KEANE ON BOOKS

On Tuesday the shortlist for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award was revealed. The six novels are Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry; Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu, translated by Sean Cotter; Emma Donoghue’s Haven;

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery; The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr and Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy. The world’s most valuable prize for a single work of fiction published in English, sponsored by Dublin City Council, it’s worth €100,000. The winner will be announced by Lord Mayor of Dublin Daithí de Róiste on May 23 at the International Literature Festival Dublin.

As part of its Spring Series, Dublin Book Festival will host performance psychologist Gerry Hussey, in conversation with broadcaster Clare McKenna, about his book The Freedom Within on April 10 at 6pm in the Townhall 1WML, Windmill Quarter. Tickets are on sale at dublinbookfestival.com.

The team at the West Cork Literary Festival (taking place in beautiful Bantry and surrounds this July 12-19) have just announced this year’s wonderful creative writing workshops. On sale now, these include Finding Writing Inspiration in the Everyday with Aoife Barry, The Short Story Writer’s Starter Kit with Jan Carson, John Connell on Nature and Place Writing, Poetry with Mícheál McCann and Priscilla Morris on Novel Writing. Full details available at westcorkmusic.ie.

Applications have just opened for the 2024 John Broderick Residency. This year marks the centenary of the Athlone writer’s birth and the residency will support a writer while increasing the awareness of Broderick’s work. It sees €16,500 granted to a professional author for 10 weeks starting in September and the residency may extend until April next year. Later in the year there will be an additional award of €7,000 for an emerging writer as part of the John Broderick series. The deadline for applications is April 17. See westmeathculture.ie for details.