Celebrating writers and their friends
We still fondly imagine writing to be a solitary, reclusive sort of activity – though in these days of permanent electronic connectedness, not to mention literary festivals, book clubs, interviews, signings and all the rest of it, many contemporary writers will tell you that the chance to get away and hang out in a solitary garret for a bit would be a fine thing altogether.
But even the most solitary of writers needs the company of others on occasion, and there have been many famously lengthy literary friendships. A series of lectures organised by the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin will celebrate some of these, and explore their impact on the work of the writers concerned.
The series begins on January 24th with Nicholas Grene discussing Yeats and Synge; that will be followed by Amanda Piesse on Shakespeare’s same-sex friendships (January 31st); Eve Patten on Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen (February 7th); Brendan O’Connell on Chaucer, Gower and trouble with women (February 14th); and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin on friendship and equality (February 21st). The series continues until March 27th.
The lectures are on Tuesdays at 7.30pm in the Uí Chadhain Theatre, in Trinity’s arts building. The talks cost €6 each or €50 for the full series. You can find out more from Lilian Foley at 01-8962885 or oscar@tcd.ie.
‘Downton’ man joins the Booker judging panel
The news that the actor Dan Stevens – aka Matthew Crawley from Downton Abbey– is to join the judging panel for this year's Man Booker Prize might make people wonder about the drama behind the scenes as the books are debated and dissected. Can the team look forward to a year of the pouting, sulking and on- again, off-again shilly-shallying that has been Matthew's default position through two series of the upstairs- downstairs soap opera?
Of course not. Silly me. Stevens has a perfectly respectable record on stage and screen, with plenty of literary connections woven through his CV. All he has to do is think back to his role as Nick Guest in the TV adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker-winning The Line of Beauty. Hypocrisy, sexuality, madness, wealth. That ought to cover most of the plotlines he's likely to come across this year.
Conference gets on the writing wavelength
Word is that there's a waiting list for tickets for The Isle Is Full of Noises, a discussion between Seamus Heaney and Olivia O'Leary at the Royal Irish Academy on February 2nd – and no wonder. Exciting as it is, however, that event is just a taster for the conference, Voices in the Ether: Irish Writing on the Radio, which follows on Friday, February 3rd.
The day begins with John Bowman introducing sound fragments from the RTÉ archive. This will be followed by talks from, and discussions with, Gillian McIntosh of Queen’s University Belfast; Hilary Lennon of University College Cork; Simon Workman of Carlow College; Éibhear Walshe of University College Cork; and Chris Morash of NUI Maynooth.
After lunch, Allen Hepburn of McGill University will talk about Elizabeth Bowen and the BBC; and the final panel discussion, on producing and curating Irish writing, will include, among others, Pat Boran of Dedalus Press, the playwright Anne Devlin, Steven Douds of BBC Northern Ireland and Anne O’Connor of RTÉ.
That’s a pretty full day for the modest registration fee of €25 (students and unwaged €15). More information and online registration from ria.ie.
