Carson on shortlistIrish poet Ciaran Carson has been shortlisted for this year's TS Eliot Prize for his collection All We Know, published by Gallery Books.
Also shortlisted are Moniza Alvi, Peter Bennet, Robert Crawford, Maura Dooley, Mark Doty, Jen Hadfield, Mick Imlah, Glyn Maxwell and Stephen Romer. The judges are Andrew Motion, Lavinia Greenlaw and Tobias Hill, who chose the 10 shortlisted collections from the 90 new books published this year submitted by publishers.
Announcing the list, Motion made the point that the 10 books on it bore witness to the vitality of contemporary poetry as a whole.The winner will be announced on January 12th. The prize is £15,000 (€18,500), increased from £10,000 (€12,300) last year. Each of the shortlisted poets also receives a cheque for £1,000 (€1,230).
Premier prize
There's nothing like winning a prize when starting out as a writer and publisher Penguin Ireland this week awarded its inaugural Penguin Ireland Prize for the most promising fiction writer on the MA course in creative writing at University College Dublin. The first winner is Helen Chandler. Her win was announced by the playwright and poet Frank McGuinness, professor of creative writing at the university and the prize presented by writer Edna O'Brien, UCD's adjunct professor of creative writing. Brendan Barrington, senior editor with the publisher, who judged the prize, said Chandler's short stories were the work of a writer who understood a couple of essential things about fiction: that it is both an art and a craft, and that the writer seeking to engage her reader must create a distinctive voice, sensibility and atmosphere. "Beyond these essentials, there are no rules, and it is obvious that Helen Chandler understands this too. I worry sometimes that young writers enter creative- writing courses hoping to be given access to some magic formula - a formula that does not, of course, exist. But this young writer has produced a group of stories that resist the formulaic in a manner that is both impressive and encouraging."
Penguin hopes the prize, a €100 book token and €200 worth of Penguin books, will offer encouragement to the winner as she develops as a writer. Having it presented by literary doyenne Edna O'Brien added greatly to the occasion.
Making crime pay
Crime fiction authors Declan Burke and Alex Barclay will join journalist Niamh O'Connor, author of The Black Widow: The Catherine Nevin Story, for a panel discussion called Crime Always Pays at the United Arts Club, 3 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin at 8pm on Thursday; admission €3 members/€5 non-members. Burke is the author of The Big O(2007) and Eightball Boogie(2003) and blogs at Crime Always Pays, a site devoted to Irish crime fiction. Barclay's novel Darkhouse, which came out this year, traces the evolution of a killer from childhood to adulthood - and the evolution of a detective from the right to the wrong side of the law, while O'Connor's second book, Cracking Crime, was about the life of forensic scientist Dr Jim Donovan. Booking for this event is essential. E-mail irishpen@
ireland.com or tel: 087-9660770.
Focus on Kavanagh
"The Local and the Ordinary" is the theme of the annual Patrick Kavanagh Weekend from November 28th to 30th in the poet's heartland of Inniskeen, Co Monaghan. Events include: Teach Me How to Kiss, an art exhibition by Constance Short; the keynote address, Patrick Kavanagh's Legacy and Influence, by poet and academic Gerald Dawe; From William Carleton to Patrick Kavanagh: Social Memory and the Burning of the Wildgoose Lodge, a talk by Terence Dooley; and a reading by Paul Durcan.
The events are interspersed with tours of Kavanagh country. For further details, contact the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, Inniskeen, Co Monaghan,
tel: 042-9378560, or see patrickkavanaghcountry.com.