There’ll be a reading from the summer issue on Thursday July 24th in the Winding Stair Bookshop, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1 (across from the Hal’penny Bridge).
Grace Wells, the featured poet in the summer issue, will read alongside fiction writers Jennifer Brady and Orlaith O’Sullivan and poets Richard W. Halperin and Paul Perry.
The reading is at 7 p.m — all are welcome!
Poet Sinéad Morrissey will judge this year’s Stinging Fly Prize.
This is the third year of the prize, which goes to a writer yet to publish a book who has published work—poetry or fiction—in the magazine over the course of the year. The prize consists of €1000 and a two-week residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in County Monaghan. The previous recipients are fiction writers Ronan Doyle and Sarah Purcell.
Sinéad Morrissey teaches at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, and is herself no stranger to prizes, having been the youngest ever winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Award. In 2007 she received a Lannan Literary Fellowship and earlier this year she took first place in the UK’s National Poetry Competition. She has published three collections, the most recent being The State of the Prisons (Carcanet, 2005).
well, the issue is out… weather’s lagging behind a bit.
Two Kevin Barry readings coming up:
July 2 Chapelizod Community Festival
Reading with Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Venue:- Phoenix Park (Park Lane Gate)
Time:- 7 p.m.
Tickets:- €5
July 7 West Cork Literary Festival
Venue:- Bantry Library, Bridge Street
Time:- 1 pm
Free Admission
Oxfambooks Poems for 2009 Competition
Closing Date for entries: Tues July 15th 2008
Where is this year going?
It’s been a busy few months getting through all submissions for the year. We received more than 1,000 poems and around 350 stories so there has been a lot of reading going on. We’re just making final selections at the moment. Submissions closed now until next January.
Next up is our summer issue. That will be out in June. We’re also in process of getting our next short story anthology together. We plan to publish that in September… watch this space.
Who’d've thought it?
Our first issue came out on March 6th 1998, and here we are ten years older and wiser… join us on Friday March 7th from 4pm to 6pm in Dublin’s City Hall for our 10th Birthday Party.
The event is part of the inaugural Dublin Book Festival which runs in City Hall from March 7th to 9th. There is a whole host of other readings, discussions and debates. At 3pm on Sunday March 9th Kevin Barry will read alongside Mike McCormack and Geraldine Mills. Admission to all events is free. CLÉ, the Irish Book Publishers’ Association, who are organising the festival will operate a bookshop throughout the weekend.
We hope to begin getting responses out over the next couple of weeks. We received over 400 stories—a fantastic response—and it has taken us this long to read through them all and to give them proper consideration. Thanks to all who submitted.
The Stinging Fly in association with The Irish Times is delighted to announce the return of the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award, Ireland’s biggest short story competition and the world’s richest prize for a single short story. Next year’s award will see €25,000 going to the best short story and five runners-up receiving €1,000. The acclaimed American novelist and short story writer Richard Ford will judge the competition.
The Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award was previously held in 2004 as part of the Bloomsday Centenary celebrations. Over 1100 entries were received with Anne Enright eventually being declared the winner for her short story ‘Honey’. Also featured on the 2004 shortlist were Kevin Barry and Philip Ó Ceallaigh, who have both since won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for their debut story collections. In making the decision to sponsor the award for a second time, Redmond Doran of Davy Byrnes pointed to the huge success of the competition in 2004 and said that he hoped that the 2009 award would ‘seek out and reward writers with a similar level of talent and promise.’
Timeline for 2009 Award:
Open for Entries: October 1st 2008
Deadline for Entries: Monday Feb 2nd 2009
Shortlist: late May/early June 2009
Winner Announced: June 2009
The competition is open to Irish citizens and to residents of the thirty-two counties. There is no word count limit, but entries must consist of a previously unpublished short story written in English. A full set of rules and entry forms will be made available in advance of the competition being open for entries in October. Further details available at www.davybyrnesaward.org
Saturday, Feb 16th 2008
3pm Kevin Barry Reading
Little Catherine Art Gallery and Bookshop – FREE EVENT
9.30pm - The Stinging Fly and Sunset Lounge
Unfringed in association with The Stinging Fly present an evening of literature and Jazz to launch their Spring 2008 edition.
Playing standards, lounge classics and cabaret selections, David Irwin’s Sunset Lounge Trio are a well-established fixture on the Munster jazz scene. The literary aspect of the evening will include readings by three contributors to our spring issue: Majella Cullinane, Michael J. Farrell and Colm Liddy.
BELLTABLE CAFE: 9.30 TIL LATE Tickets €12/10
Alongside our usual 2008 submission call, we are looking for submissions to a special issue of the magazine that will celebrate and explore erotic writing.
Guest editor Sean O’Reilly says he is ’seeking short stories and poems—and anything in between—which explore the excesses of sexual desire as their explicit theme or that simply seek to stimulate sexual arousal for their own ends.’
Submissions for this special issue should be marked for the attention of Sean and posted to PO Box 6016, Dublin 8 to arrive on or before Friday, March 14th 2008.
If submitting work for both our standard issues and this special issue, please clearly mark the work that is intended for the erotic issue.
Submissions for the standard issues will be accepted up until the end of March. See side panel for full set of guidelines.