Loose Leaves/Sadbh: A proposal that Dublin be designated World Book Capital 2007 has been made to Unesco by Dublin City Council.
Although it could be 2006 before a decision is made, the submission, illustrated with images of everything from statues of Joyce and Wilde to the Writers' Museum and Greene's bookshop, has been sent to Unesco's headquarters in Paris with a letter of endorsement by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Michael Conaghan.
It has been put together by the city librarian, Deirdre Ellis-King, and is wide in the range of writers associated with the city it includes. "The city's contemporary literary heritage is nurtured today by renowned writers such as Maeve Binchy, Roddy Doyle, John Banville, Marian Keyes, Patricia Scanlan and poets such as Brendan Kennelly and Nuala Ní Dómhnaill." Naturally, the four Nobel laureates - Shaw, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney and their Dublin links - are among the many highlighted.
Many events in the proposed programme are already annual fixtures. These include the Irish Pen/AT Cross Achievement in Literature Award, the Dublin Writers' Festival, the International Impac Dublin Literary Award, and Bloomsday. Even St Patrick's Day is in there, with a promise that it "will place a strong emphasis on Ireland's literary heritage".
Other events listed are a conference on the future of the book organised by the department of library and information studies at UCD; an event at which a group of Irish women authors, "The Irish Girls", would reveal the secrets of their trade to aspiring writers and book fans; and a promotion called Buzzing about Books whereby five Irish publishers would produce special editions of one of their titles - three for adults and two for children - of which thousands of copies will be given away in the city. It is also proposed that O'Brien Press would produce a series of storybooks for children - with blank pages instead of an ending. In a competition for the 9-12 age group, children could write their own denouement; the winner would have the book published with his or her own ending.
Among the groups listed as supporting partners of the submission are the Arts Council, Dublin Tourism, Clé - the Irish Publishers' Association, the James Joyce Centre, Poetry Ireland and a number of universities. Given the heritage of the city and the amount of literary events that already take place, it is hard to imagine this document not getting serious consideration in Paris.
Big guns aim for Cork
Collections of short stories by such big guns in the genre as Alice Munro, William Trevor and Annie Proulx are among those that have been submitted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. Worth €50,000 it is part of Cork 2005: European Capital of Culture and was launched in association with the Munster Literature Centre. Given the size of the prize it was inevitable publishers would want their star short story writers in the mix. Other writers with collections currently under consideration include Julian Barnes, EL Doctorow, David Eggers, Alice Hoffman, Tim Winton, William Boyd and Gao Xing Jian. It's hoped the prize will become a regular event, to be awarded every two years.
More than 60 collections have been received and the judges will announce a shortlist in July and a winner in September. It's all part of celebrating Cork's relationship with the short story form thanks to some of its doyens such as Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain.
Papal tomes
Pope Benedict XVI is hardly going to prove the boon to the publishing industry that George W Bush became as president of the US, but like any controversial new name on the block he is already the subject of a number of tomes. Hodder & Stoughton was into the breach quickly with Benedict XVI: Commander of the Faith by Rupert Shortt, which it is billing as "the first major critical biography" of the former Cardinal Ratzinger. Ideal for Christmas, screams the ad for the book in the trade press. It's due out in October. Also coming up from Hutchinson is a collection of the new Pope's writings, as well as a short biography. Meanwhile, Continuum has reissued John Allen's biography, Cardinal Ratzinger: the Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith (2000). Allen, who in his preface describes himself as "a child of Vatican II" was CNN's Vatican analyst during the recent papal conclave.