and answer your questions. Suitable for the 7ups!
Laura Jane Cassidy was born in 1986 in Co. Kildare in Ireland and has taken time out from her studies at Trinity College Dublin to complete her teen fiction series. She dislikes when people use the Internet to cheat at table quizzes, but likes when they use it to visit her popular blog, where she talks about book-related matters as well as playlists, fashion and lots of other stuff. Her first teen novel, Angel Kiss, is published by Puffin Ireland.
A native of Dublin, Alan Murphy now lives in Lismore. He possesses a diploma in Fine Art, and over the years has exhibited his paintings and collages in Dublin, Waterford, Sligo and Belfast. Inspired by a stay with his sister and her children, he started writing children’s poems for fun in the early noughties, and hasn’t been able to stop since. The Mona Lisa’s on our Fridge, which was sponsored by the Irish M.E. Trust, was illustrated with the author’s own “eye-catching” collages was reviewed in the Irish Times by Robert Dunbar as one of the best children’s poetry books of 2009. His second book Psychosilly will be published in 2011.
Sarah Webb is the author of the hugely popular Ask Amy Green series for young teens. She has also written nine bestselling novels for adults and the Kids Can Cook series. Sarah visits a different school every Friday to give talks and writing workshops, and also volunteers at Roddy Doyle's Fighting Words creative writing centre. She has been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards and the UK's Queen of Teen Award.
17.00 Afternoon Reading / Bantry Library / free
DAVID MILLER
David Miller will read from his novel Today.
David Miller lives in West London with his wife, the writer Kate Colquhoun, and their two sons. He was born in Edinburgh in 1966 and educated in Canterbury and at Cambridge. He is a director of the literary agency, Rogers, Coleridge & White. Today is his first novel.
‘David Miller’s quiet, subtle novel is not merely a story about Conrad and a tribute to Conrad. It is a Conradian achievement in itself. A wonderful piece of fiction. Moving and revelatory.’ A.N. Wilson.
18.30 – Early Evening Event / St Brendan’s Church / €10
SUNDAY MISCELLANY LIVE IN BANTRY
RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany programme, long-established weekly choice of brand new essays and occasional poetry presented on air by their authors, interspersed with musical interludes, perfectly captures our mood and focus: what is distracting, fascinating and captivating us as well as acknowledging our more personal circumstances and intimate selves.
Join a terrific selection of writers and musicians and be part of this very special live recording of Sunday Miscellany Live in Bantry, hosted by the programme's producer Clíodhna Ní Anluain, for an inimitable hour of words and music.
20.30 Evening Event / Maritime Hotel / €15
AN EVENING with JOHN BANVILLE Introduced by John Boyne
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He worked in journalism from 1969, as a sub-editor on The Irish Press and from 1986 at The Irish Times. He was Literary Editor at the Irish Times from 1988 to 1999. Banville’s first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.
Among the awards John Banville's novels have won are the Allied Irish Banks Fiction Prize, the American-Irish Foundation Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize. In 1989 The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was awarded the first Guinness Peat Aviation Award; in Italian, as La Spiegazione dei Fatti, the book was awarded the 1991 Premio Ennio Flaiano. Ghosts was shortlisted for the Whitbread Fiction Prize 1993, The Untouchable for the same prize in 1997. In 2003 he was awarded the Premio Nonino, and in 2006 the Premio Grinzane—Francesco Biamonti. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea, and was shortlisted for the 2007 International Man Booker Prize.
Under the pen-name Benjamin Black he has written four crime novels. His screen adaptation of his novel The Sea will be filmed in 2012. He will be reading from a work-in-progress.
22.45 Bedtime Story / Maritime Hotel / free
Bedtime story followed by open mike