Books

Drawing a Red Line around South Dublin

Mark Ward, producer of the Red Line Book Festival, takes us behind the scenes and deep into the themes guiding this year’s festival

Aifric Mac Aodhha at last year’s Red Line Book Festival

Mark Ward
Thu Oct 3 2019 - 05:57

Programming a book festival is, in a lot of ways, a dream job. With my team, I get to create events from scratch, put interesting writers together and highlight the very best in local, national and international writing. This is done in a not very glamorous but effective way – we have a giant sheet of paper on which we have lots of Post-Its with names that we move around. That is the festival, at least until it starts for real, as it will from October 7th to 13th.

When I and my team started this job, we were handed a history, but also a blank slate, and we set out to create a festival that reflected the area it was in: South Dublin County. It is a very diverse county with over 80 nationalities and over a quarter of a million inhabitants, so we wanted to shake things up a bit.

We put in some new themes, such as Digital Worlds – our strand dealing with not only books (we still are a book festival) but also the world of the internet, social media and technology, which includes the second year of Internet Famous, an event where comedian Alison Spittle chats with Irish authors about the world of the internet. This year she will be chatting to Colm O’Regan (Ann Devine: Ready For Her Close Up), cartoonist Twisteddoodles (The Newborn Identity), podcaster Liam Geraghty (Meet Your Maker) and novelist Sophie White (Filter This).

Cllr Charlie O’Connor and comedian Alison Spittle, who will chat with Irish authors about the world of the internet

Also Jack Fennell will visit the Red Line to talk about his collection of Irish science fiction, A Brilliant Void. We have built out and built up older themes, such as Poetic Licence – a whole strand dedicated to poetry. Finally, a first for this year, we have engaged a writer-in-residence, the acclaimed novelist Lisa Harding (Harvesting) to work with the local community on the theme of Looking Up, culminating in a showcase at the festival.

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People often asks what makes the Red Line Book Festival unique? Well, for one, it’s a book festival in South Dublin County, bringing writers to the county’s doorstep but we also have a strand called the Signature Series that features our best and brightest. This year it includes: a short story panel called The Beauty of Brevity featuring some of Ireland’s best writers of the form, such as Lucy Sweeney Byrne (Paris Syndrome), Tanya Farrelly (When the Black Dogs Sing) and Mia Gallagher (Shift); acclaimed novelist, memoirist and playwright Hugo Hamilton, in conversation with Liam Geraghty; Peadar Ó Caomhánaigh, co-host of the Motherfoclóir podcast, will be hosting Gaeilge: Anseo agus Anois and joined by Úna-Minh Caomhánach, Garry Bannister and Ciara Nic É; there will be an evening with Christine Dwyer-Hickey, whose novel Tatty has just been announced as the 2020 Dublin One City, One Book; two of Ireland’s leading literary lights, Joseph O’Connor (Shadowplay) and Kevin Barry (Night Boat to Tangier) in conversation with Rick O’Shea; and Laureate for Irish Fiction Sebastian Barry in conversation with Dermot Bolger.

As mentioned earlier, we like to mix things up here at the Red Line, so we also have a beautiful event in Rathfarnham Castle called Silken Thomas: The Making of a Modern Opera, and we are closing this year’s festival with an event called Dublin Marathon – 40 Years Running, celebrating publication of a new book by O’Brien Press, with author Sean McGoldrick and luminaries from the world of Irish running such as Jim Aughney, Dick Hooper and Mary Nolan Hickey.

This year we have a new strand called Changing Ideas featuring courageous writers, artists and thinkers: people like Laura Dodsworth, photographer and writer who deals with formerly taboo subjects like human bodies and genitalia; internationally acclaimed and controversial artist Franko B in conversation with local artist and activist, Will St Leger; and events like Writing Human Rights, which brings together writers on a new anthology about the stories of women human rights defenders.

We’ve always sought to encourage and champion debut writers, and this year we feature them in our Debuts strand, all of whom are living the dream as Irish writers making a splash with their first book. Anne Griffin, author of the phenomenon, When All is Said, will be in conversation with Catherine Dunne; historical novelist and author of The Emerald Dress, Vivienne Kearns, in conversation with writer and local legend Eileen Casey; and rounding out this strand is our Daring Debuts panel featuring Sarah Davis-Goff (Last Ones Left Alive), Kealan Ryan (The Middle Place) and Eoghan Smith (The Failing Heart).

This encouragement of new writers continues with our well-established Red Line Book Festival poetry competition and our short story competition, in conjunction with TU Dublin, both of which will have their gala awards during the festival, as well as hosting a bilingual edition of the Irish Writers Centre’s Takin The Mic.

Speaking of poetry, we have a whole host of events: leading Irish poetry publishers from Salmon Poetry, Doire Press and Gallery Press will be in conversation on How to Get Ahead in Poetry; Northern Irish collective, Abridged, will be presenting their happening Changeling; local writer Michael J Whelan will be launching his highly anticipated second collection, Rules of Engagement; and we are very excited to host national treasure, Kathleen Watkins, who will be discussing her anthology The Ordinary Women and Other Poems I Love with Dermot Bolger.

However, the encouragement of new writers doesn’t stop there, as we have a programme of writing workshops called Tools of the Trade which features workshops from Dave Lordan, Doreen Finn, Anne Tannam and Angela T Carr.

Finally, being librarians, we’re always seeking to encourage the next generation of readers and writers and have a huge programme of events for schools and families. Launching that programme is a #WeAreThePoets event with Laureate na nÓg Sarah Crossan, Colm Keegan and Natalya O’Flaherty, and many, many more events.

And all of this from one giant sheet of paper and some Post-Its! We look forward to seeing you there.
The Red Line book festival is an initiative of South Dublin County Council. Held in October each year across South County Dublin, it provides a programme of events and workshops that appeals to people of all ages and interests, from children to adults, casual readers to bookworms. The 2019 festival runs October 7th - 13th. For more information and ticket booking please visit redlinebookfestival.ie