Latest news with #ToAvengeaDeadGlacier
Irish Times
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Author Shane Tivenan: ‘People who veer away from the norm have always had a magnetic effect on me'
Tell us about your debut collection, To Avenge a Dead Glacier? It's a gathering of stories and characters tied together by symptoms of outsiderhood (sense of detachment, longing, confusion, unshared panic about the world). I've avoided cliched scenarios as much as possible, trying to unearth outsiders who've gotten little to no airplay so far – sean-nós singers, graffiti artists, the gifted, the environmentally concerned, the spiritual, the nonhuman. It's a curious title. Why did you choose that over other stories from the collection? It's been the book's title all along, and that of the longest story, which was originally about a man who delivered vengeance on those who didn't respect nature. That story eventually got rewritten; I felt I was covering no new territory. The good news is that vengeance for the dead glacier does get delivered in the book, albeit by the most unlikely set of characters. There are 11 stories in the collection. Do you have a favourite? Dino Matcha – I had 10,000 words of facts and sayings from the two main characters, information which I was going to use as scaffolding, but it ended up becoming the actual story. Being impossible to sequence with a laptop and a clicker, I printed out everything and my wife and I cut up each sentence and lay them all out across two large workbenches in our flat in Madrid. I then spent a week scavenging for the vital bits, later parsing through what was left for some sort of hidden order. The story is very much handmade. Your story Flower Wild – about the Irish woman who shot Mussolini – won the Francis McManus prize in 2020 but does not feature in the collection. Why? Violet Gibson was the archetypal outsider. She does her thing and gets locked up and then wrongly branded as a mad woman. This collection is about the quiet outsider. The one sitting in front of you there everyday, or staring down at you from a tree or an ESB wire. READ MORE You only started writing fiction when you turned 40. What drove you to start writing then? It seemed like the right age to start. You spent many years working as a sound engineer and DJing. Do you feel like that work has influenced your writing? Having a variety of careers under the belt means texture comes easily when giving characters professions and interests. But it's more an obsessive love for music that has influenced life and work choices, and it's generally not far away from what I write. You lived in Madrid for close to a decade and recently returned to Ireland. What prompted you? The timing felt right. Many of the stories focus on outsiders, and challenge our views of these people. What drew you to that theme? People who veer away from the norm have always had a magnetic effect on me. It's where the energy is highest. How did studying anthropology change the way you see the world? You're never quite right after studying anthropology. The curtain gets pulled back to show why the mundane things tend to mean so much in life, and then pulled back a little more to show how this same meaning is simply fabricated, and changes from culture to culture. You're working on a novel, 'a different animal to the short story'. How so? Well, as you said, I'm 'working on a novel'; I haven't actually put one on to the shelves yet. So it's outside my jurisdiction for now. Writing is a daily habit, one you've described as 'getting the dirty diesel out of the engine'. Tell me more I was describing there what writing felt like at the beginning, and how it took a while before something decent started coming. Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage? I've definitely climbed Mangerton mountain in Kerry a couple of times with John Moriarty in mind. What is the best writing advice you have heard? 'Read as much about Hollywood formalism as you can bear, so you know what not to do.' M John Harrison. Who do you admire the most? Artistically – Aphex Twin and Tommie Potts. Both seminal in how they go/went about their music business. You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish? A blanket ban on war and genocide. Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend? The Lonely Voice by Frank O'Connor (2025 reissue); Bait (Mark Jenkin); Bookworm (KCRW). Which public event affected you most? The Connacht final , 2019. The most remarkable place you have visited? Dharamshala, India. A town built on defiance. Your most treasured possession? My faculties. What is the most beautiful book that you own? I Could Read the Sky by Timothy O'Grady & Steve Pyke. Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party? JA Baker and John Moriarty. Jacket spuds over a camp fire. The best and worst things about where you live? I've just moved back to the Roscommon countryside after nine years in a metropolis. I honestly have no complaints. What is your favourite quotation? 'Control your tongue and your stomach.' The Desert Fathers Who is your favourite fictional character? Constantine Naylor – the amnesiac art restorer in William Trevor's Giotto's Angels. A book to make me laugh? The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien. A book that might move me to tears? Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky. To Avenge a Dead Glacier is published by Lilliput Press
Irish Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Listowel literary festival's fresh start
In The Irish Times this Saturday, Madeleine Thien tells Edel Coffey about her new novel, The Book of Records. And there is a Q&A with Shane Tivenan about his debut short story collection, To Avenge a Dead Glacier. Reviews are Diarmaid Ferriter on Mary MacSwiney by Leeann Lane; Tony Clayton-Lea on the best new music books; Vona Groarke on the finest new poetry collections; Neil Hegarty on Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane; Helen Cullen on Audition by Katie Kitamura; Anne Griffin on The Correspondent by Virginia Evans; Kristen Malone Poli on The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson-Wheeler; Oliver Farry on Robert Ferguson, Norway's War: A People's Struggle Against Nazi Tyranny, 1940–1945; Adrienne Murphy on Rebel Angel: The Life and Times of Annemarie Schwarzenbach by Padraig Rooney; Pat Carty on The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West by Shaun Walker; Mei Chin on Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino; Brigid O'Dea on Rembrandt's Promise by Barbara Leahy; and Brian Hanley on Rebel Notes: Popular Music and Conflict in Ireland By Stan Erraught. This weekend's Irish Times Eason offer is Guilty By Definition by Susie Dent, just €5.99, a €6 saving. Eason offer Listowel Writers' Week proudly reaffirms its place at the heart of Irish literature festivals in 2025, embracing this year's theme, Strength in Unity. In that spirit, Listowel Writers' Week is working in partnership with Kerry Writers' Museum and St John's Theatre and Arts Centre to present the Listowel Literature Festival. READ MORE Among the highlights is the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, one of Ireland's most esteemed literary honours. The winner will be announced on the festival's opening night, continuing Listowel Writers' Week's longstanding tradition of recognising excellence in Irish fiction. Listowel Writers' Week is also delighted to reveal the shortlist for the 2025 Pigott Poetry Prize, Ireland's largest monetary prize for a poetry collection. Poetry lovers can enjoy an evening of readings and music with actor Mark O'Regan, former RTÉ weather presenter Jean Byrne, and guest appearances by Christine Dwyer Hickey and others. This year's programme features a wide range of events, including Nature Boy, an illustrated talk by ornithologist Seán Ronayne, and a special conversation with authors Rónán Hession (Ghost Mountain) and John Boyne (Air), novels which explore resilience and redemption. In poetry, milestone birthdays of celebrated poets Paul Durcan and Rita Ann Higgins will be marked with events recognising their outstanding contributions to Irish literature. Another key event is the Frank Hayes Memorial Lecture, Memory and Forgetting: The Use and Abuse of the Past, featuring Fergal Keane, Lindsey Hilsum, Conor Brosnan and Gail McConnell. Following a period of change, Listowel Writers' Week has embraced a fresh start. A new board bringing together both returning and new members is working collaboratively with neighbouring cultural organisations to ensure Listowel remains a place where writers, readers and the general public are warmly welcomed and invited to celebrate all that is best in local, national, and international writing. The full programme is available at Gallery poet on Ondaatje Prize shortlist Kelly Michels' American Anthem, published by The Gallery Press, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, an annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place Also shortlisted are Clear by Carys Davies; Night Train to Odesa by Jen Stout; No Small Thing by London-Irish author Orlaine McDonald; Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang; and The Catchers by Xan Brooks. This year's judges are Ruth Gilligan (chair), Charlie Craggs and Roy McFarlane. Gilligan won in 2021 for The Butchers. The winner will be announced at a special event celebrating the award later this month. Bullaun Press on EBRD Literature Prize shortlist Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartchuk, translated by Zenia Tompkins and published by Ireland's Bullaun Press, has been selected as one of the three finalists for the EBRD Literature Prize 2025. Also shortlisted are The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk and Sons, Daughters by Ivana Bodrožić. Bullaun Press, Ireland's first and only publisher dedicated exclusively to literary translation, is funded by the Arts Council. Chair of the judges Maya Jaggi said: 'Resurrecting the past through an imaginative act of will, Tanja Maljartschuk's Forgottenness, translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins, moves between two lives a century apart to explore a land carved up between empires, and the persistence of inherited trauma.' Forgottenness was also last month shortlisted for the inaugural Tadeusz Bradecki Prize 2025 , to be awarded annually for 'a book in which story-telling fiction and non-fiction writing combine in an original and exciting way'. It was one of six chosen from 97 submissions, which the judges described as 'a brilliant array of books that cross subjects, genres and cultures in provoking and free-ranging ways'. Two tales intertwined in a profound double portrait, Forgottenness painstakingly traces parallels between the historical and the contemporary, the collective and the individual. The narrator, a writer grappling with her growing anxiety and obsessive thoughts, becomes fixated on Viacheslav Lypynskyi (1882–1931), a once-significant but now forgotten figure in the struggle for Ukrainian independence. Maljartschuk is an acclaimed contemporary Ukrainian writer, now working in both German and Ukrainian. Her work has been translated into more than 10 languages, and recent accolades include the Theodor Kramer Prize for writing in Resistance and Exile (2023) and the Usedom Literature Prize (2022). Zenia Tompkins, founder of the Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation (TAULT), has previously translated Maljartschuk's A Biography of a Chance Miracle (2018) and The Ukraine by Artem Chapeye (shortlisted for the EBRD Literature Prize 2025). The EBRD Literature Prize celebrates outstanding literary works in English translation by writers from countries where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests. The other judges are writer and editor Selma Dabbagh; translator and Associate Professor in Ukrainian and East European Culture (UCL), Uilleam Blacker; and writer and BBC correspondent, Fergal Keane. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 24th at the sponsor's headquarters in London. The prize of €20,000 is divided equally between author and translator. Irish Folklife Collection inspires new poetry trail The meaning of objects in the Irish Folklife Collection is being reinterpreted and reimagined this summer through a unique new poetry initiative at the National Museum of Ireland in Turlough Park, Castlebar. The poetry trail at Turlough Park was launched yesterday to celebrate National Poetry Day. Poets Sean Borodale, Martina Evans and Geraldine Mitchell were commissioned for the project. Each selected objects from the Irish Folklife Collection to work with, including a 'ghost' potato lamp; a red woollen cardigan; a sheep shears and a súgán rope. The poets created new works which will now be displayed for visitors alongside the objects in the museum galleries, offering new perspectives about the meaning and stories they represent. The poetry trail, Silent Objects/Spoken Lives, was created for the annual 'OnSight' arts initiative, the commissioning of new works of art across various mediums, providing creative responses to the Irish Folklife Collection. Lynn Scarff, director of the National Museum of Ireland, said: 'The folklife objects on display here at Turlough Park tell us many rich stories about how our ancestors lived in Ireland over centuries. This poetry trail offers us a new way to discover and imagine those stories - and what they might mean in terms of our past and our present. The poetry trail is now on display at the National Museum of Ireland at Turlough Park, Castlebar, or visit to read and listen to the poems online. Lyndsy Spence, left, Carlo Gébler and Rosalind Mulholland at the launch of Ballyscullion Park Book Festival Ballyscullion Park Book Festival line-up Ballyscullion Park Book Festival takes place from Saturday to Sunday, May 10th and 11th, in the beautiful setting of a stately home in Bellaghy, Co Derry. A celebration of writing, music and art in the heart of Seamus Heaney country, highlights include author Louis de Bernières, artist and 2023 Sky Portrait Artist of the Decade Gareth Reid, Martina Devlin, Roy Foster, Carlo Gébler, Ramita Navai, Lyndsy Spence, Owen O'Neill, John Goodall, Heidi Edmundson, Dr Caroline Campbell, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland. Rosalind Mulholland, festival director, said:'It is a privilege to host such a wide range of incredibly gifted writers across the festival weekend. From internationally renowned authors, playwrights and artists, it is shaping up to be an unforgettable two days. We also hope the festival will attract visitors from near and far as well as showcase our beautiful region as a must visit NI destination.' Tickets from £60. For further details, visit here . Female detective book launch Sara Lodge launches her book about Victorian female detectives, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective at Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dublin at 6pm on Wednesday, May 7th, with free wine and snacks, and all are welcome. She will be in conversation with Clare Clarke, of Trinity College Dublin, who is also a doyenne of Victorian women sleuths. The book was published by Yale University Press last yeasr and will be out in paperback in August. Global Book Crawl Passport For one week, hundreds of Independent bookshops in over 50 cities around the world from Westport to Brooklyn will distribute 'The Global Book Crawl Passport' to book lovers. Over 1,000 passports will be distributed in Ireland for the inaugural global event this year. The initiative will run on for the summer – inviting readers 'to take their bookshop on holiday with them this summer'. There are also spaces for stamps from participating international bookshops when book lovers visit Malaga or Florence for example. Events will be held to celebrate the passport holders during Independent Book Week on 14th -21st June and Irish Book Week 18th-25th October. Bríd Conroy of Tertulia Bookshop believes this is just the beginning 'we know the importance of bookshops as community and cultural spaces. This is our first worldwide event, all celebrating the Global Book Crawl on the same week in April, but it will grow and grow each year as bookshops want to be part of it. In Ireland we have over 100 independent bookshops and can't wait to have them all on board'. The campaign is spreading on Instagram @globalbookcrawl #globalbookcrawl; building a global literary map, one bookshop and one post at a time.
