The 30th Writers' Week Festival opens tomorrow in Listowel with a total prize fund of £18,000. This community-based event has grown over the past three decades and has a loyal worldwide following.
The shortlisted novels for the Kerry Ingredients Irish Fiction Award (£5,000) which will be presented at the opening ceremony are: Inishowen, by Joseph O'Connor; Slammerkin, by Emma Donoghue; The Largest Baby in Ireland after the Famine, by Anne Barnett; Us, by Martin Malone and What are You Like? by Anne Enright. The adjudicators are Ita Daly and Eugene McCabe.
The Sunday Independent/John B.Keane Emerging Writers' Bursary of £5,000 will be awarded at the opening ceremony as will the Bryan Mac Mahon Short Story Award (£1,500), the Eamon Keane play award (£1,500) and two prizes for the poetry competition and a work in Irish.
The prize fund also covers a new prison writing competition, and one for young writers in the 9 to 18-year-old bracket. There will be readings, interviews, workshops, lunchtime theatre and a literary pub trail. The festival will highlight the culture of India this year. It will be opened by Prof John A. Murphy.