From its modest start in 1971, Writers’ Week has grown to be able to fill Fossett’s circus big top
THIS WEEKEND, Listowel Writers’ Week in Co Kerry celebrated its 40th anniversary. Back in the inaugural year, 1971, the programme ran to two pages and cost twopence, and if you wanted more information about the festival you were encouraged to telephone Listowel 225.
Among the items scheduled in the 1971 programme were new works by local writers John B Keane and Bryan MacMahon; an arts and crafts exhibition; writers’ workshops and talks on and by local writers; and tours to places “connected with famous local writers”.
This year’s programme was remarkably similar in form. There was a theatre and film strand; readings by Irish and international writers; art exhibitions and book launches, several of them by local people; 15 writers’ workshops; and bus and walking tours of Kerry’s literary landmarks.
Forty years ago, the president of Writers’ Week was Séamus Wilmot, the academic. On Saturday his son, the actor Ronan Wilmot, performed a one-man show at St John’s Theatre, thereby linking one generation of festivals with another.
Among the writers who participated this year were Kevin Barry, Michael Holroyd, Edward St Aubyn, John Connolly, Robert McCrum, Catherine Dunne, John Lonergan, Gerry Stembridge and Emily Barr.
Those who gave workshops included novelists David Park and Seán O’Reilly, poet Harry Clifton, playwright Marina Carr and screenwriter Mark O’Halloran.
The festival had a coup getting novelist Alice Sebold in from San Francisco for one night – literally an overnight visit to Ireland. She is best known for her novel The Lovely Bones, a feature film of which was directed by Peter Jackson and starred Irish actress Saoirse Ronan.
In the ballroom of the Listowel Arms hotel on Saturday, Sebold gave her first public reading of the first chapter of the novel she is working on, The Happy Man. There was a strained and horrified silence in the audience afterwards when one audience member announced during the question and answer session that Sebold's reading had "done nothing for me; it left me totally cold".
“I don’t think I love you, sir,” was Sebold’s eventual, clearly stricken, response.
Across town, at the former Plaza cinema, American author and humorist David Sedaris attracted the longest book-signing queue of the festival. Well known for his radio appearances and his books, which include Me Talk Pretty One Dayand Holidays on Ice, he found his reading moved from St John's Theatre when ticket demand for it outstripped the venue's limitations.
He began his reading with a selection from his latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: a Modern Bestiary. "Fables have morals, and I don't always, so I called it a Modern Bestiary instead," he said by way of explaining the title.
He also read a story, due to be published in a forthcoming edition of the New Yorkermagazine, about the language of phrase books.
A first for the festival this year was the inspired use of Fossett’s circus big top as a new venue, located in the town’s disused cattle market. The biggest crowd of the festival, some 900 people, gathered there on Thursday evening to hear ethologist and biologist Richard Dawkins interviewed by journalist Kevin Myers.
On Friday, the singer Julie Feeney performed in the big top, and on Saturday night the novelist Joseph O’Connor collaborated with broadcaster Philip King, guest singer Eimear Quinn and the band Scullion for the 40th anniversary concert.
Writers’ Week had a prize fund of €30,000 this year for a wide range of competitions, including plays, short stories, poetry, writing by children and writing from prisons.
The flagship prize of €15,000 for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award 2011 was presented to novelist Neil Jordan on the opening night.
Both playwright John B Keane and short-story writer Bryan MacMahon wrote welcome notes in the 1971 programme. Keane wrote of Listowel people: “There is something about us which is different. We continue to astonish the country by throwing up writers every few years. We can talk too. There isn’t a Listowel man but could talk the hind leg off a pot, sober or in his cups.”
Forty years on, it’s still true.
