Gallery: Words, in Other Places Literary Festival

Words, In Other Places, an Irish Writers Centre Literary Festival, in partnership with the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland

Please enjoy these photos from Saturday, April 11, and Sunday, April 12, at the Seamus Heaney Centre (taken by Declan Roughan / Press Eye) and Irish Writers Centre (taken by Paul Sherwood) respectively.

With 280+ in attendance, over the course of two days, Words, In Other Places, was a trilateral literary festival featuring 18 writers. Curated by the Irish Writers Centre, it was funded by the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland, supported by our Belfast venue, the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University, alongside our two supporting bookstores, No Alibis bookshop in Belfast and Chapters bookshop in Dublin. This unique, two-day festival took place in the Seamus Heaney Centre in Queens University, Belfast, on Saturday 11 April and in Dublin at the Irish Writers Centre on Sunday 12 April. The festival’s concept was to tell tales elsewhere, to take southern writers and bring them to the north, and take northern writers and bring them to the south and, in that sharing of stories, we expanded our scope and introduced international writers who have roots in other countries but now call Ireland home and are a firm part of the literary landscape.

In Belfast, three of the brightest, contemporary literary lights from southern Ireland, Rob Doyle, Louise Nealon and Patrick Holloway joined writer and journalist, Martin Doyle, for our opening panel discussion, Inside Out, Telling Tales Elsewhere, covering debuts, autofiction, memory, distractions and determination. Following that, Sarah Murphy Fitzgerald, director of the Creative Writing MA at Limerick University came to Belfast to give a two-hour creative writing workshop, packed with 25 eager participants, each one departing with such enthusiasm and determination. We finished with a second panel discussion, Literature in Translation/ Words Beyond Borders, inviting Csilla Toldy from Hungary, Enrica Maria Ferrara from Italy and Rafael Mendes from Brazil, all now based in Ireland, to talk to award-winning writer, Lucy Sweeney Byrne, about their journey to Ireland, the migrant Ulysses, the method of English becoming their writing language and an exploration of how literature is passed on from generation to generation through translation.

Day 2 opened in Dublin with a few words from MEP, Lynn Boylan, and followed by Jan Carson, Leontia Flynn and Wendy Erskine and the panel discussion, Inside Out, Telling Tales Elsewhere, featuring these three extraordianry writers from Northern Ireland talking to fellow Northern Irish writer, Neil Hegarty. For the afternoon workshop, we invited Belfast-born author of The Good Son, Paul McVeigh, to give a two-hour creative writing workshop, and his 25 participants left in a flurry of excitement. We finished the day with our second Literature in Translation/ Words Beyond Borders panel discussion, hosted by poet and playwright, Adam Wyeth, in conversation with two Rooney Prize winners, Hugo Hamilton and Suad Aldarra, alongside Ukrainian poet Victoria Melkovska, making this a conversation between Ukraine, Germany and Syria.

Over the course of one weekend, Words, In Other Places showcased the trilateral range of form, talent and diversity in today’s literary scene. Enormous thanks to Rachel Brown from Seamus Heaney Centre and her team, to all the participating writers, hosts and to the audience, to the Arts Council or Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and, most importantly, to Jeremy O’Sullivan and his team from the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland for making this all possible.