Irish neurologist on £30,000 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist

A Dublin neurologist is among six authors shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2016. Celebrating the best new books that engage with medicine, health or illness, the prize is worth £30,000.

Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant neurologist from Shankill, has been nominated for her acclaimed account of psychosomatic illness, It’s All in Your Head (Chatto & Windus). The book charts O’Sullivan’s experience over 20 years of the conditions that exist in the space between psychological and physical illness.

The aftermath of a debilitating accident and a female medic's pioneering attempts in Victorian London are among the subjects of the other nominated titles, which include two works of fiction. The shortlisted titles are: The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink; Amy Liptrot's addiction memoir The Outrun, reviewed here by The Irish Times; Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss; Playthings by Alex Pheby, the fictional retelling of a schizophrenic Austrian judge reviewed here by the Irish Times; and Steve Silberman's study of autism, Neurotribes. The winner of the Wellcome will be announced on Monday, April 25th.

A month in the country

The publishers of The Moth, the Cavan based international arts and literature magazine, are inviting artists worldwide to enter the new Moth Art Prize. Consisting of a month-long retreat at their newly renovated barn in Cavan, the prize is open to anyone over the age of 18, professional or amateur, as long as the work is original, 2D and figurative or representational in style. A stipend of €1,000 is included in the prize, to aid with travel and costs.

The Moth has featured work by the likes of Billy Childish, Cesar Santos, Michael Carson and Lu Cong. Entries are €20 and should include five - ten images. The closing date is May 1st, with the winner notified by June 1st. More information on submissions can be found at www.themothmagazine.com, mothartprize@themothmagazine.com or +353 (0)49 9522995.

Gutter book launches

Henrietta McKervey will launch her second novel The Heart of Everything at the Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar on Wednesday, March 16th from 6.30pm. With a plot centred on the effect senior dementia has on the sufferer and loved ones, a recent review in The Irish Times described McKervey as “a novelist in the early stages of her career, brimming over with promise. She has wit, imagination, and an understanding of human beings, which are the hallmark of the true novelist.” Caroline Barry’s The Dolocher, billed as an Irish Jack the Ripper tale, launches on Wednesday, March 23rd, while crime fiction fans await the return of Charlie Parker in John Connolly’s latest thriller A Time of Torment, launching on Tuesday, March 29th.

Banshee II

The second issue of Banshee literary journal launches on Wednesday, March 16th in Hodges Figgis, Dawson Street at 6pm. Priced at €10, the issue features fiction from Jan Carson, Ruth Gilligan, Andrew Meehan, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Vanessa Baker-Murray, Sarah Maria Griffin and Lucy Sweeney Byrne. Non-fiction, flash fiction, poetry from Afric McGlinchey and others, and an interview with the author Paul Murray offer plenty of variety for readers. Edited by Claire Hennessy, Laura Jane Cassidy and Eimear Ryan, the magazine publishes twice a year. “There’ll be readings from a handful of our brilliant contributors,” according to the editors, “and also lashings of wine.”

Irish poetry at UCC

The British literary critic and scholar Christopher Ricks visits UCC this month to give a lecture entitled Interrogatives: Three Irish Poets, WB Yeats, Greg Delanty and Patrick Kavanagh. Hosted by the school of English, the lecture takes place on Monday, March 21st at the Creative Zone, Boole Library from 6pm. It will be followed by a reading by the Cork poet, Greg Delanty.

Shortlist for €10,000 poetry prize

Five poets are on the shortlist for this year’s Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize, which awards €10,000 for a single unpublished poem. In association with The Moth magazine, this year’s prize was judged by Billy Collins, described as the most popular poet in America by the New York Times.

The shortlist of poets includes a former ballerina from Toronto who used to interview celebrities about their pets, an Oxford University Newdigate prize-winner who was invited for an interview by M16, an Irishman living in Brooklyn, and a former toymaker who is now Poet in Residence at the National Videogame Arcade in London.

The shortlisted poems – Natalya Anderson’s Dance Therapy, James Leader’s Phoebe and the Troopship, David McLoghlin’s Tom Crean Sings Sean-nós at the Tiller in the Southern Ocean and Abigail Parry’s Arterial – appear in the spring issue of The Moth, published last week.

Duanta Damnaithe

Ireland’s storytelling tradition, poetry commemorating 1916 and a tribute to The Pogues are among the events hosted by Imram this month. The Irish language organisation’s March programme features writers, poets and musicians such as Liam Ó Maonlaí, Sinéad Ní Uallacháin, Alan Titley and Gabriel Rosenstock. Poetry of the 1916 Rising takes place on Monday, March 14th in McGrattan’s Pub in Dublin 2 from 7.30pm, while Duanta Damnaithe, Songs of the Damned: The Pogues Project is on at Grand Social on the Quays on Saturday, March 19th from 8pm. More information at www.imream.ie.

Middle Eastern politics

One of the foremost historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Prof Avi Shlaim, will discuss the Israeli-Palestine conflict with the poet Chris Agee on Wednesday, March 16th in the Conor Lecture Theatre, Ulster University Belfast from 7.30pm. The free event is part of the Imagine Belfast Festival, whose full programme can be viewed at www.imaginebelfast.com. Shlaim is an emeritus fellow of St Antony’s College and emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. His books include Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine; The Politics of Partition and Israel; and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. Poet and essayist Chris Agee is the editor of Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry, based in Belfast.

Green Glowing Campus

Gavin Corbett will read will from his latest novel Green Glowing Skull in Trinity College on Thursday, March 31st. The event takes place in the JM Synge Theatre in the Arts Building at 7pm. Introduced by author and Trinity lecturer Deirdre Madden, Corbett will discuss his work as part of his tenure in TCD as Arts Council Irish Writer Fellow for 2016. The event is free, open to the public, and will be followed by a Q&A session.

Le bon mot

John Banville, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Michèle Barrière and Joseph O'Connor are among the speakers at this year's Franco-Irish literary festival. Now in its 17th year, events take place in Dublin Castle on Saturday, April 9th, and in the Alliance Française on Kildare Street on April 8th and 10th. A total of 12 writers will take part in round-table discussions, including one on the poet Francis Ponge, audience Q&As, readings, musical performances and a literary brunch on Sunday morning in the Alliance Française. Two special events for the 2016 programme include a culinary show presented by the French writer and artist Emmanuel Giraud and a reading with audio-visual and music elements presented by Noëlle Châtelet and Géraldine Laurent. All events are free and open to the public. For more information click here.