No Grant for the Irish Writers' Centre

We are very disappointed to hear that the Irish Writers' Centre did not receive any Arts Council funding for 2010.   I started volunteering in the IWC six months ago and have been overwhelmed by the passion and commitment the board and staff have for the both the Centre and Irish Literature.   Do check out the website, www.writerscentre.ie

No Grant from the Arts Council

The Board’s Response 

The Irish Writers’ Centre is extremely disappointed that the Arts Council has rejected its application for a grant for 2010. Until 2009 the IWC received an annual grant to enable it function as an organisation providing a venue and a service to writers and the public, but the grant was withheld last year on the basis of a value-for-money assessment. Over the past year the Centre has addressed all the criticism and misgivings that led to the withholding of the grant. It has renewed itself and reformed entirely. Through the efforts of the Board and a team of voluntary staff we have now established a vibrant and exciting centre, open from morning to night, open Saturdays, with readings, events, workshops, meetings, all progressing non-stop. We have opened up a home-from-home where writers and readers can converge for literary business and literary pleasure. We have ensured that there is one place in Dublin where writers from abroad can come to interact with their Irish colleagues. This supreme effort has been made to demonstrate how effectively the Centre can cater for the needs of writers and readers, but it cannot be maintained indefinitely without funding. 

Writing is the national art form of Ireland; more than with anything else, our national identity is associated with writing. But the allocation of resources does not reflect the primacy of literature, quite the contrary, despite the enormous economic contribution that literature makes to the country through cultural tourism. The Writers’ Centre has been given the most enthusiastic support by the whole literary community over the past months. Everyone has shown anxiety for its survival as a venue for showcasing contemporary Irish writing, encouraging new writing, providing writers with one physical location which belongs to them: a writers’ house. Within the literature community there has been a consensus endorsing its case for funding. It is therefore all the more baffling and disappointing that the Arts Council has not responded to that clear wish of the literature community. 

Dublin has lodged an application to UNESCO for a special designation as a ‘City of Literature’. If this is granted, Dublin, and Ireland, will be able to exploit this status to enhance its cultural profile and its attraction to cultural tourists. But the designation will be granted and maintained, not in recognition of our glorious tradition, but on the vibrancy of the contemporary writing environment and on the infrastructure that exists to sustain and develop that vibrancy. In view of this, the decision of the Arts Council to jeopardise the Irish Writers’ Centre is myopic in the extreme.  

Last autumn when the Arts Council faced the spectre of a catastrophic cut in funding for the arts, they issued a call-to-arms and asked the writers to join the vanguard on the basis that literature was demonstrably our extraordinary performer in the arts arena. Reasonable damage limitation was achieved, but the recent grant allocations to literature do not reflect the enormous esteem for writers and writing the Council espoused just a few months ago.

London: Pilot Pamphlets

Cover image for A Fictional Dress by Nessa Darcy and Conor Friel

Come and celebrate the launch of two new tall-lighthouse pamphlets, A Fictional Dress by Ailbhe Darcy and The Stream by Simon Pomery with readings from the collections.

The double launch kicks off on Tuesday the 5th of January at 7pm, at the Wheatsheaf pub, 25 Rathbone Place (just off Oxford St) in London.

Ailbhe Darcy has published poetry in Ireland, Britain and the US, and is the co-editor of Moloch. A Fictional Dress is her first solo publication and her first full collection is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in 2010.

Simon Pomery was born in Galway, Ireland, and grew up in the Peak District, Derbyshire. He studied English at the University of Leeds and Pembroke College, Cambridge. The Stream is his first pamphlet and is the latest in the tall-lighthouse pilot series, edited by Roddy Lumsden.

Irish Writers' Centre Culture Night 25-09-09

Culture Night at the Irish Writers' Centre

The Irish Writers' Centre is opening up its doors for culture night (Friday the 25th of September), with readings throughout the night, tours of the building and a chance to see the beautiful collection of paintings on loan from Frank Buckley.   To add to the occasion the centre will be selling hundred of its books for a song – prices will start at 2euros.

The first readings will begin at 7.30pm and will be hosted by the Thornfield Poets.  Among the line up is Catherine Dunne, Susan Connolly, Cecilia McGovern, Maggie O'Dwyer, Helena Nolan, Colette Connor, and Enda Coyle-Greene.  

Sapphire Writing Group will then host the second wave of readings from 9pm. The line up includes many writers who frequent the Centre, like Phyl Herbert, Sile Agnew, Cathy Sweeney, Richard Stevens, Sheila Purdy, Gerry Moloney, Mary Heneghan and Ross Skelton.

There will be lots of staff on hand to show you around, caffeinate you and give you the lowdown on the courses and events that will be taking place in the Irish Writers' Centre in the coming months.

So do come admire the art, the ceilings, the walls of books and listen to some readings, or simply sit in the beautiful building in Parnell square and enjoy a coffee.  

Exchange Words

Exchange Dublin is hosting their first spoken word evening,

'Exchange Words'.

Exchange Words, an evening inspired by the current spoken word

revival, will take place on the 9th of October from 8PM at the

Exchange in Dublin's Temple Bar. With more interest than ever in

storytelling, standup comedy, author readings, live radio theatre and

a burgeoning Irish performance poetry scene, now is the perfect time

to launch a regular spoken word showcase in the heart of Dublin.

Exchange Words will give comedians, writers, actors and storytellers

the chance to collaborate and develop their work for performance in a

welcoming, all ages, alcohol free environment.

The line up for their first event include Shinoxcy, a new all girl

sketch comedy group, including Roxanna Nic Liam, star of hit Absolut

Fringe play 'Rough'; the Crazy Dog Audio theatre- Ireland's number one

live radio theatre company, whose work has appeared on RTE Radio 1,

and on US radio; storytellers from new Dublin group Milk and Cookies;

and fresh from their packed out performances at this years Electric

Picnic, top International spoken word performers Cliff Horseman &

Andrej Kapor.

Tickets for the event are € 5 / € 3 concessions, and will be available

on the night.

About Exchange Dublin -

Exchange Dublin is a new collective arts centre in Temple Bar, Dublin

run entirely by young people and holding discussions, gigs, visual

arts and performance. Most projects originate from the autonomous

“Exchange Groups” that use the space as a hub for their activity.

Representatives from these groups form the general Exchange Dublin

Collective that programmes and coordinates events in the space. All

work is voluntary and no one is paid.

Press materials (including high resolution images) are available at

http://exchangedublin.ie/words, and at the Facebook group -

http://url.ie/2gcb

Anyone interested in performing at future events, or looking for more

information, can contact them at words@exchangedublin.ie, or call on 085

1036 392.

A Racket at the University of Notre Dame

Okay, this one might be a bit of a leap for the Dubliners...But if you happen to be in the Midwest in October, you don't want to miss Rackett at Notre Dame.

They'll be doing their thang at 9:30 PM in the legendary Legends bar, on October the 28th.

(See here for what their thang is: http://www.myspace.com/rackett)

Rhythm guitarist Paul Muldoon will also be reading his poetry, at 7pm on the same day, in the McKenna Auditorium.

Both of these events are free, and everyone is welcome!

Dublin Poetry Workshops with Alan Jude Moore

In September The Irish Writers' Centre will be holding a series of Poetry Workshops hosted by poet Alan Jude Moore. The workshops will take place every Thursday for 10 weeks from the 24th of September. Early booking is advised as workshop places are limited. You can secure your place by paying online at the Irish Writers Centre.

Alan read some of his work at the Moloch showcase last year, and appeared in the second issue of the journal. You can read his poems, Alphavile and Drift online.

Alan Jude Moore was born in Dublin. His two collections of poetry, Black State Cars (2004) and Lost Republics (2008), are published by Salmon Poetry. A third collection, Strasbourg, will be published by Salmon in 2010.

His work is widely published in journals and magazines, including Poetry Ireland Review, Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Salzburg Review, Iota (UK) and Kestrel (USA). His poetry has also been published in Italian and Russian. He has been short-listed twice for the Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writing for his short stories.

He holds a degree in political science from Trinity College Dublin and his first publication was in the TCD literary magazine Icarus. He has since been published across Europe and North America and has given readings in Ireland, Italy, Russia and the USA. In 2007 he was a featured poet at the Riflessidiversi cultural festival in Umbria.

American poet and critic Michael S. Begnal discusses Moore's work in the context of contemporary Irish literature in his essay The Ancients Have Returned Among Us: Polaroid of 21st Century Irish Poetry (Avant-Post, Litteraria Pragensia 2006, ed. Louis Armand). Alan's work has been included in the anthologies Salmon: a Journey in Poetry (Salmon Poetry, 2007) and Jacobs Ladder II (Six Gallery Press, 2003). He lives in Dublin.

"What is necessary is to seek new forms and new language to express new ideas and experience. Moore is doing so, and that is what makes Black State Cars an important and essential collection."

- Michael S. Begnal in Poetry Ireland Review, issue 82.

A political undercurrent is always simmering, and when it is aligned with longing, Moore enacts a kind of magic: “remember to melt down your ring for me; / let all our promises be one last bullet” (Zapad). Paradoxically, it’s not the exoticism of Lost Republics which appeals so much, but its familiarity. An accomplished and intriguing book.

- Paul Perry, The Irish Times, Saturday 28th March 2009

This superb second collection finds Moore’s distinctive voice, established in 2004’s Black State Cars, resonating with a new clarity and confidence. Influenced by the neo-modernist tendency but not necessarily of it, Moore avoids the languid, lyrical tonalities striven for and sometimes reached by the majority of his contemporaries. Yet his work could by no means be described as prosaic. His is a robust, sinewy music that once adjusted to has a strangely entrancing charm.

- Billy Ramsell in The Stinging Fly, Issue 12 / volume two, Spring 2009.

19 Parnell Square Dublin 1

Tel: +353 1 8721302

Fax: +353 1 8726282

www.writerscentre.ie

Wrong way birds, taxidermy, and morally bankrupt leprechauns.

It was my blood and the language

That has been spoken into my blood.

 

I decided to explore

This wild place.

 

from Disappeared Language by Duane Locke 

A new issue of Moloch is now available to view online: http://www.moloch.ie/html/issue3/cover.html.

For the last few months we have been plagued by constant repetition of the 'R' word on the airwaves, and scandal after scandal surfacing. You can't turn on the radio or take a taxi without hearing about the abuse by the Israelis, the US army, the Iranian government, and the British army, innocent people going to prison, politicians on the take, horrendous murders, about all the bankers who dragged us into a whole lot of mess, about the builders being bailed out and the regular people who have lost their homes.  Around the corner there is always another ism to deal with.

Moloch was a mythical figure to whom people sacrificed newborn children in the hope of wealth and success.  Nothing could seem more horrifying to most of us today, and yet every radio station and newspaper tells us that the future generations have been sacrificed for transient treasures to a modern-day Moloch. It is an endless wave that can become an obsession and at times make you feel completely and utterly powerless.   It is in times like these that language becomes at once threatened and vital. 

Moloch is an eclectic journal of the eccentric and the conventional, the politician and the romantic, the psychiatrist and the mentally deranged.  It does not adhere to one style or voice but grabs sounds and colours from all walks of life. 

This issue of Moloch deals with progress, with all the dirty dealings of modern society,  offering a contrast between the natural world of bogs and beaches and that of aeroplanes,  televisions, and petty theft.  It deals with the beautiful and the lighthearted, with some of the more pleasant things in life.  It is true, as the cliché goes, that art holds up a mirror to society; but it's also a wonderful way to flip it off its feet, to stick red potatoes in our ears, dive into pink water, scream and create something a little more interesting, and a little less repetitive.

My tune is a chain saw symphony with crickets, with fish,

with wrong way birds that can’t read music,

all of this is home for me now.  Like rain

that doesn’t rain.  They make mattresses specially

for rooms at the centers of houses, to protect from

 

flying glass.  From tornados.  I sleep on a

mattress like that.

 

from Crazy by L. Ward Abel

 

Moloch is an Irish based e-journal of art and writing edited by Ailbhe Darcy and Clodagh Moynan. Tying different art forms together in new and refreshing ways, Moloch aspires to allow artists and writers to find inspiration in each other and, in doing so, add new dimensions to each others’ work.

The current issue contains writing by L. Ward Abel, Claire Askew, Patricia Byrne,  Niamh Campbell, William Doreski, Noel Harrington, Alan King,  David Kowalczyt, Duane Locke, Geraldine Mitchell, Jackie Morrisey, Kenneth Pobo, Sean Ryan and Peter Schwartz

Artists include Oisín Byrne, Conor Callan, Nessa Darcy, Carol Eakins, Derek Fitzpatrick, Gareth Humphreys, Laura Knowles, Sarah Quigley and Damien O'Reilly.