Writers en route
Sarah Waters, Melvyn Bragg, MJ Hyland, Anne Michaels, Kate Summerscale, Val McDermid and Steve Toltz are among the writers who will be visiting Ireland in June for the Dublin Writers' Festival, running from June 2nd to 7th. Also on the bill is British novelist Julie Myerson whose non-fiction book, The Lost Child: A True Story, about how she put her 17-year-old son out of the family home because of his use of skunk cannabis, touched raw nerves. When it came out earlier this year it outraged some but was commended by others. She's paired at the festival with William Fiennes, above, whose new memoir The Music Roomdwells on life in a magical setting – an English castle – but one that is overshadowed by his brother's severe epilepsy and early death. Their event is at the Project Arts Centre on June 6th at 4pm and Niall MacMonagle will chair. Liberty Hall is the venue on June 3rd at 8.15pm for an interview conducted by Fintan O'Toole with historian Simon Schama who, say the organisers, will be sharing his vision of the US at this pivotal moment, the subject of his TV series and book The American Future: a History. The metropolitan sensibility pervading two darkly satirical novels is the link made between The Believersby Zoe Heller, above, and Geoff Dyer's Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; they'll take part in a discussion, chaired by Helen Meany, at the Project Arts Centre on June 5th at 6pm.
The cast of Irish writers includes Seamus Heaney, Paula Meehan, Leanne O'Sullivan, Claire Kilroy and Christine Dwyer Hickey. Colm Tóibín will discuss his new novel Brooklyn– reviewed on W11 – with Brendan Barrington at the Project Arts Centre on June 5th at 8pm.
The question of what it's like to be a debut novelist will be thrashed over by three Irish writers who've recently made their first forays into fiction in the Project Arts Centre on June 3rd at 6pm; Ed O'Loughlin with Not Untrue and Not Unkind; Aifric Campbell with The Semantics of Murderand Peter Murphy with John the Revelator.
Details of the festival will be on dublinwritersfestival.com from Wednesday April 29th.
Legally compassionate
Irish poets Dennis O'Driscoll and John O'Donnell and US poet Jane Hirshfield will read at the James Joyce House, 15 Ushers Quay, Dublin, tomorrow at 7pm to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the independent legal rights organisation, FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres). Appropriately, the poets have connections to law and to justice. O'Driscoll studied law at UCD and his poetry has been described as seeking to "give a voice to the language of law and commerce" while Hirshfield has written several poems with justice as a central theme including Justice without Passion, explaining later that it was inspired by a hope that in the word "passion" readers might also hear the word "compassion."
Lawyer John O’Donnell is a senior counsel.
Bryce to judge award
Irish poet Colette Bryce was named this week by The Poetry Book Society as one of the judges for the 2009 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry. Simon Armitage and Penelope Shuttle are the other judges .They will meet in October to decide on a ten-book shortlist. The winner of the £15,000 prize will be announced on Monday, January 18th, 2010.
Hello Heartbreak
Some might think that being known the breadth of the land through her role in RTE's The Clinicas well as being engaged to the nation's rugby captain Brian O'Driscoll was enough to be going on with – but not actor Amy Huberman. In July Penguin Ireland will publish her debut novel. While Huberman is about to enter a fairytale marriage things may not however be so rosy for her fictitious characters; the novel is called Hello Heartbreak.