Winter Pages, the arts anthology edited by Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith, made the misery of last winter that bit less dreary. Now the brains behind the operation are returning to usher in that brighter, albeit shorter season: summer.
The Inish: Island Conversations festival returns to Inishbofin from June 2nd-5th and will see world-class performers, writers and artists convene in this special, secluded place for performances, talks and conversations.
Barry, who will perform and also host, with Smith, a series of featured artists and writers from Winter Pages, said: "The Inish Festival is one of the most innovative, original and downright entertaining events I'd been to in a long time. It uses the place of Inishbofin itself as a springboard for all sorts of musical, literary and intellectual escapades."
Also back to perform at Inish, poet and academic Bernard O’Donoghue said: “Surely there is no better place for a festival of music and writing than Inishbofin in June, the light of the summer evenings, the corncrakes crexing by every roadside, the foam-washed shorelines and the quiet roads, and the best of cultural company and friendship. It was the best weekend of everyone’s year in 2015.”
Other creatives who will feature include Michael and Edna Longley, Theo Dorgan, Vincent Woods, Claire Kilroy, Alan McMonagle, Edna Longley, Olwen Fouéré, artist Norman Ackroyd and musicians Martin Tingvall, Steve Wall, Jack L, Poppy Ackroyd, Máirtín Ó Connor, Garry Ó Briain, Cathal Hayden and the ConTempo String Quartet. There will also be films including Paula Kehoe's Deargdhil: Anatomy of Passion, a study of poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi, and the multi-award winning A Turning Tide in the Life of Man. inishfestival.com
Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane is one of the best Irish memoirs and now Derry, perhaps second only to Cork as the centre of the known universe, may be on course to produce another.
Tidewrack by Darran Anderson, author of Imaginary Cities, a book of the year in the Financial Times and Guardian, is to be published by Chatto & Windus in Britain and in North America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It tells the story of the river Foyle in Derry, and the lives that were lived and lost there. Along its banks, Anderson and his father search for the body of his cousin; the third relative lost to the river's depths. What he uncovers on that journey tells a much wider story of modern Ireland, from the second World War to the Troubles, and of a family with grief and survival at its very heart.
Chatto’s Parisa Ebrahimi said: “This sinuous story of a river completely drew me in and pulled me under. In exquisite prose, Darran plumbs the depths of this deep, dark river – through city and countryside – to build a rich, textural portrait not only of a place but of a family and its secrets.”
Congratulations to another Nordie, Belfastman PJ Lynch, the distingushed illustrator and now author, whose appointment as the new Laureate n nÓg was announced this week by President Michael D Higgins. He succeeds Eoin Colfer, whose anthology of Irish children's writing, Once Upon A Place, he also illustrated.
I was introduced to one of the treasures of the internet, Maria Popova's Brain Pickings (brainpickings.org), by Cathy Dillon writing in this slot. It is one of the richest sources of ideas around, in its own words "an inventory of the meaningful life", no idle boast. Arts & Letters Daily (aldaily.com) is another US website worth bookmarking if you are interested in books and ideas. It's a cultural aggregator, linking to the most interesting features and reviews published daily worldwide, including, ahem, The Irish Times. It's a great service – check it out.
