A press release from Brid Leonard, administrator of Listowel Writers' Week, declares that Ireland is in the grip of fever - "writing fever". Given her excited tone, Brid obviously thinks this is a good thing; I, on the other hand, feel (as I do about any other fever) that it's a rather bad thing.
Simply put, there's far too much Irish writing being published over the last few years. I'm speaking here of fiction rather than poetry or drama, because it's from fiction that aspirant writers and irresponsible publishers seem to think instant fame and serious money are to be made. They contemplate the massive popularity of Maeve Binchy and Roddy Doyle and the plaudits being dished out to, say, Patrick McCabe and Colum McCann, and they think: I want part of that.
They're aided and abetted by an international literary vogue which suggests that Irish writers can do no wrong and by an official ethos at home declaring that artistic creativity is magically in us all and that if we just tap into it, it will bring immediate personal gratification and financial rewards.
This is baloney. The whole point about real writing (as I was brought up to understand it, anyway) is that everyone can't do it - we all may "have a book in us" but it's only those with an uncommon imagination and rare gifts who can make something memorable out of their experiences and insights.
Indeed, those publishers who churn out new Irish novels by the week are in the business of devaluation. In their bid to make a quick killing, they're doing a disservice both to the aspirant writers they accept for publication and to the reading public - the former by convincing them they've got talent when they haven't, the latter by foisting semi literate twaddle on them and making it the norm.
There was a time, a mere couple of decades ago, when very little Irish fiction got published and when you had to wait impatiently and seemingly endlessly for a new hook by John McGahern or John Banville or Brian Moore to appear. Perhaps there was too little being published then, but I don't really think so - real writers almost always find a publisher, and there are never that many of them at any given time.
Nowadays it seems that you don't have to be a real writer to get published; you simply have to be Irish. This is a fad that will no doubt pass, and the publishers obviously know this - hence their rush to cash in on it while it lasts, and never mind the quality.
YET even though I've noticed from abroad the beginnings of a backlash against Irish fiction (reviewers declaring themselves "weary" of "Irish blarney", that kind of thing) the vogue is still in full swing and the names of new Irish writers keep appearing in publishers' catalogues.
Eamon Sweeney, for instance, was recently snapped up by Picador. Currently a researcher on the Arts Show, he had won a prize in the Raconteur short story competition (I'm sure I should have heard of it), and judge Ruth Rendell had suggested that he contact eminent English agent Pat Kavanagh about a novel he had just completed. This he did, and in two shakes of a lamb's tail Waiting for the Healer was accepted by Picador.
I met him at the official launch of Lara Harte's debut novel, First Time, which had been trounced by its Irish critics. I went to this launch because - despite my above strictures about much Irish writing I felt that the reviews had been unduly savage to someone so young (she's twenty) and that she might therefore welcome a good turn out.
I shouldn't have worried. There was no aura of gloom either about the author or about the reception - her publishing director, Maggie McKernan, and others from Phoenix House had flown over for the occasion, and it seemed that half of UCD, where Lara is a student, was also in enthusiastic attendance.
THE diaries that Eric Jacobs kept of Kingsley Amis's last three years make for dispiriting reading. This is hardly surprising, given that Amis gloried in presenting himself as a reactionary old boor - the scourge of lefties and trendies and anyone who wasn't moneyed and white. Since the sharp decline of his talent after the early promise of Licky Jim. I suppose such attention seeking was understandable, but that didn't make it forgivable.
His views on other writers were just as predictably philistine as his views on politics and race. In the diaries, Mr Jacobs quotes his dismissal of Jane Austen as "not much good - she was a creature of her time", and of Tolstoy as "boring". Well, he was no Kingsley Am is. certainly.
I'm amused, though, by the outrage expressed in some quarters that Mr Jacobs has violated Amis's privacy by publishing these diaries. If you read Amis's Memoirs (and there's no reason why you should), you'll find vicious personal anecdotes about his supposed best friend Philip Larkin, whom he describes in the diaries as having led "a miserable life". Perhaps. but his work will last.