John O’Donnell wins RTÉ Short Story Competition

In The Irish Times tomorrow, Alice McDermott talks to Edel Coffey about her new novel, Absolution. Michael Connelly discusses his new thriller, Resurrection Walk. James O’Brien talks to Mark Hennessy about his new book, How They Broke Britain. Finola O’Kane, author of Landscape Design and Revolution in Ireland and the United States, 1688-1815, writes about the Irish signatory to the US constitution who was also a slaveowner.

Reviews are Kevin Power on A Memoir of My Writing Life: A Life in Writing by Hilary Mantel; Niamh Jiménez on Madhouse by PJ Gallagher; Donald Clarke on Making it So by Patrick Stewart; Rónán Hession on the best new translations; Lucie Shelly on Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward; Aimée Walsh on Penelope Unbound by Mary Morrissy; Eoin Ó Broin on Who Really Owns Ireland by Matt Cooper; Brian Maye on The Lamplighters of the Phoenix Park by Donal Fallon; Sophie Hannah on Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger; Kate Demolder on The Woman in Me by Britney Spears; Edel Coffey on The Caretaker by Ron Rash; Tom Conaghan on The Coiled Serpent by Camilla Grudova; and Oliver Farry on Michael Lewis, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.

This week’s Irish Times Eason offer is The Mystery of Four by Sam Blake, just €5.99 with your newspaper tomorrow, a €5 saving.

John O’Donnell has won the RTÉ Short Story Competition 2023 for his story Mr Ho.

O’Donnell is a barrister, appointed senior counsel in 2001, as well as being a poet and an author and his story is based on a famous case.

“Mr Hoo is loosely based on a real case,” O’Donnell said. “I still remember the late Professor Nial Osborough recounting the grisly facts to us in First Year Criminal Law. As a kid, the need to belong is overpowering; you’ll do nothing your parents ask of you, but you’ll do anything for your friends.”

O’Donnell has also won the Irish National Poetry Prize, and the New Irish Writing Awards for Poetry and Fiction. He has published five poetry collections. His short story collection Almost the Same Blue was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Rainbow Baby, a play for radio, was broadcast on RTE’s Drama On One and won a prize at the New York Festivals Radio Awards.

Seán Hewitt has been shortlisted for the Polari Prize for his memoir All Down Darkness Wide. The UK’s only dedicated awards for LGBTQ+ literature was founded by author and activist Paul Burston in 2011 and the winners ceremony will take place on November 24th at the British Library in London.

Hewitt lectures in English literature at Trinity College Dublin and previously won an Eric Gregory Award in 2019. His debut collection of poems, Tongues of Fire, won The Laurel Prize in 2021. He was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022.

The other titles on the 2023 Polari Book Prize (non-debut) shorltist are Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield; Here Again Now by Okechukwu Nzelu; Fire Island by Jack Parlett; Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart; and The Schoolhouse by Sophie Ward.

The books shortlisted for the 2023 Polari First Book Prize are: None of the Above by Travis Alabanza ; Rising of the Black Sheep by Livia Kojo Alour; The New Life by Tom Crewe; A Visible Man by Edward Enninful; Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder; and The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom.

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Storytellers from the US and Ireland, legendary singer/songwriter John Spillane, Banshee of Inisherin star Sheila Flitton in her award-winning play ‘Beezie’, The Story Swap Sessions and The Young Tellers Concert are just some of the delights awaiting you at the Sneem International Storytelling & Folklore Festival which takes place in the village of Sneem in south Kerry from November 10th to 12th.

All featured tellers including USA’s Len Cabral, seanchaí and folk singer Helena Byrne, Cork based Paddy O’Brien and Sneem local Killian Burns are lining out at Friday night’s storytelling concert along with Spillane.

Saturday night will see accomplished actor and playwright Sheila Flitton perform her award winning one-woman play ‘Beezie’ about Beezie Gallagher and her experience as the sole resident of an island in Lough Gill, Co Sligo for over 60 years sneemstorytellingfestival.com

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Out of Office Notification by Mark Fiddes has won the Westival competition judged by Geraldine Mitchell.