A literary round-up
High-class literature
British author Stella Tillyard, below, is this year's writer in residence at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park, Dublin – but having written about another Office of Public Works landmark, Castletown House, in her book Aristocrats, she's hosting events there as well as at Farmleigh during her stint in Ireland.
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832, which was made into a BBC mini-series, included Castletown because the third sister of this British aristocratic family became its chatelaineafter she married into the Conolly family who owned it. Other books by Tillyard include Citizen Lord: Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-98.
On Thursday at 8pm Tillyard will speak at an event in The Long Gallery at Castletown accompanied by Irish film director David Caffrey who directed Aristocrats and Harriet O’Carroll who wrote the screen adaptation and who will discuss the process of bringing the Lennox sisters’ story to the small screen.
On Saturday (September 12th), Tillyard will give a tour of Castletown House and talk about places she wrote about in Aristocratsand Citizen Lord. It will include a visit to the Shell Cottage at nearby Carton House.
Meanwhile, on Monday September 28th at 8pm, in the Farmleigh Ballroom, she will be in conversation with Myles Dungan whose most recent book, The Captain and the King: William O'Shea, Parnell and Late Victorian Ireland, came out earlier this year.
Tickets are free online at farmleigh.ie for the Farmleigh event. For the events at Castletown contact
caoilfhionn.murphy@opw.ie or Caoilfhionn Murphy, Castletown House, Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Maps for virgin authors
When embarking on a novel Carlo Gébler likes to get things straight in his head from the start – things like when his characters lost their virginity, if that’s important. It’s one of the tips he shares in Getting Started where various writers provide free downloadable files on starting out in creative writing. It’s on a new online writer’s network at writing4all.ie
The site is dedicated to unpublished Irish authors and membership is free.
The other thing Gébler sorts out in advance is where he is in time. “I will decide when my main characters (and usually, in a novel, I have six or eight, maximum, I can’t work with any more) were born’’.
The other thing he does religiously is draw a map of the places where the story unfolds or he will acquire a detailed map of the place where his story is set, paying attention, if using existing maps, that they correspond with the period in which the novel is set.
The site already has almost 600 members in its online writing community and, as well as showcasing their work, it provides updates of writing competitions and events, and a list of magazines to submit to.
There is also an inaugural Writing Spirit Short Fiction Award (first prize €1,000). Submissions can be in various genres, such as suspense, fantasy, popular or crime.
Write for children
This week’s news that the iconic Penguin children’s imprint Puffin is being launched here by Penguin Ireland means that there will be a bigger market here for children’s books. Coincidentally an information seminar on writing or illustrating for children is being held in Pearse Street Library in Dublin on Saturday, September 19th.
The line up of experts speaking at Paths to Publicationis impressive and includes Oisín McGann, Niamh Sharkey and Sarah Webb. Contact Children's Books Ireland, 17 North Great George's Street, Dublin 1. Tel: 01-8727475.