Please note that the lecture event is now fully booked. You can add your name to the waiting list on the Pearse Street Library event page here.

The Writer and Her Double

Join us for our annual lecture, which this year will be delivered by essayist and writer, Roisin Kiberd. 

The lecture will take place in Pearse Street Library at 6.30pm on Thursday 15th October. Tickets can be booked through the Pearse Street Library event page here.

Tickets are free, but booking is essential.

Roisin’s lecture will examine the contemporary challenges facing writers in today’s rapidly changing world:

‘Writing has long held the possibility of self-invention, from charismatic bards to feuding Renaissance playwrights, to the latter-day genre of autofiction. In our era of online life, of ‘personal branding’ and Amazon’s technofeudal library of Babel, how does a writer invent herself? Should she, or is anonymity the best way to preserve her work, and her sanity?’

The lecture will be followed by a short Q&A.

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Roisin Kiberd is the author of The Most Normal Woman (August 2026, Tramp Press) and The Disconnect (2021, Serpent’s Tail). She teaches creative writing at the University of Galway, and has been a contributing editor and non-fiction editor with The Stinging Fly.

…a writer of extraordinary style and intellectual range. —Mark O’Connell

Spectacular … lion-hearted in its honesty, and insightful to the point of brilliance. —Lisa McInerney

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The Stinging Fly is a literary magazine, a book publisher, an education provider, and an online platform. A registered charity, our mission is to seek out, nurture, publish and promote the very best new writers and new writing.

Our Annual Lecture series began as an initiative of Words Ireland and Bray Literary Festival in 2018. Each year since then we have commissioned a writer to reflect upon their experience of the writing life and the development of their creative practice. Previous lectures, which are all available to read on our website, have been delivered by Sean O’Reilly and Jan Carson (2018), Mia Gallagher (2019), Paul Lynch (2020), Kevin Power (2022), Evelyn Conlon (2023), Anne Haverty (2024), and Sarah Moss (2025).