Cork 2005: In a programme which looks likely to have several highlights - not least the presentation of the €50,000 International Short Story Award next Sunday - the Sixth Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival will also host the launch of Desmond Hogan's new book, Larks' Eggs.
This collection of new and selected short stories is published by Lilliput Press and will be critically examined by at least two of Hogan's fellow-authors at the festival.
Both David Means (New York) and Bret Anthony Johnson (California) are short-listed for the international prize funded by O'Flynn Construction Ltd, for which Hogan is a member of the jury.
The hope was that they would be joined by other candidates such as Alice Hoffman, who was unable to avoid prior commitments, and Yiyun Lee, whose ability to go to and from her home in America is compromised by difficulties with her Chinese passport.
The remaining short-listed writers are Australia's Tim Winton and Latvia's David Bezmozgis, but unfortunately neither is able to attend.
The programme is so full, however, that these absences, while regretted, will hardly be noticed, especially as the Man Booker long-list nominee William Wall will be giving a fiction masterclass (on Saturday), and the American poet Stephen Dobyns will conduct a "general principles" workshop on Thursday morning, having given a reading the night before.
From Thursday to Sunday, readings and interviews will include Johnson and Means, Wang Zhousheng from Shanghai and Nisha da Cunha from Mumbai, with graduates of the Oscar Wilde Centre at TCD, and Jon Boilard of San Francisco, Rachel Trezise, a native of Wales who was nominated for the Orange Futures List in 2002, and Irish writers Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Maurice O'Callaghan, Richard Cotter, Aidan Harman and Gráinne Downey.
Lecturers include Dr John Kenny, Hilary Lennon and Michael Steinman, and interviews will be led by Eileen Battersby and Alannah Hopkin.
The coincidences arising from the fact that Frank O'Connor (Michael O'Donovan) and Sean O'Faolain were both born in the same city at much the same time and followed the same calling continue at this year's festival.
The international O'Connor award is, so far, a prize to be awarded by the O'Flynn property development company as a contribution to Cork's year as European Capital of Culture. The much smaller but nonetheless estimable Sean O'Faolain short story prize (value €1,500), which is an annual feature, will be awarded on Sunday afternoon.
The Lord Mayor Cllr Deirdre Clune will attend the gala O'Connor award presentation dinner on Sunday night, along with Frank O'Connor's widow, Harriet O'Donovan Sheehy and his daughter, Liadan O'Donovan.
More information from 021-4312955; munsterlit@eircom.net; www.munsterlit.ie
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