Tag Archives: Writing

Readings by Noel King from his new book The Key Signature & Other Stories

Literary Events, Miscellaneous

The nineteen stories in this book concern the trials of modern man in an Ireland of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.  Each first-person narrator is grappling with something: host family father falling in love with the au pair, cross-dressing husband unleashing his grief and his vices after the funeral of his beloved wife, Men’s Shed participant falling in love with another male attendee. The Key Signature is a superb debut collection of stories from a fine poet and actor.

Noel King was born and lives in Tralee, County Kerry. His poetry collections are published by Salmon: Prophesying the Past (2010), The Stern Wave (2013) and Sons (2015). He has edited more than fifty books of work by others (Doghouse Books, 2004-2013) and was poetry editor of Revival Literary Journal (Limerick Writers’ Centre) in 2012/13. He also enjoys acting and singing in amateur plays and musical theatre, and in the odd film. He was once a Bunratty Castle entertainer. The Key Signature & Other Stories is his debut collection of fiction.

Come and see Noel read from The Key Signature at one of these venues

Monday 5 June – Launch of The Key Signature & Others Stories (Liberties Press) – Siamsa Tire Theatre & Arts Centre, Town Park, Tralee. 6pm

Tuesday 6 June – On the Nail, Shannon Rowing Club, Sarsfield Bridge, Limerick hosted by Limerick Writers’ Centre. 8pm

Wednesday 7 June – Seanchai Centre, Listowel. 7.30pm

Thursday 8 June – Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Galway. 6.30pm

Friday 9 June – The White House Bar, Fermoy, County Cork.

Saturday 10 June – Four ‘pop-up’ readings with Mae Leonard in Naas, County Kildare: McAuley Place, 2pm; Naas Library, 2.30pm; The Moat Club Cafe , 3pm; Swan’s on the Green, 4pm

Sunday 11 June – National Concert Hall, ‘The Sprit of Kerry’ night

Wednesday 14 June – David Butler’s Serrocco series reading in Baggot Street, Dublin.

Thursday 15 June – Cork city, hosted by Matthew Moynihan

Friday 16 June – Louis Mulcahy Pottery, Ballyferriter, County Kerry

Noel King

Yeats Day Book Launch by Paula Lahiff; and Stoneywoods Festival Update

Literary Events, Miscellaneous,

The launch of From India to Ithaca, a new collection of poetry by Paula Lahiff, will be held in the Yeats Memorial Building, Sligo on Yeats’s birthday — Tuesday, 13 June at 1:00 pm. Damien Brennan will launch Paula’s collection.
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Sinead Morrisey at Stoneywoods Festival – start time 5.50 pm, entry fee €5.

Join poets Sinead Morrissey, Monica Corish and Teresa Lally for a summer feast of poetry in the community centre in the heart of Kiltyclogher! If you wish to reserve a place in advance, contact Alison: 083-1755723. Tickets: €5 at the door – proceeds to charity. Cash only, please! www.facebook.com/events/682393661931626/

Poetry and Myth Workshop Postponed

The “Poetry and Story Inspired by Myth” writing workshop, which was due to take place as part of the Stoneywoods festival, has been postponed. Future venue and date TBC

Writing Workshop: Poetry and Story Inspired by Myth

Miscellaneous, Poetry and Story, Landscape and Myth, Workshops, , ,

As part of the Stoneywoods Festival: Kiltyclogher Library, 1 – 3:30 pm, Saturday, July 1.

Kiltyclogher – Coillte Clochair, the Stoney Woods – sits halfway between the enigmatic Prince Connall’s Grave and the splendidly named Black Pig’s Dyke. It is the perfect place in which to learn from poems and stories inspired by myth, and write your own.

The workshop will be led by Monica Corish. €20, pay at the door – places limited to 16.

April 22: Sligo Writing Workshop, in partnership with Comhlamh

Workshops, ,

Creative Writing Workshop, in partnership with Comhlamh – Development Workers in Global Solidarity

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Have you lived and worked or volunteered in the Global South? Are you from the Global South? Then this is the workshop for you – whether you are a returned development worker or volunteer, a refugee or asylum seeker, a ‘new Irish’ citizen, a missionary or humanitarian aid worker – come along and share your voice among like-minded others.

Whether you came home two weeks or twenty years ago, whether you spent two weeks volunteering or half a lifetime living abroad, trust that your memories are ripe now for writing down…

Two Writing Workshops, Kinlough, January to May 2017

Workshops, ,

cat-and-book

Jan 9th – Both workshops almost full – before sending payment, please get in touch at monicacorishwriting@gmail.com or at 087-641 4185 to check there is room still available.

Kinlough Writing Workshop – Mixed: Open to men and women. An opportunity to develop your writing skills through writing prompts and craft exercises; and through constructive critique and insightful feedback on poetry, fiction and memoir. Fortnightly on Tues, 7–9:30 pm. 10 sessions: Jan 17 & 31; Feb 14 & 28; Mar 14 & 28; Apr 11 & 25; May 9 & 23

Kinlough Women’s Writing Group: A workshop to set the ink and the imagination flowing. If you are afraid of the blank page, your fear will dissolve; if you’re an experienced writer but your words feel stale, you will come away from these workshops refreshed. Fortnightly on Weds, 7–9:30 pm. 10 sessions: Jan 18; Feb 1 & 15; Mar 1 & 15 & 29; Apr 12 & 26; May 10 & 24.

Cost for either workshop series: €150. Early pay concession €130 (before Jan 10 2017). Payment by cheque, PO or PayPal. Any questions, please email me or phone 087-641 4185.

Fat Cats and Feral Cats: A Story

Miscellaneous, Writing

November 9th, 2050. Trump Day again. Not that he lasted long himself, died of a heart attack in his third year. In his bed, they said, but I doubt that he was sleeping. People got all riled up after he was inaugurated, street fights, gun fights, police on black, white on Latino, country on city, straight on gay, men on women – though that riot was held in private, the Trump boys pumped up and strutting, I’m the Lord of the Manor. And while all that was going on the Republican House and the Republican Senate quietly shifted the goalposts. An electoral boundary here, a state attorney there, mysterious deaths in high places. But we were all so fixated on Trump that nobody noticed. When he died, his VP stepped in. What was his name? P-something.

My mind’s getting fuzzy, I used to be sharp as a tack. Still, not bad for ninety-two. I want to remember, there are so few of us left to remember the good years. O how we whinged and moaned back then, wanting everything to be right. We didn’t know what wrong looked like. Pence! That was it. Mike Pence. He stepped in, quiet as a suit. Helped to calm the worst of the riots, I’ll give him that, but the real damage was done.

Thirty-four years of Republican rule. They held the mid-term elections yesterday, all panoply and brouhaha, but I don’t vote. Others vote. They go through the charade, they still call our country a democracy, but the democrats tore themselves apart years ago, and the Fat Cats rule unopposed.

It’s illegal to call them that, but in the quiet of my mind, and with those I trust, few as we are, that’s what I call them. The Fat Cat Party. And we, the Others, we are the skinny feral mangy cats on the margins, fighting for scraps. I remember when the margins of life were spacious, when Others had choices. Now it’s live or die, and not much between. Why have I held on so long, when all I love are gone? Because I’m a tough old biddy, I suppose. Because people want to hear my stories. And because still the dawn is beautiful – more beautiful with all the clog in the air. Strange, the compensations.

I’d like to tell my story one more time. One last time, I’ll be going soon. The Others listen to me the way once I listened to fairytales. How it used to be. How it might be again. I know they don’t believe me, I doubt it myself. But maybe. I sow seeds, that’s my job. I’m a gardener of the mind. So here we are, children, it’s Trump Day again. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time…