Nuala Ní Chonchúir's Blog, page 23

Poetry Ireland and Cúirt announce bursary

Poetry Ireland, in association with Cúirt International Festival of Literature, is offering an emerging poet aged 35 or under the opportunity to attend all poetry readings, launches and workshops at the festival, which takes place in Galway this year from 21-27 April. The bursary also covers travel and accommodation costs and the deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday 27th March. More here.

OVER 55s WRITING WORKSHOP

I'm facilitating a writing workshop for the over 55s at the National Gallery in Dublin, this Wednesday the 11th at 3pm, as part of the Lines of Vision series of events. Spaces are limited. Contact 01 663 3505 or education@ngi.ie.

LSAD VISIT #3

I had my last visit with the 4th year Visual Communications students at LSAD this week, where they presented their final projects. These students are amazing - I was beyond impressed with their responses to the short stories we worked with. I can't comment or report on all the projects here (there were 30!) and it wasn't possible either to photograph video work, for example. So I will just show a sample (two) for you to see the type of things some students produced.

Lorraine Breen's smoking kitStudent Lorraine Breen worked from Cathy Sweeney's story 'The Story', which appeared in The Stinging Fly, spring 2014. She took the pipe that the main character smokes as inspiration and built a smoking kit around it that represented the secrets and the story-within-a-story in Sweeney's piece.

Text from 'The Story' runs through the box and a secret compartment reveals a vintage photographThe photographs above are Lorraine's own hi-res images. I just took a few pics with my phone (of very few projects, it has to be said - I was too busy marvelling at the quality of the work itself). So, my pics are not great. But here is Lauren Keegan's deck of cards inspired by Claire Louise Bennett's story 'Finishing Touch' (Stinging Fly, winter 2014):

The colour scheme expresses the mood of the story/deck The cards come in a beautiful box bearing a fabric tag with Bennett's nameOther students made, among other things, a tabloid newspaper, a graphic novel, a hardback book, a photo album, videos, and a bottle with an unpeeling, embossed label.

The attention to detail, as you can see from the examples above, was exemplary. Myself and Stinging Fly editor/publisher Declan Meade, who came to view the final results, were blown away by the creativity, the vision, the interpretation and the perfect execution of the projects. Brava to the girls, bravo to the boys. I am in awe of their talent.

CHAPBOOK GIVEAWAY WINNERS

And the winners, as drawn by my lovely assistant, Finn, are:

Mary Lys Carbery - Ann Patchett's chapbook

Rachel Fenton - Mark Forsyth's chapbook

Congrats, dear, ladies.

Please send your addresses to me at nuala AT nualanichonchuir DOT com

PANEL, NEW S/S COMP & MY IRISH TIMES HOMAGE TO MS ENRIGHT

Anne Enright - Photograph: Patrick Bolger for the Observer Patrick Bolger/ObserverI'm going to squash a few things in here. I am distractedly busy with novel #4, so I have little time to blog.

ONE: I am at Ennis Book Club Festival this Saturday at 3pm, on a panel with Sara Baume and Colin Barrett, moderated by Evelyn O'Rourke. More here.

TWO: Books Ireland Magazine has a new short story competition. 30th June closing date. €400 first prize plus a writing retreat. All details here.

THREE: In today's Irish Times, I have my tribute/homage to Anne Enright as part of their series focussing in on Irish women writers. It's an International Women's Day effort to redress that poster (the male writers one). It will culminate in a new poster in this Saturday's print edition. Whoop!

FOUR Nearly forgot, I'll be on Athlone Community Radio this evening, around 6.30pm, talking about writing and stuff.

LONDON RESEARCH TRIP PICS & GIVEAWAY

Between writing my novel-in-progress (NIP), nursing one chickenpoxed child, chasing one renegade mouse (caught and released) and various other shenanigans, I've been neglecting this blog.

I am also just back from London where I spent four days doing research for the NIP, which is set in Victorian London. I got back late last night after a flight delay, but it was a productive trip. There is nothing to match the thrill of going to an archive and being let handle documents that were signed by your characters. Or seeing new photos of them that make you look at them a bit differently. I'm grinning like a loon now thinking about all the valuable stuff I saw and did for the novel while in London. And I ate cake, oodles of it.

I did research here:


And while I was there I visited this pair, in honour of Wolf Hall:

Anne Boleyn Thomas CromwellAnd these gents:


My main character liked to eat here so, naturally, I had to do the same:


Café Royal - window treats Valrhona choc orange cake & teaI also went to Kew to view documents - what an efficient, peaceful, wonder of a place the National Archives is:


 And while in Kew we ate in this lovely pub, where the halloumi on ciabatta was tdf:


Otherwise it was wandering, eating and even accidentally bumping into friend and fellow writer Kathleen Murray and her son across the road from here:

St Paul's CathedralOh, serendipitously, we also stumbled upon the beautiful Royal Courts of Justice which feature in the NIP (which excited me no end):


And I found an Emily quote in the Bishopsgate Hall:


I bought books in Foyles refurbished place on Charing Cross Road:


Saw a grumpy kid off Brick Lane:


And an illusionist on Regent Street:


Plus iconic thingies, like The Gherkin:


I also bought two little essays on book shops, in chapbook form, to give away here, Ann Patchett's The Bookshop Strikes Back and The Unknown Unknown by Mark Forsyth. I'll post to anywhere in the world. Simply leave a comment and say which booklet you would prefer to win.


London was, as always, fab. I love the frenetic pace of it all, the mad Tube queues, the fantastic veggie food, the posh shops like Liberty, the abundant charity shops and markets, the beautiful Victorian square we stayed on, the Londoners who are so Londony they are almost like parodies of themselves. All of it is intoxicating, every time.

But it was equally lovely to be in my own bed last night, surrounded by silence, and to get back to the desk this morning armed with all I had learned about my characters, and their city. It proved a slow writing day (travel always distracts and unsettles me) but I'm hoping tomorrow will be more productive. Onward!

ANDREW MILLER - ADVICE TO WRITERS

LSAD VISIT #2

The beautiful home of Limerick School of Art and DesignI had my second visit to the 4th year Visual Communications students at LSAD on Monday. Each of them - 30 in all - presented their initial concepts to me and their lecturer Eamon Spelman, for the Visual Fiction project. Here is a list of the stories they are using as inspiration:
'On The Devil's Disc' - Kevin Barry'Deer at Rest' - Thisbe Nissen‘Room 313’ – Nuala Ní Chonchúir‘The Lottery’ – Shirley Jackson'Hills Like White Elephants' – Ernest Hemingway'Champagne' - Chekhov'The Moon' - Colin Barrett'The Model' - Guy de Maupassant'Finishing Touch' - Claire Louise Bennett'The Story' - Cathy Sweeney
I was totally impressed with the development concepts they came up with as well as their in-depth interpretations of the stories they were asked to read. With thirty students and ten stories, three have the same story to work from and the diversity of their responses was wonderful.
The students plan to create everything from videos, to a Chekhovian Snapchat, to animated gifs; from a graphic novel in poster form, to a smoking kit. One student plans to have an installation featuring receipts, inspired by Colin Barrett's story 'The Moon', while another will make a tabloid newspaper poster based on 'The Model' by Guy de Maupassant.
I can't wait to re-visit the class on the 2nd of March, with Stinging Fly editor Declan Meade, to view the finished pieces.

MOLLY KEANE AWARD 2015

The Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2015 closes on the 6th of March 2015.
Submit previously unpublished short stories of up to 2000 words on any subject.
Free to Enter.
Eligiblity: open to all writers on the island of Ireland. No age limit.
Prize: €500 which will be awarded at a special ceremony at the IMMRAMA Literary Festival in Lismore, Co. Waterford in June 2015.

Download the entry form and see full terms and conditions here.

FLASH AT KYSO

My flash 'Vincent in the Yellow House' is published at  KYSO .