Tag Archives: Competition

LeafLight Moon wins at the CAP Awards!

Competitions, Literary Events, Miscellaneous, , , , ,

LeafLight Moon has won the 2025 CAP Award for Fiction, and the Golden CAP for best independently published book. CAP Awards patron Paul Lynch announced Monica Corish as the overall winner at the award ceremony in Chapters Bookstore on October 10.

Judge Alan Ryan said of LeafLight Moon – a novel of prehistoric Ireland: “One story in particular stayed with me long after I put it down. It was multi-layered yet simple, occasionally quirky yet completely believable. I could easily imagine the events and time it told of happening exactly as written. I’d love to see it as a film. I reckon it would make a stunning Irish version of The Mission.”

LeafLight Moon is available in-store from Chapters Bookstore and Books Upstairs in Dublin, Liber Books in Sligo, A Novel Idea in Ballyshannon, and The Four Masters in Donegal town; online from Lulu Bookstore, Bookshop.org in the US, Waterstones in the UK, and other online outlets; and as an e-book from Amazon UK.

The Carousel Aware Prize for Independently Published Authors (The CAP for Indies) aims to provide a platform to showcase the cream of Irish Self-Published authors, bringing them to the attention of book shops, distributors, and the media in Ireland and abroad, with all money raised going to the charity Aware.

Watch the awards ceremony here (fiction prize at 1:14:44)

Monica Corish with Carolann Copland – photo credit Christine Higgins

Join us at the CAP Awards!

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Both Monica Corish’s “LeafLight Moon – a novel of prehistoric Ireland” and Tom Sigafoos’s “Pool of Darkness – Raymond Chandler in Ireland” have been shortlisted for the 2025 CAP Award for Fiction. Please join us at the awards ceremony on Friday, October 10, 6 PM in Chapters Bookstore, Parnell Square, Dublin, where the books will be available for purchase.

Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch is patron of the Awards, which aim to provide a platform to showcase the cream of Irish Self-Published authors, bringing them to the attention of book shops, distributors, and the media in Ireland and abroad, with all money raised going to the charity Aware. Please share this invite with your friends and other book-lovers.

For news of November events in Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal, go to pucabooks.ie/events

LeafLight Moon shortlisted for CAP Awards…

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… and Tom Sigafoos’s novel ‘Pool of Darkness – Raymond Chandler in Ireland’, also published by Púca Books. Paul Lynch, patron of the CAP Awards for Indies, will announce the winners at an event in Dublin in October.

LeafLight Moon can be purchased at the launch on Friday, August 22 at 5 pm in the Yeats Building, Hyde Bridge, Sligo, F91 DVY4. The event is free, and no booking is required.

LeafLight Moon is available for pre-order and postal delivery from Liber Books in Sligo and A Novel Idea in Ballyshannon; as an e-book from Amazon UK; and from multiple online retailers over the coming days.

Please spread the word and sign up to receive our newsletter Púca News & Story Extras, for updates on future events and to explore the intriguing background to our stories.

‘Pool of Darkness’ and ‘LeafLight Moon’ on CAP Awards Longlist

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Tom Sigafoos and I are both on the 2025 Fiction Longlist for the Carousel Awards for Irish Independent Authors, under the patronage of Booker prizewinner Paul Lynch. The shortlist will be announced in mid-August, and the winners on October 10 at Chapters Book Shop in Dublin.

Tom’s Pool of Darkness: Raymond Chandler in Ireland imagines a 1948 encounter between crime novelist Chandler and philosopher Wittgenstein in a remote corner of County Galway. As the two notoriously-reclusive men develop an unlikely friendship, they stumble into a conspiracy that involves former Nazis, the US House Un-American Activities Committee, and a cat belonging to the widow of William Butler Yeats. Theo Dorgan describes the book as “… a gem and a joy”…

LeafLight Moon – a novel of prehistoric Ireland will be launched by Susan O’Keeffe during Sligo’s Heritage Week. Closely researched and set 6000 years ago in the rich prehistoric landscapes of Sligo and the north-west, LeafLight Moon tells the story of the fateful encounter between Ireland’s first farmers and the hunter-gatherers of the Hearth of MotherMountain.

 

Allingham Competitions – Deadline Extended to 13/10

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The deadline for 2024 Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction Competitions has been extended. All entries, on-line and postal, must be received by 11:59 pm on Sunday, 13 October 2024. See the Allingham Festival website www.allinghamfestival.com for information and entry forms.

I decided to ask WordPress to generate an AI image. Can it not spell, or did I misspell the prompt?!!

Deadline Extended for Allingham Poetry & Flash Fiction Competitions

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The deadline for entries to the 2023 Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction Competitions is being extended to Friday, 29 September. On-line and postal entries must be received by 23:59 on the 29th. Competition rules and entry forms are found at www.allinghamfestival.com.

In addition to the cash prizes of €300, the first-place winner in the 2023 Allingham Poetry Competition will also receive the newly-created Francis Harvey Poetry Award, and the first-place winner in the Flash Fiction Competition will receive the Keane Family Award.

First-, second- and third-place winners will be invited to read their work in the on-line Awards Ceremony on Friday, 10 November. Poetry entries are being judged by Kate Newmann of Summer Palace Press; Flash Fiction by Alan McMonagle (Ithaca, Laura Cassidy’s Walk of Fame).

The 2023 Allingham Festival (Nov 8-12 in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal) will include a conversation with best-selling domestic noir author Liz Nugent, readings by acclaimed children’s author Shane Hegarty, and a regional meeting of the WORD organisation of professional and aspiring writers.

Allingham Festival Francis Harvey Award for Poetry, James Keane Award for Flash Ficiton

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The 2023 Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction Competitions are open for entries until 22 September. Competition rules and entry forms are detailed on the Festival website www.allinghamfestival.com. The Festival will take place on 8-12 November in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal.

This year’s Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction Awards Ceremony will feature a new award – the Francis Harvey Award for Poetry. This annual award has been created to highlight the life and legacy of Donegal poet Francis Harvey, 1925-2014. The winner of the 2023 Allingham Poetry Competition will also be declared the winner of the Francis Harvey Award. The poetry competition will be judged by poet and publisher Kate Newman.

If you’re not familiar with Francis Harvey, look into his Collected Poems. In her introduction, Moya Cannon writes that ‘…Francis Harvey’s work combines the passion for precision of a naturalist and the yearning for grace of a poet, except for the fact that a passion for precision, for naming, is also part of the bedrock of poetry. In [his] poems there is a vivid sense of how we are all moving, “free but tethered, through time’s inexorable weathers.”’

As in past years, the winner of the Allingham Flash Fiction Competition will also be declared the winner of the Keane Family Award, honouring the memory of Ballyshannon writer and arts patron James Keane. The flash ficiton competiton will be judged by Alan McMonagle

Path to Publication workshop at 2021 Allingham Festival – plus competitions

Competitions, Literary Events, Writing advice, ,

Lepus Print, a new Sligo-based publisher, will offer an on-line Path to Publication Workshop at the 2021 Allingham Festival.

The workshop will help writers clarify the nature and direction of their writing, improve their craft, and develop publication-worthy manuscripts. Writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children’s books are invited to apply.

Led by Lepus Print publishers and authors Brian Leyden and Mary Branley, the on-line
workshop invites applications from writers worldwide. Scheduled as a fully-interactive
webinar from 10 am to noon GMT on Thursday, 4 November, the workshop will be limited
to 12 participants.

Workshop applicants are asked to provide a 50-100 word summary of their experience in
writing and publishing, a 150 word description of their goals and their work-in-progress,
and copies of five poems or two chapters of prose (up to 7,000 words) by October 1.

Application documents and work samples should be attached to an email addressed to allinghamfest@gmail.com by October 1, including the words LEPUS PUBLICATION
WORKSHOP in the subject line.

Applicants who are selected for the Lepus Path to Publication Workshop will be asked to
confirm their attendance by purchasing a €15 ticket on-line. For additional information contact Tom Sigafoos, PRO, Allingham Festival, tomsigafoos@gmail.com.

The deadline for entries in the Allingham Poetry and Flash Fiction Competitions is Sept 17. Entry forms for the competitions are found at www.allinghamfestival.com.