Loose Leaves Caroline WalshThe Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award, held in 2004 as part of the Bloomsday Centenary celebrations, couldn't have had a better outcome. Anne Enright, who won it with her memorable story Honey, went on last year to win the Man Booker Prize.
The award was planned as a one-off at the time, but Davy Byrnes, the Dublin watering hole mentioned in Ulysses that sponsored the award, has decided to offer it again next year. As opposed to a three-person jury last time, next year there will be just one judge - a most impressive one: Richard Ford.
So what will Ford be looking for? Declan Meade, editor of the literary magazine The Stinging Fly, which is organising the prize, asked him and got this reply: "What any good judge wishes I suppose I wish for me - to have a brain that's inquisitive and energetic enough to relish 'the new'; to not just prefer stories that are like my own stories, and yet to not shy away from those, either. In other words to recognise excellence in whatever form, style, length, etc, it comes in. I'd like to be won over, for the choice to be easy, for the chosen short story to dictate all the terms of its own brilliance and for me to be just a helpless celebrant. And . . . I'm not interested in the patented Irishness of any story. If an Irish writer writes it, it's Irish enough for me - and even that feels a bit confining. In any case, the reader - the story's charmed intended - can tweeze out what the winning story's 'cultural significance' is, what it's 'saying' about Ireland and history and the future, if indeed it's saying anything at all."
Billed as the world's richest prize for a single short story, next year's award will see €25,000 going to the best story, with five runners-up receiving €1,000 each. Over 1,100 entries were received in 2004. Among the shortlisted authors were Kevin Barry and Philip Ó Ceallaigh, who have both since won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for their debut story collections. Redmond Doran of Davy Byrnes says he hopes the 2009 award will "seek out and reward writers with a similar level of talent and promise" to last time. The award is being run in association with The Irish Times.
Entries will be accepted from October 1st until next February. The shortlist will be announced in late May or early June 2009 and the winner later that month. The competition is open to Irish citizens and to residents of the 32 counties. There is no word-count limit, but entries must consist of a previously unpublished short story written in English. Rules and entry forms will be available before the competition opens for entries.
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944 Ford's work is the author of three books of stories and six novels, including The Sportswriter and The Lay of the Land. He is the editor of The Granta Book of the American Short Story Volumes I and II and has won the PEN-Malamud Prize for distinguished contributions to the short story. Details of the prize on www.davybyrnesaward.org.
Migrants to tell their stories
Dublin City Libraries, with the Font International Literary Agency, is mounting New Faces New Voices - creative writing workshops for migrant writers. Aimed at Dublin residents whose first language is not English, the events will encourage creative writing in English and explore cross-cultural experiences. The workshops will be on Saturday, March 8th, from 10am to 12.30pm for men and women, with another from 2pm to 4.30pm for women only, in recognition of International Women's Day.
The workshops will take place at Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. They will be facilitated by Orna Ross, novelist and literary agent at Font. "The experience of immigration sharpens the 'outsider's eye' that is essential to all good writing," says Ross. "We want to motivate aspiring writers within immigrant communities to write their own stories." Admission free but booking essential. Tel: 01-6744809, e-mail dublinpubliclibraries@dublincity.ie.
Heath Ledger book in pipeline
Given the mould-breaking nature of Ang Lee's film adaptation of Annie Proulx's story Brokeback Mountain, the late Heath Ledger almost had iconic status before his recent tragic death aged 28. Inevitably, a new book about him is now being rushed into print. Heath Ledger: His Beautiful Life and Mysterious Death by journalist John McShane is due from John Blake in April, though perhaps the title should now be amended following the coroner's report, which found the actor died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.
Hear Banville on Beckett
Funny how three short words can intrigue and beguile. Beckett's Last Words is the title of a lecture being given by John Banville to the UCD Philosophy Society on Wednesday at 7pm, in Theatre P of the Newman Building on the Belfield campus.