Literature Features

Women Across Borders – Irish Writers Centre 7th March 2020 Women Across Borders is the Irish Writers Centre’s International Women’s Day event in conjunction with Women Aloud NI. Although I had been aware of it in previous years, I had…

One of the most influential writers of our age. (Irvine Welsh) Putting the words together, literary genius and former pimp does not seem like a practical simile. In fact, it is two ends of a very different spectrum. One of…

It may seem unlikely now but it is perfectly possible that in a few decades’ time someone might ask: “Do you know JK Rowling?” And, after a blank stare, might be forced to add: “You know, the woman who wrote Harry Potter”. The American…

Dermot Bolger is a stalwart of the Irish literary scene, having written numerous novels and plays since the mid-1980s. These include his recent successes Tanglewood, a microscopic look at the Irish property boom of 00s, and The Lonely Sea…

President Michael D. Higgins, in his speech to open Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again at the new Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre on College Green commented on the many facets of Heaney, ‘the farmer’s son, the Bellaghy native, the…

Whenever you read anything, you are made conscious of your class. This is especially true if you have a working-class background. I was struck by this recently while reading Alberto Manguel’s essay collection Into the Looking Glass Wood in…

In late 2017, Cork-based New Binary Press issued an open call for submissions to a new anthology in aid of the fight – both at home and abroad – for women’s reproductive rights. Autonomy, to be edited by poet, workshop facilitator and…

It took me a day to lose my soul. When I started working in publishing – and in particular, looking at unsolicited submissions, what some refer to as ‘the slush pile’ – I was sure I would be a bit of a wimp. I had edited anthologies…

Children’s author E.R. Murray is a Middlesbrough transplant in West Cork.  She has also lived in both Dublin and Spain, among other places, and her sense of place has a great influence on the setting of her novels.  Ebony Smart, the…

Nat Newman set herself the challenge of only reading women writers for a year. Here she talks about her experience and how it changed and enriched her reading habits for good. A few years ago, on this very site, I announced that I…