West Cork Literary Festival Full of Books and Writing in Ireland

Posted by Jennifer Jensen Jul 15, 2009

Bantry is a delightful town on the southwest coast of Ireland, and it holds the week-long West Cork Literary Festival every July.

Writing Workshops

There were weeklong morning workshops on every sort of writing: short stories, novels, children's, poetry, stage, screen, radio. I was interested in the novel & short story workshops, but they were geared to beginners, so I passed. Regrets now, because my friend signed up for the short story class, and they had a change of teacher who really pushed them, regardless of their experience. But I used my time in a comfy cafe working on my own stories, so that was good.

Readings and Interviews

For the three days I was there, I had picked out a seminar on creativity, two author readings, and possibly one "evening with an author" to attend, but ended up going to more than I planned, simply by accompanying my friend. The book launch and readings for the Fish Anthology (winners of short story / flash fiction / poetry contest) was great, even for someone like me who writes more commercial type fiction than "literary." Who knows, I may enter the contest next year!

A few of the readings and seminars included were:

• Martina Devlin (Venus Reborn, Ship of Dreams)
• Nell McCafferty, journalist
• Chris Binchy (The Very Man, Open-Handed)
• Jennifer Johnston (Shadows on Our Skin, The Old Jest)
• Annie Proulx (The Shipping News)
• Julie Parsons (The Hourglass, I Saw You)
• Martina Cole (Dangerous Lady)
• Many poets and short story writers

Flash Fiction Contest

One of the great things about the festival for me, besides getting a short story draft written and edit work on my children's book, was writing a story for the Flash Fiction contest. They gave us a paragraph to start, with a limit of 750 words for the whole story. Kind of fun, although I felt like it was a morning that could have been spent working on my stuff. But I ended up with 2nd place, and the winner was another friend from my writer's group! I think I'll rework it a bit and send it out. Couldn't hurt, right?