I spent Friday - Sunday in Listowel, Co Kerry, at the annual Writers Week literary festival. Before arriving, I stopped off in Dingle, at the Dingle Bookstore, where I gave a reading from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY to customers of this excellent local bookshop and was made feel very welcome. Many thanks to Camilla for inviting me (and for offering me a free book from the shelves afterwards!)
I drive to Listowel in time for the Amnesty event, which was being run in conjunction with the short stories being published every Saturday in the Irish Times. Four of the writers involved gave readings - Lia Mills, Carlo Gebler, Kevin Barry and myself - and afterwards there was what could only be called a very lively Q&A session with those attending on the subject of the writer’s role in relation to continuing human rights abuses around the world. The night ended, as so many of these events do, with a great gang talking
into the night in the bar - great fun.
I attended John Banville’s reading on Saturday, a great treat as he read from a work-in-progress. Then on Sunday I read from MUTINY to an audience who, happily, were full of questions about that novel and not the previous one!
This was my first time at Listowel Writers Week and I enjoyed every minute of it thoroughly. A warm atmosphere in the hotel, a very professionally run festival, interesting writers and great audiences made up a terrific few days in Kerry.