Thursday, October 17th

SWERVE Showcase

2.30pm, Cork City Library | Free, unticketed

SWERVE is an annual journal based in Skibbereen, County Cork. We publish the work of emerging writers and artists from Ireland as well as more established names. SWERVE provides an international residency programme for writers and artists, creates art-writing collaborations and hosts readings at their performance space, the Lit Lounge. We think of SWERVE as a local and international publication and have just launched SWERVE 3 (2024) in print and digital format.

Sean Coffey, a graduate of UL’s Creative Writing Masters Program, has twice been shortlisted for the Francis MacManus Prize, also for the Hennessy Prize, and other competitions. His work appears in the Hennessy Book of Irish Fiction 2005—2015, The Phoenix Collection of Irish Short Stories 2003 and current literary publications.

Elaine Gormley is an Armagh writer living in Belfast. Elaine’s writing reflects the humour, and resilience of working class people living in the North of Ireland. Recently, Elaine has been published by SWERVE and Fieldzine and she was shortlisted for the Exeter Prize. Elaine can be found on Instagram @elainegormleywriter.

Sharon Guard has an MA in Creative writing from UL. Her work has appeared in New Irish Writing, SWERVE, The Ogham Stone and Washing Windows. She won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2020. Her debut novel, Assembling Ailish, will be published by Poolbeg Press in Spring 2025.

Janet Heeran writes about rural life. She is a regular contributor to CountryWide on RTÉ Radio 1. She has featured in From the Well three times. She is a founding member of SWERVE magazine. She lives on a farm on Mount Hillary, North Cork.

The Waxed Lemon Showcase

4.00pm, Cork City Library | Free, unticketed

The Waxed Lemon literary journal publishes contemporary poetry, fiction and art. Based in Waterford, the journal is edited by founders Joanne McCarthy and Derek Flynn. A bi-annual print publication, featuring work in English and Irish, this autumn sees the launch of the eight edition.

Conor Griffin is from Co Kerry and lives in Dublin. His short fiction has been published in The Irish Times, in the Irish Independent's New Irish Writing selection and in The Four Faced Liar and The Waxed Lemon literary journals.

Lani O'Hanlon’s writing is published widely and broadcast on RTE. Winner of the Poetry Ireland Trocaire Award in 2022, other awards include Dromineer, Bridport, Allingham and shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Award / Emerging Fiction. Her poetry collection Landscape of the Body is published by The Dedalus Press.

Theresa Ryder holds an M.A. (Classics) from Maynooth University. She was awarded the Molly Keane Creative Writing prize 2015, Northern Soul Roadshow 2024, Bealtaine Emerging Artist 2024. She is currently writing a memoir developed under the National Mentoring Programme and aided by an English literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Gail Sheridan is a writer from Waterford city. Gail writes poetry and short stories and some of her work has previously been published in the Irish Independent's New Irish Writing, The Waxed Lemon and Drawn to the Light. Gail has recently been the recipient of an Artlinks bursary for mentoring with Lani O'Hanlon and received a part bursary to attend the Molly Keane Writers Retreat in Ardmore, Co. Waterford.

Sara Baume & Derek Owusu

7.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5 tickets here

Sara Baume is the author of three novels which have received multiple awards, such as the Rooney Prize for Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and been widely translated. Her first book of non-fiction, handiwork, was shortlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize, and her most recent novel, Seven Steeples, was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. In 2023 she was named one of Granta magazine’s ‘Best Young British Novelists.’ She was raised in East Cork and now lives in West Cork where she works also as a visual artist.

“If you eschew conventional plot and its attendant devices, all that’s left to retain your readers’ attention is the pleasure they take in your prose. Baume’s writing is near-faultless: instinctively balanced, precise and often surprising.” — Melissa Harrison

Derek Owusu is an award-winning writer and poet from North London. His first novel, That Reminds Me, and the first work of fiction to be published by Stormzy’s Merky Books imprint, won the Desmond Elliott Prize for best debut novel published in the UK and Ireland. His second novel, Losing the Plot, was published in 2022 and was Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and Jhalak Prize. In 2023 he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

“The judges and I were as shattered by the truths of the story as we were moved by the talent of its writer. Derek Owusu has given us a unique, profound and transcendent work of literature: we want as many readers as possible to discover it.” — Preti Taneja, Desmond Elliott Prize chair

Buy Granta 163: Best of Young British Novelists 5.

(Moderator) Camilla Gurdova is the author of the critically acclaimed The Doll’s Alphabet, Children of Paradise which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize, and The Coiled Serpent which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. In 2023 she was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. She is the 2024 recipient of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellowship. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Mary Costello

9.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5 tickets here

Mary Costello’s first collection of stories, The China Factory (2012) was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and the Irish Book Awards. Academy Street (2014), won the Irish Novel of the Year Award and was named Irish Book of the Year in 2014. It was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa First Novel Prize and the EU Prize for Literature, among others. The River Capture (2019) was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards, the Kerry Group Novel of the Year and the Dalkey Novel Award. Her recent collection of stories, Barcelona, was published in March.

Buy Barcelona (Cannongate Books).

“Costello’s writing is insistent, precise and unsparing. Everyday acts and ordinary lives are infused with a sense of the skull beneath the skin and of a catastrophe held tautly at bay.” — Alex Clark

(Moderator) Sarah Harte has won or been shortlisted for prizes in Ireland and the UK including The Bryan MacMahon short story prize, The Bridport Prize, the Manchester Fiction Prize, the Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Prize, and the Fish Short Story Prize. She has also published two novels.

Image credits: Sara Baume photographed by Kenneth O’ Halloran