Listowel Writers Week
Listowel, Co Kerry
A fixture in the Irish events calendar for more than three decades, this very popular festival draws a huge crowd every year and is one of the most friendly and sociable events on the Irish calendar.
In Listowel it is all about writing and the event belongs to writers and those who aspire to write. The Creative Writing Workshops are at the core of the festival and are extremely popular. Prominent Irish and International writers have in the past shared their skills in poetry, fiction, theatre, screen, writing for radio, children’s literature and, more recently, in songwriting and comic writing.
The workshops will fill up fast so if you are interested sign up early.
Even if the workshops are not for you, there is still plenty to enjoy – with readings, book launches, seminars, interviews, theatre, literary and historical tours, art exhibitions, music and dance – as well as plenty of chat – there will be something there for you to enjoy.
Hotly contested literary competitions are a feature of Listowel, with €30,000 worth of prizes on offer for short stories in both English and Irish, plays, poetry and memoir writing. There are also competitions for young writers as young as 9 years old or less and for story-telling.
The most valuable and prestigious of these awards is The Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, for the best work of published fiction by an Irish author, with a €10,000 prize for the winner. Other competitions include The Bryan MacMahon Short Story, Duais Foras Na Gaeilge, the Eamon Keane Play and the Kerry County Council Writing for Youth.
There are book readings and parades organised specially for children.
