Review of the Year 2013 on rozz.ie

It’s been amazing how busy my year has been. From hanging and learning at writing festivals and workshops to attending launches and lots and lots of reading and reviews in between.

 

I attended the Irish Blog Awards in style!
I attended the Irish Blog Awards in style!

I’m going to start right back at the start of 2013. Yes, you’ve guess it. I’m starting my rozz.ie review of 2013 in…
January

My Christmas present from my husband was a holiday to the city of Bath from. I was looking forward to lots of reading! We stayed in a gorgeous country house hotel up in the hills above the city. During the day, we saw the Jane Austen Museum, the Roman Baths and spent too much money in Mrs B’s Reading Emporium-the most fabulous of fabulous bookshops. I got a great recommendation there for a three-part novella/short story collection by Italian author, Pietro Grossi. I devoured it and reviewed “Fists” on the blog. Back at home, The National Emerging Writers’ Programme released a set of DVDs in conjunction with writing.ie.
February

A Rozzie became ill and Simon attended the Dalkey Book Festival by himself. He treated me to the anthology of very cool and diverse anthology “Best European Fiction 2012” and I promptly gave it a thumbs up and a glowing review on the blog. You have to be nice.
March

There was an obsession on my blog with the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize 2013. I downloaded the 5 short stories and loved, loved, loved Mark Hadden’s “The Gun”. I predicted it would win but Junot Diaz’s “Miss Lora” scooped the prize. I liked it but didn’t love it. Not to worry, Mark, there’s always next year.
April

My favourite Lit Crush, Kevin Barry won the IMPAC Prize of €100,000. April was also a month for winning with the Hennessey Literary award for Best Emerging Fiction went to a short story, “Shelley” by John O’ Donnell. That story certainty stayed with me.

Dave Lordan at the launch of his First Book of Frags.
Dave Lordan at the launch of his First Book of Frags.

 

I also got out and about and attended Dave Lordan’s launch of his new book entitled “First Book of Frags” I really enjoyed the frags, a unique mix of full-sugar calorie, Dave-style and proud. His launch was open and fun, ending in an Open Mic where I read a short piece.
May

We saw the beginnings of the festivals that cover Ireland for the summer months with the Dublin Writers’ Festival and I applied for a masterclass with Colum Mc Cann. He handled the packed class of students well and was a chilled out performer.
2013 really was Kevin Barry’s year(Every year is?) and in May, he edited the “Town and Country” short story anthology. I was torn with trying to get to my nephew’s communion in Mayo and going to the launch in Dublin. In the end, after a public vote, I got to both. In heels.
June

It was a month of reviews for rozz.ie and I reviewed “The story of before” by Susan Stairs, “Bloodlines” by Joyce Russell and “Telemetale”, anthology put together by the Irish Writers’ Centre to commemorate Bloomsday.
June was also jam-packed with events. The Carlow Writers’ Cooperative published and launched their own anthology, “What Champagne Was Like” and I had two shorts featured within. The very lovely Jamie O’ Connell launched it for us. We raised over €1,100 and were pretty proud.

Jamie O Connell launches our group anthology, What Champagne Was Like. An excuse was had to get hair made big by Rozzie.
Jamie O Connell launches our group anthology, What Champagne Was Like. An excuse was had to get hair made big by Rozzie.

I also checked out the brilliant Festival of Writing and Ideas in Borris House. We had Ben Okri, PJ Harvey, Anne Enright and Donal Ryan to name a few. Hugo Jellett, the organiser has created the top literary festival with a unique setting. A must for any reader or writer. Honestly. It finished off a pretty brilliant Carlow Arts Festival. We are lucky. You should be jealous of Carlow.
July

This month is always the month of the West Cork Literary Festival and we headed off to Bantry again. I sat a week-long workshops with John McKenna and it involved lots of movement and chat and homework! The week flew. My highlight of the festival events was Deborah Levy, reading from her cute book “Things we don’t want to know” and “Black Vodka”, both of which I loved and reviewed on rozz.ie

Off to Bantry in July to read, chat and write!
Off to Bantry in July to read, chat and write!

August

A historian friend( you know who you are) dragged us to the surprisingly cool History Festival in Ireland in Duckett’s Grove, Carlow. We saw “The Great Hunger”, Patrick Kavanagh’s one-man play. It was excellent and we followed it up with an event  with Nicky Byrne. He of former Westlife. Turtle Banbury, the host interviewed him well and Nicky told us everything he had found out about his family history in the archives.
I also volunteered for the Kilkenny Arts Festival and sat in on Ron Rash, Kevin Barry(whoop!), Paula Meehan and a evocative and moving performance of the river voice in Finnegan’s Wake in “Riverrun”
I also somehow got the chance to review David Constantine’s new short story collection, “Tea at the Midlands”. Loved.
September

This month was the result of a summer holiday of reading with lots of reviews. I reviewed “Siege 13”, “Testament of Mary” and “The Herbalist”. Carlow Libraries gave us the annual Penfest Literary Festival and I caught up with Nuala Ni Chonchuir and she shared her wisdom on the short story. Kevin Barry  arrived in Carlow and he read and chatted about his writing life. He revealed he was heading out of Ireland for a while but he will return. Phew!
October

It was all about the literary magazine. Bohemyth announced its new editor, Michael Naughten-Shanks. Wordlegs magazine announced they wouldn’t be around forever and Dave Lordan et announced a new magazine, Colony. Coming soon!
I reviewed the very cool “Psychotic Episodes” by Alan Mc Gonagle and Simon reviewed the novel “Mount Merrion” purely because he loves Justin Quinn.

November

rozz.ie was longlisted for “Best Arts and Culture” blog and I attended the awards ceremony in style, dressed up as a flapper girl.

New Planet Cabaret anthology was launched by editor, Dave Lordan. Him again! We attended the launch which was recorded live on RTE radio 1 Arena show.
December

It was festive with an entertaining night in Cafe Formenti, Carlow Town. John Mc Kenna and Angela Keogh hosted the event and we were treated to mince pies, turkey and cranberry balls and sweet potato and cinnamon fritters alongside readings and music. It inspired me to host my own Open Mic. Readers were asked to read, rant, sing for 5 minutes on the theme of Yuletide. Loosely. Madeline from the Tearooms gave us her new popup tea rooms as a venue and it was wonderfully festive and sweet!

The last month of 2013 was finished off with a review of Ron Rash’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and much anticipated “Young Skins” by modest man, Colin Barrett. Hyped up but fully deserved. I was sad when I finished it. Colin had one of his stories nominated for the Bord Gáis Short Story of the Year award but he lost out.

The last few days of my 2013 are being spent reading Carve Magazine and looking forward to writing some new reviews to come in the shape of “The thing about December” by Donal Ryan and “Baracuda” by Christos Tsiolkas.

donalryan
Life is good and rozz.ie is a busy, little blog! I’ve hoped you enjoyed the year with me and it’s given you some inspiration to get reading, it really is the new black. Happy New Year!

Carlow Writers’ Launch of first anthology-What champagne was like

We didn’t get to taste what champagne was like but we had plenty chances to sample prosecco!

We kicked off with the Hard Times Duo of music, beautiful folky guitar music went down easily with the crowd.

The launch was opened by Jamie O’ Connell, much loved short story teller on rozz.ie. Jamie wrote a beautifully, insightful foreword for the anthology and on the night, he spoke about the themes of the work. He also read us one of the new stories he is working on and it was a treat to hear something that is unavailable in print. Jamie is a lovely speaker and reader and the story was a powerful one.

Simon Lewis compered the evening and did a fantastic job. We were then treated to a small selection of readings from the anthology. Finally, we had the Editor, Dr. Derek Coyle and he spoke to us about the meaning of a co-operative writing group and thanked everyone who had helped bring this project to its completion.

Then, we mingled and sold books! It was a super late night and much fun was had. Thanks to the Teach Dolmen Bar and all of our sponsors who made this project possible.

We will be in the Carlow Library reading at the Carlow Arts Festival on Tuesday, 11th June at 7:30, looking forward to seeing you there.

 

What champagne was like:Carlow Writers’ First Anthology is launched by Jamie O Connell Thursday, 6th June

At last, the day is nearly here.

It has been a year’w hard work to get our first anthology launched. The Carlow Writers are launching our first anthology tomorrow evening at 7:30 in the Teach Dolmen Bar, Tullow Street at 7:30. There will be prosecco. There will be Jamie O’ Connell. There will be a Rozzie reading her story. There will be a winning short story read by Phyllis Mahoud. There will be fun, fun, fun!

The Carlow Writers are also reading at the Carlow Arts Festival in the Carlow Library, Tullow Street at 7:30 Tuesday, 11th and there will be a marvelous spread of food and drink.

Come join us to kick the Carlow Arts Festival off tomorrow evening, 6th June at 7:30 in the Teach Bar! It would be terribly bold not to.

Mel Ulm and the Jamie O’ Connell interview

I haven’t written about Jamie O’ Connell for a bit now. But, thankfully, Mel Ulm has given us a proper fix of the Jamie in a hugely detailed interview with the author on Mel’s Reading Lives blog.

Mel Ulm knows his stuff. He knows Irish and he knows the short story. I imagine that he spends every second reading new and old Irish literature. I really enjoy his blog and am really enjoying the Q and A for Irish writers he has running for the last while.

Jamie O’ Connell was interviewed last week and it is really is a fab read. Jamie is honest and generous in his answers to very fascinating questions and the whole thing turns very academic but not overly off-putting!

So, Mel Ulm is everywhere but Jamie seems to be back on the scene a bit more recently. Jamie is launching our group anthology in June in Carlow. He is also working on new stuff all of the time and I just cannot wait to read any of his new stuff as his last short story collection was out just a year ago so we need some new work from this man.

Also, I hear talk that he was on Sunday Miscellany last Sunday and is going to be featured regularly on RTE Radio 1 on the Sunday Miscellany program. The latest one from yesterday doesn’t seem to be available just yet but I will post when it is. 9 in the morning was just too early for a Sunday wake up call.

Have a read of the interview here, lots of great nuggets on the writer’s life and ethos.

http://rereadinglives.blogspot.ie/2013/04/jamie-oconnell-question-and-answer.html