Sunday 3 to Saturday 9 July

Hello,

This year, the West Cork Literary Festival will feature the work of new writers, well-established writers and dead writers. During a celebration of literature, it seems appropriate to include those who have gone before, and left such great works, so we will open the festival with a fundraising event at which a number of special guests will read from their favourite dead authors. Throughout the week also, authors long-gone will pop up during events and readings – look out for Beckett, Yeats, Joseph Conrad, Pablo Neruda, and even the first novel of a writer no longer with us.

As for living authors – plenty of those too. We will be featuring writers from America, Australia, Britain, Russia and Libya; authors as old as 14 and as young as 82; student writers fresh off-the-blocks (two anthologies will be launched during the week) will have breakfast alongside authors with so many awards that we don’t have space in the programme to list them all. And we’re particularly delighted that some of last year’s guests have decided to return to Bantry – and stay a bit longer this time,) we must have done something right (in spite of running during the wettest July in sixty years – and most of that fell during the festival, I’m convinced!) Our creative writing workshops will be led by a truly dazzling dozen of wordsmiths – so whether your interest is poetry, memoir, travel, fact or fiction, do sign up soon.

We are very much looking forward to working with the Faber Academy Dublin, RTE’s Sunday Miscellany and IMRAM, who have co-sponsored their events, and I would personally like to acknowledge and thank those who have, in different ways, invested in this festival and its future.

Once again I would also like to thank the Arts Council, Cork County Library & Arts Service, and Failte Ireland for their continued support. The library readings always run smoothly thanks to the hard work and dedication of Noel O’Mahony and his wonderful staff; the Maritime Hotel, and many other businesses in Bantry, take excellent care of our artists, guests and visitors, for which we are most grateful. Warmest thanks also to everyone at West Cork Music, our sponsors, friends and volunteers, all of whom make early July a buzzy, busy and stimulating time to be in West Cork. 

Denyse Woods, Artistic Director