KILMORE’S ALL WRITE
The third annual Write By The Sea festival taking place in Kilmore Quay from Friday September 28 to Sunday,September 30 will feature a line-up of local, national and international writers led by the Wexford town native and Man Booker prize-winner John Banville.
Festival chair Lucy Moore said the quality of the writers will ensure ‘an enjoyable, stimulating and rewading weekend for everyone’.
Billy Roche will give a workshop on playwriting while Wexfordman Liam Gaul, author of the sold-out ‘Wings Over Wexford’, will offer advice on how to research and write about local history.
Now that Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize has established lyric writing as a serious literary subject, Tagoat-based musician Eleanor McEvoy who wrote the song ‘Only A Woman’s Heart’ and several other hits, will deliver a workshop on lyric writing.
Kilmore Quay thriller writer Cat Hogan will advise would-be writers about getting started and Michael Freeman, who runs the publishing company, Three Sisters Press, will tackle the tricky issue of getting published.
Kathleen Tierney, a member of Ballycogley Players drama group, will host a workshop on developing characters in drama while New Ross writer Tina Callaghan, along with Sarah Carroll, will advise on writing for teens and young Adults.
Award-winning poet Ruth Timmins, who now writes full time in her cottage in Curracloe, will read some of her poems.
Wexford-born Dr Richard Hayes will talk about the life and works of playwright Eugene O’Neill, and will interview Jim Nolan of Red Kettle Theatre fame, as well as John MacKenna, the novelist, FRESH FROM an Arts Council Bursary tour of New England, the Wexford-based actor and poet Joe Neal is looking forward to the launch of his sixth collection of poetry, Rossetti’s Wombat, at 7 pm in Wexford Library on Thursday, October 11.
Joe, pictured left, a former candidate in the European elections, won the 2017 Anthony Cronin International Poetry Award and and is the author of earlier collections which include Telling It at a Slant, Turn Now the Tide, Hear the Colour, Still Rise the Sun and The Next Blue Note.
During the past year, he has given readings and workshops at festivals and theatre and arts centres in England, Ireland and Wales. Last August he took part in the AberJazz Festival in Wales, playwright and poet.
Cath Staincliff from the UK and Sinead Crowley from RTÉ will give workshops on crime writing while literary agent Jo Unwin will offer advice on what agents are looking for in manuscripts.
The festival will conclude with a Spoken Word performance by Peter Murphy.
‘Add to this illustrious list the names of Kit de Waal, Rob Doyle and Jennifer Johnston plus new features we are launching this year such as writing local history and oral storytelling events and you will find there is truly something for everyone’, said Lucy as she thanked the generous sponsors for helping to make the festival happen.
Full details and ticket booking available at writebythesea.ie reading his poems to the accompaniment of a piano.
He trained as an actor in repertory theatre before attending the University of Nottingham. Apart from poetry, he has been involved in acting and journalism, working in London for the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express. As an actor he appeared in London’s West End and in Dublin’s Abbey and Gate theatres.
He has performed readings of poems by John Betjeman and Seamus Heaney on BBC television and narrations to the music of Bohuslav Martinu on BBC Radio Three. Rossetti’s Wombat takes its title from one of his poems prompted by the unusual behaviour of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.