Seven Towers events for October 2008

October events from Seven Towers

Prejudice and identity – A Literary dialogue
at 1.15 on Wednesday 15th October
Chapters of Parnell St, Dublin 1
Featuring
Oran Ryan and Doog Wood

Oran Ryan is a novelist, poet and playwright from Dublin. His first two novels, The Death of Finn and Ten Short Novels by Arthur Kruger were published by Seven Towers in 2006. In 2008 Oran was awarded an Arts Council Bursary for his current work, Bradbury. Oran was called “a new and powerful voice in Irish Literature” by Seamus Cashman.

Doog Wood is a Dublin based poet from North Carolina, with a unique and original voice. His work has been published in journals and anthologies all over the world. His first full collection will be published by The Seven Towers Agency in 2009.

__________________

Friday 24th October ,

1.15pm

Chapters and Verse Lunchtime Reading

Chapters Bookstore, Parnell St, Dublin 1

Ross Hattaway, Ann Marie Glasheen, Greagoir O’Duill

Anne Marie Glasheen is a London based poet, photographic artist and translator. She was Poet/Photographer in residence at Peckham Library, May-June 2005, as part of Southwark’s WriteStuff! Literature Festival and in 2005-2006 was Project Programmer of Words Unbound, International Writers Exchange, Canterbury City Council . She won the 2007 Bradshaw manuscript prize and her first collection will be launched in October 2008.

Ross Hattaway was born in Wellington New Zealand, but has lived in Ireland since 1990. He has had many varied jobs and currently works as a civil servant. His first collection of poetry, The Gentle Art of Rotting was published by Seven Towers in 2006. Ross toured Lithuania earlier this year, as part of the Poetry Spring Festival 2008 and his work was translated into Lithuanian.

Greagoir Ó Duill was born in Dublin but grew up outside Belfast. He was educated in Queen’s University, Belfast and UCD and took a PhD in English in Maynooth. He recently moved to Waterford to set up postgraduate creative writing in Waterfor Institute of Technology.

His own work has included eight collections of poetry, two anthologies, a critical biography and a collection of short stories, and he has taken prizes in poetry, short fiction and criticism. His work is widely anthologised and has been translated into the major European languages – most recently with a full-length collection of versions in English by Bernie Kenny called Gone to Earth. He has read from Cork to Stornoway to Palermo to New York.

Greagoir is an Irish language adviser and Irish language reviewer of Poetry Ireland Review. He has recently started to write in English and has been widely published in journals in Ireland, Britain and the United States. New Room Windows is Gréagóir’s first all english poetry publication

__________________

LAST WEDNESDAY OPEN MIC – Wed 29th October 2008

Cassidy’s Westmorland street, 7pm

Journalist, broadcaster, critic, commentator, musician and poet Eamon Carr will be reading from his latest work The Origami Crow,Journey into Japan, World Cup Summer 2002 at the Seven Towers Event – The Last Wednesday Series Reading and open mic on the 29th October 2008 at Cassidys of Westmoreland St, Dublin 2. The event commences at 7.30pm.

As a sports columnist for a Dublin daily, journalist Eamon Carr watched the unfolding drama of the 2002 World Cup finals firsthand in Japan. Yet against the intense public spectacle of media attention following the controversial departure of Ireland captain Roy Keane, Carr followed his own private journey – a lifelong quest to visit the shrines and places of the famed poet Matsuo Basho, recognized master of haiku.

In a volume of spare, elegant prose and his own haiku chronicling impressions and revelations of that journey, Carr explores the deep interrelationships found within the seeming contrasts of ancient and modern, nation and individual, crowd and solitude, loss and victory. Histories, memories and legends, as well as the wry personal observations of the weary working traveller, merge to create this profoundly moving narrative on the universal nature of grace and redemption.

The Origami Crow: Journey into Japan, World Cup Summer 2002 is Eamon Carr’s first collection of poetry and the profundity and depth of the work is a just reward for the long wait. The book is a collection of prose poems and Haiku following Eamon’s life experience, his journey into Japan that fateful Summer to follow the footsteps of Basho and is set against the backdrop of the Irish World Cup experience in Japan in Summer 2002. This is an exciting book because of the beauty of the work itself, and its significance as another important milestone in the work of a great artist and a man who truly has the soul of a poet.

Eamon Carr has been a significant figure in the Irish artistic and cultural scene for many years. In the late 1960s he co-founded Tara Telephone, the music and poetry group of the Dublin beat scene. Tara Telephone published everyone from Marc Bolan to Allan Ginsberg, Brian Patten, Seamus Heaney, Pearse Hutchinson, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Brendan Kennelly, Adrian Mitchell, Pete Brown in their magazines and broadsheets. The group also ran recitals. Among those who read with Tara Telephone, in addition to Eamon and Peter Fallon were Phil Lynott and Roger McGough. With Jim Fitzpatrick, the group also produced specially designed posters with artwork and poems combined. One of these posters with Eamon’s poem ‘A Tale of Love’ was exhibited in the Tate Gallery, Liverpool, Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era Exhibition in 2005 which also toured in Germany and Austria.

Following on from Tara Telephone, in the 1970’s Eamon co-founded Horslips, the hugely influential band which is credited with creating the musical genre known as Celtic Rock, and in which he is also a drummer, conceptualist and lyricist. Eamon has also promoted musicians and artists, and works as a journalist, writer and commentator on culture, politics, arts, music and sport as well as an award winning broadcaster. He was born in Co. Meath and lives in Dublin.

Other readers at the event are

Featured Readers: Phantom FM DJ Steve Conway, Waterford writer Donal Moloney, New Zealand born poet Ross Hattaway, Kerry born Wexford based producer, director, actor, playwritght and poet Noel Ó Briain, Dublin novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter Oran Ryan, North Carolina poet Doog Wood, Dublin poet Eamonn Lynskey and poet Patrick Chapman

Patrick Chapman was born in 1968. His poetry collections are Jazztown (Raven Arts Press, Dublin, 1991), The New Pornography (Salmon Poetry, Co. Clare, 1996), Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights (Salmon Poetry, Co. Clare, 2007) and A Shopping Mall on Mars (BlazeVOX Books, New York, 2008). He has also written a collection of stories, The Wow Signal (Bluechrome, 2007); an audio drama, Doctor Who: Fear of the Daleks; and an award-winning film, Burning the Bed (2003), which starred Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen. He won first prize for a story in the 2003 Cinescape Genre Literary Awards. With Philip Casey, he co-founded the Irish Literary Revival website. He lives in Dublin.

Ross Hattaway was born in Wellington New Zealand, but has lived in Ireland since 1990. He has had many varied jobs and currently works as a civil servant. His first collection of poetry, The Gentle Art of Rotting was published by Seven Towers in 2006. This will be Ross’ first reading in Dublin, after touring Lithuania as part of the Poetry Spring Festival 2008 and seeing his work translated into Lithuanian.

Ross Hattaway was born in Wellington New Zealand, but has lived in Ireland since 1990. He has had many varied jobs and currently works as a civil servant. His first collection of poetry, The Gentle Art of Rotting was published by Seven Towers in 2006. This will be Ross’ first reading in Dublin, after touring Lithuania as part of the Poetry Spring Festival 2008 and seeing his work translated into Lithuanian

Eamonn Lynskey has had poems published in many magazines. He was nominated for the Sunday Tribune/Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Poetry in 2006 and one of his poems will feature on the 2009 OXFAM calendar. His first collection Dispatches and Recollections was published in 1998 and he is currently working onhis second. As well as writing in English, Eamonn has also translated works of Italian poets Montale and Valeri and written in Italian – he holds, (among other qualifications!) a Diploma in Italian Lauguage and Culture from the Italian Institute, Dublin.

Dónal Moloney was born in 1976 and comes from Waterford. He has been writing seriously for ten years, during which time he has written a novel, several novellas and many short stories and poems. He is currently completing a collection of three novellas. He works as a freelance translator and lives in Dublin. He is a regular featured reader at both Chapters and Verse Reading Series and The Last Wednesday Reading and Open Mic Series. Donal is represented by The Seven Towers Agency.

Noel Ó Briain was born in Kerry, grew up in Dublin and now lives in Camolin, Wexford. He is a playwright and poet and a former head of drama at RTE. He has worked for many years in theatre, radio and television as an actor, producer/director, designer and script editor.He played the part of Cranly in the premier of Hugh Leonard’s Stephen D (an adaptation of Joyce’s Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man) at the Gate Theatre. He also played the part of the IRA officer in the premier of Brendan Behan’s An Giall in the Damer Hall in Dublin and designed the set for this production. The play was later translated into English as The Hostage and staged at The Royal Theatre Stratford by Joan Littlewood.He has produced and directed many plays in the Damer Hall under the auspices of Gael Linn. Among others these included Gunna Cam agus Slabhra Óir by Seán Ó Tuama and Aggiornamento by Chriostóir Ó Floinn. He also designed the sets for these and many other production. He has directed Ulick O’Connor’s Noh Plays at The Project. As a Radio Producer his drama productions have been selected as RTE’s entries for the Prix Italia.

He has won a National Jacob’s Award for his production and adaptation of Seán Ó Tuama’s Judas Iscariot agus a Bhean.

He has worked as Producer, Director, Series Producer and Script Editor in numerous television one-offs, series and serial drama, often combining several of these skills in one production. These have included The Riordans, Bracken (which launched the career of Gabriel Byrne) Glenroe and Ros na Rún among many others. He also produced and directed the controversial series The Spike until it was withdrawn by RTE itself after complaints from the League of Decency and State interference. He has participated in a documentary in the Scannal series on RTE which deals with well known Irish scandals – including The Spike! (to be transmitted in Autumn 2008). He has won the Celtic Film Festival Drama Award for his production of Tom Murphy’s screenplay, Brigit. He has devised and conducted numerous screenwriting courses. Among these was the initial course for the development of new writers for the series Ros na Rún on TG4. He has conducted several screen acting courses both independently and for the Gaiety School of Acting. His poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary magazines including The Kilkenny Magazine and Poetry Ireland. They have also been broadcast on radio in the short story slot and on Sunday Miscellany. His poetry collection Scattering Day 21 Sonnets and Other Poems was published by Seven Towers in 2007.Noel has two plays currently completed:

The Land of She: An adapted for theatre translation of Brian Merriman’s Cuirt on Mhean Oiche, this hillarious play is written for five parts.

He has also completed a short verse play inspired by Synge’s Deirdre of The Sorrows, entitled Áinle and Árdán Are Already Dead.

Oran Ryan is a novelist, poet and playwright from Dublin. He has had poems, short stories and literary critical articles published in various magazines. His first two novels, The Death of Finn and Ten Short Novels by Arthur Kruger were published by Seven Towers in 2006. He is currently working on his fifth novel and had three plays and two screenplays in pre-production. Oran won a 2008 Arts Council Bursary Award.

Doog Wood is a Dublin based poet from North Carolina. His poetry has been widely published in journals and anthologies. His first full collection will be published by The Seven Towers Agency in 2009.

And of course, myself . . .

Steve