The Laureate for Irish Fiction presents the Long Night of the Short Story
Five writers, five short stories, with musical responses from Little John Nee. Prepare to be entranced by a Long Night of the Short Story, where writers take it all the way to the sweet or bitter end. Curated by Anne Enright, the evening includes writers Colin Walsh, Nicole Flattery, Belinda McKeon, Sally Rooney and Enright.
Anne Enright is the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction and was awarded the honour by the Arts Council in 2015. The Laureate for Irish Fiction promotes Irish literature nationally and internationally and encourages the public to engage with high quality Irish fiction. The Laureate for Irish Fiction has been developed by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and is supported by the Irish Times, University College Dublin (UCD) and New York University (NYU).
- Venue: VISUAL, Carlow
- Date: Thursday, 21 December
- Time: 7 p.m. (runs for approximately 3 hours including interval)
- Tickets: €5, all proceeds go to the Peter McVerry Trust
- For bookings click here
Little John Nee is a writer and performer based in Co. Galway in the west of Ireland. A prolific creator of work for theatre he was elected to Aosdána in 2016
His style of theatrical storytelling with music has won him international recognition; Rural Electric was described by the guardian as a “masterpiece of storytelling”; his play Sparkplug won an Irish Times Theatre Award for his sound design the radio version won a Special Mention Prize at the Prix Italia 2013.
In 2016 he published a book of Haiku The Apocalypse came on a Friday and previously his A Donegal Trilogy was published by An Grianan Theatre. He has released an album of songs from his theatre shows recorded with The Caledonia Highly strung Orchestra.
In 2017 a new show Radio Rosario premiered at the Mick Lally Theatre, Galway.
Colin grew up in Galway and currently lives in Belgium. In 2017, he won the RTE Francis Mac Manus Short Story Award, was a prizewinner in the Bridport Short Story Prize and was shortlisted for the Bath Short Story Award and the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. His stories have been published in various anthologies. He is currently working on short stories and his first novel.
Nicole Flattery's fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, The White Review, BBC Radio 4, the Irish Times and Winter Papers Vol.3. She is the winner of The White Review short story prize 2017.
Her short story collection is forthcoming from The Stinging Fly Press in 2018 and she is working on a novel.
Belinda McKeon's most recent novel is Tender (2015), which was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year and the Encore Award. Her debut, Solace was published in 2011 and won the Faber Prize as well as being named Irish Book of the Year. Her fiction and non-fiction have been published in The Paris Review, Granta, the New York Times and elsewhere.
She is also a playwright, and her most recent play, Nora, a new version of Ibsen's A Doll's House, was staged at this year's Dublin Theatre Festival. She lives in upstate New York and teaches at Rutgers University.
Sally Rooney was born in Mayo and lives in Dublin. Her work has appeared in Granta, The White Review, The Stinging Fly, and elsewhere.
Her debut novel Conversations with Friends was published by Faber & Faber this summer, and she has been shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for 2017.
Anne Enright is the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. A novelist and short story writer, her books have received many awards including the Man Booker prize in 2008 for The Gathering, and the Andrew Carnegie medal for excellence in Fiction in 2012 for The Forgotten Waltz.
Her most recent book The Green Road was both Bord Gáis and Kerry Group novel of the year in 2015. Her work is translated into more than 40 languages.