IWC Members’ Christmas Party 2022
We invite our IWC Members to join us for our first Members’ Christmas Party in-person since 2019 and to celebrate another year of success for the Centre and Irish writing. This will be a celebration of coming back together with the community who make up the Irish Writers Centre. We’ll have readings from some of our New Irish Communities Writers, Associate and Professional Members, IWC Ambassador Mike McCormack and music from Alain Servant. We’ll be announcing the winners of the Jack Harte Bursary, presented by Jack Harte, and the Lacuna Bursary Award, presented by Dr Eimear O’Connor, Director of The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig where both residencies will be taking place. So come along for an evening of literature, song and dance, and raise a glass to 2022!
Our featured author, IWC Ambassador, Mike McCormack:
Mike McCormack is an award-winning novelist and short story writer from Mayo. His previous work includes Getting it in the Head (1996) and Forensic Songs (2012). In 1996 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for Getting it in the Head and in 2007 he was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. In 2016, Solar Bones won the Goldsmiths Prize and was BGE Irish Book of the Year, and in 2017 was longlisted for the Man Booker prize. In 2018, Solar Bones won the Dublin International Literary Award. Mike holds the Charles A. Heimbold Jr., Chair of Irish Studies at Villanova University for the spring 2019 semester.
Our musical guest…
Alain Servant blends influences of punk,
folk and storytelling into a dreamlike atmosphere that
speaks with passion and lightness of our strange journey on
this earth.
We are very excited to have readings from the following writers:
New Irish Communities
Larisa Sardiko, an NIC group member since 2017, grew up in Belarus and writes poems and short stories in English and Russian.
Victoria Melkovska was born in Ukraine in 1977. She moved to Ireland 20 years ago and lives in Dublin with her husband and their three children. She’s a journalist, radio presenter, radio presenter and translator. In Ireland, her poetry appeared in numerous anthologies, The Irish Times and RTE Radio. Victoria’s poetry collection will be published by Dedalus Press in 2023.
Simone Sav is a poet, playwright and actor originally from Romania. Her work has been published in various anthologies and literary magazines, and read on RTE Radio 1 and Lyric FM. Her one act plays, ‘The Oak’ and ‘Palindrome’ were staged by the Leeson Park Players drama society.
Associate Members
Shamim de Brún is a full-time journalist at District magazine who specialises in food and drink. Her more creative endeavours take the form of autofiction, spoken work, and creative non-fiction.
Finbar Lennon is a retired surgeon who co-authored with his late wife a memoir The Heavens are all Blue published by Hachette Ireland in 2020. He has had two collections of poetry published in the last two years by Lapwing Publications in Belfast and a new collection is due for publication soon.
Fergal Canton is a graduate of Mater Dei Institute holding a degree in Religion and English. He holds post graduate degrees from Maynooth, Limerick and Galway and has recently completed a course in Myth and Magic studying Folklore and Mythology from UCC. He is writing a collection of short stories and a YA Novel. His interests are Heritage, Mythology and Identity.
Professional Members
Sonya Gildea is a Poetry Ireland Introductions poet (2021). She is winner of the John McGahern Literature Award (2021) and the Cúirt International New Writer’s Award. She is recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary Award, an IWC Cill Rialaig Writer’s Residency (2022) & NMP Mentorship (2022/2023). Sonya is published in The Stinging Fly, Tolka, New Irish Writing, The Common, The Cormorant Broadsheet, The Maynard, Crannóg, The Night Heron Barks & The Irish Times; as well as anthologies, Romance Options (Dedalus Press 2022); This is What You Mean to Me (Poetry Ireland 2022); Hold Open the Door (UCD Press 2021); Washing Windows Too (Arlen House, 2022). Sonya is completing her first short story collection, The Switching Yard and writing the poetry collection, 500 Seconds. She lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.
Enda Coyle-Greene has published three collections with the Dedalus Press: Snow Negatives (2007) winner of the 2006 Patrick Kavanagh Award, Map of the Last (2013), and Indigo, Electric, Baby (2020). She received a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in 2020 and is co-founder and Artistic Director of Poetry at the Mills – the Fingal Poetry Festival.
Colm Brennan is a writer of poetry and fiction from Bray Co. Wicklow. His work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Cormorant, The Ogham Stone and most recently in the new journal, Profiles.
He has an MA in Creative Writing from UL and in the new year will be teaching a night class in poetry at Dun Laoghaire Further Education Institute.
