Literary listings: Listowel line-up, Cúirt bursary and Baileys longlist

Programme announced for Writers’ Week

This line-up for the 2015 Listowel Writers' Week festival sees celebrities in other fields top the bill, with presenter Graham Norton and the actor Alan Cummings star attractions as they discuss their respective memoirs, The Life and Loves of a He-Devil and Not My Father's Son. Other headlining names include Dennis Lehane, Colm Tóibín, Andrew O'Hagan, Neel Mukherjee, Sara Baume, Colin Barrett, Paul Durcan, Patrick Cockburn, Christine Dwyer Hickey and Nick Laird. Laureate for Irish Fiction Anne Enright will open the festival at an evening event on Wednesday, May 27th, where the winners of this year's Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Pigott Poetry Prize will be announced. Irish and international teachers directing creative writing workshops at this year's festival include Alex Preston, Declan O'Rourke, Lucy Caldwell, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Martina Devlin, John McAuliffe, Peter Fallon, Dr Eibhear Walshe and Shane Connaughton. More information at writersweek.ie

Poetry Ireland-Cúirt bursary

Poetry Ireland, in association with the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, is offering an emerging younger poet a bursary to visit the Galway based festival (April 21st-27th) and immerse themselves in the poetry programme. The successful applicant will attend all poetry readings and launches at the festival and they will also be allocated a place on the workshop programme. They will receive complimentary tickets to all events, bed and breakfast accommodation for five nights, along with their travel costs to Galway and a per diem. In return they will be required to write a blog for Poetry Ireland and Cúirt while at the festival. For its 30th anniversary year, Cúirt plays host to some of the world's leading poets including Paul Durcan, John Montague, Kay Ryan and Naomi Shihab Nye. The full programme Cúirt is at cuirt.ie/en.

Baileys Prize longlist

A longlist of 20 authors has been announced for the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Five debut authors feature along more established names such as Anne Tyler, Rachel Cusk and Ali Smith. “This year is a particularly strong one for women’s fiction,” said Shami Chakrabarti, chair of the judging panel. “All judges fought hard for their favourites and the result is a list to be proud of – with its mix of genres and styles, first-timers and well-known names from around the world.”

The full longlist is: Rachel Cusk (Outline), Lissa Evans (Crooked Heart), Patricia Ferguson (Aren’t We Sisters?), Xiaolu Guo (I Am China), Samantha Harvey (Dear Thief), Emma Healey (Elizabeth is Missing), Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven), Grace McCleen (The Offering), Sandra Newman (The Country of Ice Cream Star), Heather O’Neil (The Girl Who Was Saturday Night), Laline Paull (The Bees), Marie Phillips (The Table of Less Valued Knights), Rachel Seiffert (The Walk Home), Kamila Shamsie (A God in Every Stone), Ali Smith (How to be Both), Sara Taylor (The Shore), Anne Tyler (A Spool of Blue Thread), Sarah Waters (The Paying Guests), Jemma Wayne (After Before) and PP Wong (The Life of a Banana).