Weekly update from the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre Welcome to our Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows Congratulations to Padraig Regan and Louise Kennedy, the inaugural Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows for 2020/21. These new annual Fellowships have been established in memory of the Seamus Heaney Centre’s founding director and are inspired by his writing about the city of Belfast in poetry and prose. Fellows will be encouraged to carry on with their own creative work, and to contribute to the academic and extracurricular programmes of the Seamus Heaney Centre. Welcoming the new Fellowships, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s Professor Glenn Patterson, said: “Ciaran Carson was not just a great poet and writer of extraordinary, and extraordinarily varied, prose, he was an example to all of us who live and write here of how to be truly international in outlook and absolutely true to this place. He was an inspirational figure for student poets and writers within the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s, the Seamus Heaney Centre in particular, and it is fitting that the Fellowships created in his name should benefit students who have recently completed PhDs with us and are beginning to establish their own reputations as writers of originality and distinction.” Read the full press release here. “The five years I’ve spent as a student at the Seamus Heaney Centre have been crucial to my development as a writer and, as someone who left the north as a twelve year old, helped me find my way home. I am absolutely thrilled to be awarded this fellowship; that it is in memory of Ciaran Carson is truly humbling. I cannot wait to start.”  - Louise Kennedy “I'm absolutely thrilled to be one of the first Ciaran Carson Fellows at the Seamus Heaney Centre. I couldn't adequately state the importance of Ciaran's teaching and guidance on my development as an artist, so this is a real honour. I'm very much looking forward to working with the students at the Centre over the next year.”  - Padraig Regan Save the date Director and screenwriter Lenny Abrahamson will be joining SHC lecturer Michael West in conversation with our students on January 14th. Register here. Our next Book Club event, in partnership with the Development and Alumni Relations Office, features author and former SHC fellow Doireann Ní Ghríofa in conversation with Glenn Patterson to discuss her new book A Ghost in the Throat. Learn more here. Lockdown listening Next up on the SHC Podcast, a special episode for Ciaran Carson, gleaned from the archives. We'll be publishing this soon, in the meantime listen back to previous episodes for interviews with Fellows, readings by friends, and new writing by our students.  Find us here, or subscribe wherever you find your podcasts.  Coming soon to BBC Radio 4's In Our Time - our colleague Philip McGowan will be talking about The Great Gatsby. Tune in live on Thursday, January 14 at 9:00 am! Or check out this episode from 2016 on T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets with Professor Fran Brearton.  Brian Moore at 100 Read-Along 746 Books, in partnership with the Brian Moore at 100 team and author Jan Carson, will be facilitating a year of read-along events to celebrate the centenary of Northern Irish writer Brian Moore. Follow along with the monthly book list here. Coming soon to the QFT Player Miss any of our 2020 events? Check out the full line up of recordings in the Seamus Heaney Centre Collection on the QFT Player, including the latest International Poets' Series with Terrance Hayes and Nick Laird - coming to the Player on Friday, January 15th! The Friday Critique We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate. We'll be back with new Friday Critiques later this week, and check out past flash reviews here. News from students, staff, and friends of the Centre Dr. Emily DeDakis, PhD graduate and former tutor at the Seamus Heaney Centre, recently finished her residency at Household Belfast in Sailortown. Check out her story 'TWO BY TWO', along with some of her flash fiction, here. 'TWO BY TWO' will be featured in a Household publication in 2021. The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark; Jan Brueghel The Elder, 1613; Oil on Panel Listen to a short story from SHC student Dervla McCormick on BBC Radio Suffolk, produced as part of their Ink Festival. Tune in around 44:40 for Dervla's Christmas Monologue! Congratulations to Kevin O'Farrell, a participant in the 2020 Poetry Summer School, who is featured in the current issue of Southword Literary Journal. 'The Man with a Mirror Face' is 12 comedic and philosophical short stories from Mahon McCann, a 2019 graduate of the MA in Creative Writing program, which is now available for purchase. Learn more and check out Mahon's blog here. Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email! If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre. Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Conversations with friends Huge thanks to Lenny Abrahamson and Michael West for a fantastic conversation with our students on Thursday! Keep an eye on the QFT Player for a recording coming soon. "In screenwriting you have to allow people the experience of catching up.” -Lenny Abrahamson Now watching Now available to watch for free on the QFT Player, Professor Nick Laird joins US poet Terrance Hayes in conversation with our students. His latest collection American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin features 70 sonnets written after Trump's election. "I like reading new work…it gives me motivation to be deliberately obsessive, to have something to work towards.” -Terrance Hayes Don't miss I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck's documentary looking at the work of James Baldwin following the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, now available to rent on the QFT Player. Listen to Terrance Hayes on James Baldwin here. Lockdown listening Special Episode: Ciaran Carson We are pleased to release a special episode of the Seamus Heaney Centre Podcast. The archive recordings were selected from the Seamus Heaney Centre’s audio collection, and featured music by Ciaran and Deirdre Carson, and Padraigin Ni Uallachain, and words from Seamus Heaney and Ciaran himself. With additional readings from Milena Williamson, Dane Holt and Stephen Sexton. Poems by Ciaran Carson are used by kind permission of The Gallery Press and the Estate of Ciaran Carson. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: recent PhD grad Tara McEvoy on Bhanu Kapil’s ‘How to Wash a Heart’. Friday Critique call for submissions: Our Publishing Fellow Manuela Moser is seeking new reviews by students on our creative writing courses. We particularly keen to see reviews of works that aren't necessarily reviewed elsewhere - pamphlets or books from small presses, works by writers of colour, or early career writers.  Send your suggestions/review outlines to Manuela. Our people We're still buzzing about our new Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows - check out their feature in this week's Irish Times literary news roundup. Both of our new Fellows will be hitting the ground running in the next few weeks - Padraig will be working with students in our upcoming Ekphrasis seminar, and don't miss Louise in conversation with our Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Marian Keyes, details coming soon. PhD student Mícheál McCann was featured on Sunday's RTE Poetry Programme to discuss how music features in his poetry and read from his pamphlet Safe Home. Listen back here.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

2021 Poetry Summer School Applications are now live for the Poetry Summer School 2021! Join us this summer for another virtual program of group sessions, daily workshops with lecturer Nick Laird, and one-to-one feedback sessions with our fantastic tutors. Learn more about the 2021 schedule here, and check out the Showcase podcast from our 2020 cohort. Was there a particularly memorable moment during the Summer School? “The wonder of long prose poems! That ekphrasis is much more than describing the first painting you see down the Tate. And that I talk too much in class. The 1-1s with tutors were excellent: illuminating, educational and full of practical, helpful advice. And it worked really well online. Got to say, having some of the best contemporary poets around popping up for a direct chat on screen was pretty cool. It was also great to meet writers from so many different backgrounds, with such varied experience, skills and approaches. The whole week was thoroughly inspiring - and extremely busy!”  -Iain Whiteley, Poetry Summer School 2020 Call for submissions: First Collection Poetry Prize The First Collection Poetry Prize celebrates the work of the Seamus Heaney Centre and honours Heaney himself. It is awarded to a writer whose first, full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. The winner receives £5,000.  The Poetry Prize is awarded as part of the Seamus Heaney Legacy Project, a joint 10-year fund between Queen's University Belfast and the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, generously supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies. Find guidelines and submission information here. Conversations with friends Now on the QFT Player, lecturer Michael West in conversation with director and screenwriter Lenny Abrahamson. Check it out now for free! "“Sex is usually either glamorised or problematised...sometimes it's just good to do what everyone else isn’t doing.” -Lenny Abrahamson The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: Jamie Field on ‘Breeze Block’ by Jake Hawkey.

Friday Critique call for submissions: Our Publishing Fellow Manuela Moser is seeking new reviews by students on our creative writing courses. We particularly keen to see reviews of works that aren't necessarily reviewed elsewhere - pamphlets or books from small presses, works by writers of colour, or early career writers.  Send your suggestions/review outlines to Manuela.

In case you missed it... If you missed it on BBC2 last night, you'll see some familiar faces in this autobiographical film from 2009 - Derek Mahon: The Poetry Nonsense. Write Night Write Night host and PhD student Andrew Rahal is continuing to share insights and approaches to his own writing practice each week in 2021. Check out some extracts from this week's email below, and subscribe here. "I am less interested in the question of tradition and more interested in what makes art commemorative or occasional. When President-Elect Biden asked the first US Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman (age 22) to take the stage with hundreds of millions of viewers, what is he asking her poem to do? In such a hostile and strained social and political climate, what restraint, what release, what testimony, what emotion can we expect?" In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman Staff and student news Poetry Jukebox call for submissions: Star-gazing. The next edition of poems for Poetry Jukebox will be curated by poets Iggy McGovern & Maria McManus. They welcome poems (one per poet) that connect with any aspect of star gazing, from constellations to comets, from stardust to space shuttles, from Dark Matter to Darth Vader, from Black Holes to Mission Control. The deadline for submissions is midnight on February 7th, more information can be found here.

Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

2021 Poetry Summer School

Join us this summer for another virtual program of group sessions, daily workshops with lecturer Nick Laird, and one-to-one feedback sessions with our fantastic tutors. Learn more about the 2021 schedule here, and check out the Showcase podcast from our 2020 cohort.

We are pleased to share exciting news from some of our previous summer school students: The newest book from 2018 Poetry Summer School participant P.W. Bridgeman is now available. The Four-Faced Liar, a collection of short stories and flash fiction, has been published by Ekstasis Editions and can be purchased here. 2020 Summer School student Dide won the Broken Sleep Books 2020 Poetry Prize, and will have her debut poetry pamphlet published with them in 2022. 2020 Summer School student Iain Whiteley has three poems featured in the newest issue of the Poetry Business's The North Magazine. International Poets' Series Seamus Heaney Centre lecturer Nick Laird will be joined by Anne Carson in conversation with our students for the next event in our International Poets' Series on February 4th. While this event is now fully subscribed, the recording will be available to view for free on the QFT Player. Check out some of our past International Poets' Series events with Sharon Olds and Terrance Hayes now! Tiny Masterclass Our Children's Writing Fellow, Kelly McCaughrain, and Fighting Words NI are making videos to help schools and homeschoolers incorporate creative writing into their lessons and we’d love you to help.  Participants are invited to record a short (up to 5 minutes) video to inspire young writers. Aimed at Primary or Secondary age students, you can cover prose, poetry, script, non-fiction, or any other kind of writing. Learn more here. Call(s) for submissions The Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust 2021 Student Award is now open for submissions. This award is open to Masters students studying for Masters degrees in Creative Writing or in Poetry in Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin or University College Dublin. The deadline is February 28th, more information is available here. The Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize  celebrates the work of the Seamus Heaney Centre and honours Heaney himself. It is awarded to a writer whose first, full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. Find guidelines and submission information for the 2021 prize here. Lockdown listening The SHC Podcast is featured on SARC Radio every Tuesday evening and Thursday lunchtime. We're developing new episodes specially for SARC Radio...coming soon. Listen back to this weekend's BBC Radio 4 programmes for cameos from several friends of the Seamus Heaney Centre! New Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Marian Keyes on Loose Ends. Alumni and friend Paul Muldoon, with a feature by recent International Poets' Series participant Terrance Hayes, on Poetry Please. PhD student Bebe Ashley was featured on The Poetry Programme to read from her pamphlet Gold Light Shining, now available from No Alibis. The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: Charles Lang on 'Hinge' by Alycia Pirmohamed.

Friday Critique call for submissions: Our Publishing Fellow Manuela Moser is seeking new reviews by students on our creative writing courses. We particularly keen to see reviews of works that aren't necessarily reviewed elsewhere - pamphlets or books from small presses, works by writers of colour, or early career writers.  Send your suggestions/review outlines to Manuela.

Student elections The Queen's Student Union have announced elections for the following positions: Full-Time Student Officers, Part-Time Student Officers, Faculty Reps, and School Reps. More information is available here.

Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

International Poets' Series from Iceland Thank you to Nick Laird, Anne Carson, and Robert Currie for a fantastic night of poetry, jokes, and square dancing. A recording will be available soon on the QFT Player. Do you think your sense of playfulness and not taking yourself too seriously has helped your writing in unforeseen ways? "Totally unknown ways, don’t ask me to list them. It's a deflection, it's a way of not having to tell the truth. You can either lie or be playful." -Anne Carson Lockdown listening/watching It was great to hear former Fellow Kathleen Jamie on BBC Radio 4 last week in this repeat of The River. Kathleen was with us in November 2019 as our Visiting International Poetry Fellow. Since we couldn't invite an International Poetry Fellow to the Centre this year, we have been hosting conversations online as part of our ongoing International Poets' Series. A new documentary 'Medbh McGuckian: Portrait of a Poet' featuring lecturer, alum, and friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre Medbh McGuckian was broadcast on BBC Two NI this week. Watch on the BBC iPlayer here. Catch a few of our fabulous fellows and lecturers - Manuela Moser, Padraig Regan, and Stephen Sexton - in last week's Poetry at the Lexicon.  The Cultural Afterlife of Ruins The Cultural Afterlife of Ruins is a a free online Creative Writing programme that explores how the remnants of the past contribute to our future. It is guided by the Seamus Heaney Centre's Garrett Carr, author of The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border. It will run between February 22nd and March 24. More details are available here.  The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: PhD student Shannon Kuta Kelly on Polina Cosgrave's 'My Name Is'.

Friday Critique call for submissions: Our Publishing Fellow Manuela Moser is seeking new reviews by students on our creative writing courses. We particularly keen to see reviews of works that aren't necessarily reviewed elsewhere - pamphlets or books from small presses, works by writers of colour, or early career writers.  Send your suggestions/review outlines to Manuela.

Virtual Crossways Festival Don't miss the virtual Crossways Festival this week, the online successor to two years of Crossways Festivals in Glasgow. The festival runs February 12-14, check out the full line up, including former Seamus Heaney Centre Visiting Poetry Fellow Kathleen Jamie, and registration details here.

2021 Poetry Summer School Join us this summer for another virtual program of group sessions, daily workshops with lecturer Nick Laird, and one-to-one feedback sessions with our fantastic tutors. Learn more about the 2021 schedule here, and check out the Showcase podcast from our 2020 cohort.

We are pleased to share more exciting news from previous summer school students: 2020 Summer School student Lorraine Carey is featured this week in the Rising Phoenix Review with her poem 'Let Us Pray'. 2020 Summer School student Rebecca Farmer has two poems in the February/March issue of The London Magazine.

Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Save the date(s) Don't miss the virtual launch of New Poetries VIII from Carcanet, which showcases the work of some of the most exciting new poets writing in English. With poets from the UK, USA, Ireland, Scandinavia, Afghanistan and more, the book introduces important new voices from BAME and LGBTQ communities, ranging in age from 20 to 80 years old. Five launch events will run each Thursday evening between February 18th and March 18th. The launch on February 25th will feature Ciaran Carson Fellow Padraig Regan and PhD student Conor Cleary, alongside Colm Tóibín, Victoria Kennefick, and Joe Carrick-Varty. Lockdown listening/watching Now available on the BBC iPlayer, A Potted History of Louis MacNiece. Made by Seamus Heaney Centre director Glenn Patterson, this documentary is playing as part of the BBC's series on poets, which also includes pieces on Derek Mahon and Medbh McGuckian. The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow Padraig Regan on Daisy Lafarge's Life Without Air.

Friday Critique call for submissions: Our Publishing Fellow Manuela Moser is seeking new reviews by students on our creative writing courses. We particularly keen to see reviews of works that aren't necessarily reviewed elsewhere - pamphlets or books from small presses, works by writers of colour, or early career writers.  Send your suggestions/review outlines to Manuela.

2021 First Collection Poetry Prize

The Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize  celebrates the work of the Seamus Heaney Centre and honours Heaney himself. It is awarded to a writer whose first, full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. Find guidelines and submission information for the 2021 prize here.

Ned Denny, who won the 2019 First Collection Poetry Prize for his work Unearthly Toys, has a new book being published with Carcanet this May.    Published to coincide with the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, Ned Denny’s baroque, line-by- line reimagining shapes the Divine Comedy into nine hundred 144-syllable stanzas divided into three books, Blaze, Bathe, and Bliss, which correspond with Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Audacious, provocative and eminently readable, tender and brutal by turns, rooted in sacred doctrine yet with one eye on the profane modern world, this fearless ‘poet’s version’, in the interpretative tradition of Chapman, Dryden and Pope, is a living, breathing Dante for our times. Student news Congratulations to Creative Writing PhD student Emma Devlin, who has been long-listed for this year's Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize for her story 'Charisma'. Poetry MA student Matthew Rice was featured on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback last week. Listen to his poem and conversation about how poetry has been helping in the pandemic here.

Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Brilliant Mysteries: Peter Wilson & James Harpur What right has anyone to change or interfere with another person’s art? Is it possible for something of the original to reside in this new thing that has been created? Can poetry be sung and if so, should it be? Whose voice is heard within this new art form? Brilliant Mysteries is an event which is the consequence of a songwriter, Peter Wilson, spending time with the words of a poet, James Harpur. James will read and Peter will sing his translations. The performance is followed by an opportunity for questions and discussion. Priority for this event will be given to SHC staff and students, register here. Ekphrasis: A Unique Silence The Spring 2021 Ekphrasis series focuses on 'A Unique Silence', six etchings by the famed Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. This week, Curator of Art at the Ulster Museum Anne Liesching and SHC lecturer Stephen Sexton facilitated an Ekphrasis seminar with 2020 SHC Fulbright Scholar Jenny Browne's students in Texas. Read more about our ongoing Ekphrasis collaboration with the Ulster Museum here. Learn more alongside Anna Liesching in the Reading Renoir: Feminist Museum Reading Group workshops on March 4 and 11. Available for free to 16-25 year olds based in Northern Ireland, this is a new online event to coincide with International Women's Day and will dive into the new Ulster Museum exhibition 'Renoir and the New Era'. Learn more here. International Poets' Series now on the QFT Player Seamus Heaney Centre lecturer Nick Laird's conversation with Anne Carson and Robert Currie is now available on the QFT Player. Catch up on the full International Poets' Series, also featuring conversations with Sharon Olds and Terrance Hayes, on the QFT Player's Seamus Heaney Centre Collection. The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: PhD student Bebe Ashley on ‘how the first sparks became visible’ by Simone Atangana Bekono. Critical writing at the Centre Reading, writing, and thinking about writing is a vital part of our postgraduate courses. Students are encouraged to read widely and think deeply, on a broad range of texts during their studies, whether they are focusing on a purely creative, or critical pathway. Along with the Friday Critique series, which focuses on new writing, more critical writing from our students can be found here. Check out Rachel Mawhinney's review of Michael Longley's The Candlelight Master. "This is Longley’s latest collection, and in it, he moves like a grandmaster chess player, pieces positioning with exactitude on the board. ‘The Candlelight Master’ is a book of reflections and shadows, observed with the acuity of a life-long cataloguer." Read the full review here. Call for submissions: Tiny Masterclasses Join Children's Writing Fellow Kelly McCaughrain and Fighting Words NI to help schools and homeschoolers incorporate creative writing into lessons with a series of tiny masterclasses.

Participants are invited to record a short (up to 5 minutes) video to inspire young writers. Aimed at Primary or Secondary age students, you can cover prose, poetry, script, non-fiction, or any other kind of writing. Learn more here.

Save the date Join the School of Arts, English, and Languages online for a programme of engaging and cultured events that will spark your imagination as you get a taste of studying at Queen's. Hosted by some of our world-leading academics, choose from a wide selection of live seminars that include: 'Broadcasting from your Bedroom', 'The American Century' (Liberal Arts), 'Keat's Poetry', 'The Irish Otherworld', 'Soundscape, Acoustic Ecology and Cinema', 'How do we make music when we cannot be physically with each other?', and many more. Learn more and register here. The 2021 Villanova Literary Festival has moved online! Catch upcoming events live or as recordings. The festival continues this week with a session with Bryan Washington on February 25th, more information can be found here. Call for submissions Anamot Press are accepting submissions until 28th February for their first anthology on queer experiences across boarders and other stories told with no shame. Poems, essays and short stories welcome. More details available here. Competition Alert! for London & Newcastle's First Short Story Competition, judged by Eleanor Hooker. Deadline 28th February. London & Newcastle is a new literary zine, edited by SHC MA student Alessia Troisi. Learn more here.

Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Book Club Join us for the next Book Club, featuring a conversation between Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Marian Keyes and Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow Louise Kennedy on Thursday, March 11th. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions about Marian’s latest novel ‘Grown Ups’ in a live Q&A session. Learn more here and register here. Hear more from Marian on BBC Radio 4's Between Ourselves with Marian Keyes series, available to listen back to here. Save the date Join songwriter Peter Wilson and poet James Harpur for Brilliant Mysteries on Thursday, March 4th. James will read his poems and Peter will sing his translations, and the performance will be followed by an opportunity for questions and discussion. Priority for this event will be given to SHC staff and students, register here. Why does women’s writing matter? Join Professor Moyra Haslett, Dr Alison Garden and writer and PhD student Dawn Watson, on Thursday March 11th to explore some of the answers. The panel is part of the Women Aloud NI Festival of Women’s Writing and will be chaired by Hilary McCollum, Chair of Women Aloud NI. Register for this free event here. The Seamus Heaney Centre Podcast: The Edit Over the next few episodes, we’ll be hearing from some of our students in a series of pilot programmes, each a little different, to reflect the range of writing and conversations about writing that goes on in the Centre. Up first is ‘The Edit’ featuring Sharon Dempsey, Emma Devlin, and Niamh McCann each completing their creative PhD with us. With diverse interests across literature and art, their conversation covers the shared ground of their academic journey, and the context of a pandemic - how it has influenced the stories they tell, and how they tell them. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. An extra congratulations to Sharon Dempsey, whose new book Who Took Eden Mulligan? was published last week by Harper Collins Avon. The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: MA student Elizabeth McIntosh on Grace Wilentz’s The Limit of Light. Grace is a former participant in the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Summer School - applications for the 2021 session are now open, learn more here! Student and staff news The February 2021 issue of the Honest Ulsterman features work from several friends of the Seamus Heaney Centre: Prose piece 'We Have Been to a Marvellous Party' by Lecturer in Creative Writing Sam Thompson. PhD student Gary Hunter with his creative non-fiction submission Monsters. The latest Honest Ulsterman also contains a feature on Emeritus Professor and Wednesday Group member Paul Jeffcutt. His newest collection The Skylark's Call is now available. Reminders The new Tiny Masterclass series is still looking for submissions - check out the first one and learn more here!  Submissions are open for the 2021 First Collection Poetry Prize. Check out the submission guidelines here.

Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

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[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Brilliant Mysteries Thank you to all who joined us on Thursday for Brilliant Mysteries with musician Peter Wilson and poet James Harpur, hosted by our lecturer Stephen Sexton. It was a privilege to hear these new songs by Peter, alongside the poems on which they were based, and to attend a live gig again!  What has the collaboration experience been like?  [James on working with Peter] "It's been an eyeopener as a non-musician…the idea of producing sound, melody, harmony, chorus from words seemed to me a brilliant mystery." [Peter on working with James] “Before knowing his work, I got to know him…there was something I loved about the way that he spoke. I felt that increasingly familiar tug on my sleeve that meant there was something I’d want to do with this.” On this week There's still time to join us for the next Book Club, featuring a conversation between Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Marian Keyes and Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow Louise Kennedy on Thursday, March 11th. Learn more and register here. Students can join Marian in a Career Masterclass on Fri 12 Mar where they will discuss any aspect of her professional practice and writing life.  Enquiries - r.b...@qub.ac.uk Catch Young at Art's Belfast Children's Festival on the QFT Player, including Dragtime Bedtime Stories with Cherrie Ontop reading a book from Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Oliver Jeffers. Call for submissions Catalyst Arts has been invited to take part in the Belfast Photo Festival 2021. They are commissioning three artists that employ photography in any shape or form in their practice to produce new work for an exhibition in the Catalyst gallery, and three writers to develop literary responses to the artworks for an exhibition catalogue. The deadline for submissions is March 14. The theme of Catalyst’s open call is Future(s) and they aim to cover a broad range of approaches to the notion of futurity or speculative futures, including but not limited to: anthropocene and climate futures; feminist and queer futures; black futurity; post-pandemic futures; the effect of technological advancement on humanity, and a focus on AI's impact on the photographic medium itself. This is a Catalyst Arts members opportunity, you can become a member through the Patreon page here. No Parties magazine, a new magazine of unpublished and underrepresented short stories and prose, is seeking submissions for their first issue launching in July. Learn more here. The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: Louise Kennedy on Dina Alzayat’s 'Alligator & Other Stories'. Student and staff news Congratulations to MA student Matthew Rice on the upcoming publication of his first collection! The Last Weather Observer, will be published by Summer Palace Press later this year.   We'll be celebrating the publishing successes of our students, and the vital role of small presses and independent editors, in April with a series of events and discussions.  Stay tuned for Small Press Saturday! A short film written and directed by Seamus Heaney Centre alum Patrick FitzSymons has been selected to screen at the Indie Shorts Awards at Cannes. The film, COYOTE, is inspired by Patrick's own poem Gallaher's Coyote, written during his time as an MA student. Listen to Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow Louise Kennedy mark World Book Day with a reading of her short story for Hawk's Well Theatre in Sligo.

Reminders The new Tiny Masterclass series is still looking for submissions - check out the first one and learn more here!  Submissions are open for the 2021 First Collection Poetry Prize. Check out the submission guidelines here. Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Book Club: In Conversation with Marian Keyes and Louise Kennedy Thank you to Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Marian Keyes and Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow Louise Kennedy for their engaging Book Club conversation, full of inspiration and writing advice! A recording will be available on the QFT Player soon; check out past Book Club events here, and save the date for the next Book Club featuring Louise Kennedy in conversation with Lucy Caldwell on May 13. "I never thought that somebody like me would be allowed to write. I was Irish and a woman and from a lower middle class family, and thought the gatekeepers wouldn’t let me in. Then I thought feck the gatekeepers." -Marian Keyes On this week Young at Art's Belfast Children's Festival Dragtime Bedtime Stories are now live on the QFT Player! Hear Cherrie Ontop read Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers, one of our 2021 Seamus Heaney Centre Fellows. Staff news SHC Senior Lecturer Gail McConnell is featured on season 1, episode 2 of The Corrymeela Podcast. Host Pádraig Ó Tuama talks with Gail, whose forthcoming collection The Sun Is Open considers an archive-box of her father’s writings, clippings, poems and pamphlets. He was murdered by the IRA in 1984. Gail also speaks about creaturely poetry, parenthood, living with loss, and identity. Lecturer Sam Thompson is contributing to an upcoming anthology of short stories to benefit the charity Together for Mental Wellbeing. Learn more about the collection and publisher Unsung Stories' kickstarter funding drive here. Read a review of Advisory Board member Gerald Dawe's newest book The Last Peacock from Jordan Smith in the New Hibernia Review, available here. Coming soon the SHC Podcast... A new episode of The Edit, hosted by PhD student and author, Sharon Dempsey. We'll join Sharon and her colleagues as they share their research, and the highs and lows of a creative PhD. Listen to the first episode now.  Subscribe to the SHC Podcasts and keep your ears peeled for more new episodes including... Once Again hosted by Luke Macpherson, another new pilot programme where Luke discusses a piece of writing of particular significance to his guest.  Stephen Sexton in conversation with Wayne Miller, former Fulbright scholar and poet, will be joining our regular podcast host Stephen Sexton.  Careers Masterclass with Marian Keyes, featuring excerpts from last week's phenomenal masterclass with Marian and our students.  The Friday Critique

We're putting fast, short-form, reviews of new writing into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate.

This week: Andrew Rahal on Kirsten Luckins’ Passerine. Imagine! Belfast Festival 2021 The seventh annual Imagine! Belfast festival runs from March 22-28. Don't miss Chris Agee reading from his new poetic work Trump Rant on March 27th, and check out the full schedule of events here.

Reminders The new Tiny Masterclass series is still looking for submissions - check out the first one and learn more here!

Submissions are open for the 2021 First Collection Poetry Prize. More information and submission guidelines can be found here.

[Rachel]

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Marian Keyes & Louise Kennedy: SHC Fellows on QFT Player We're still reeling from our recent events with SHC Fellow Marian Keyes, and our students still have another masterclass to look forward to... If you missed the Book Cub conversation between Marian and Louise Kennedy it is now available on QFT Player.  Catch up with previous episodes of The Book Club and other virtual events in the SHC Collection on QFT Player including Caoilinn Hughes in conversation with Garrett Carr, and Susannah Dickey in conversation with Glenn Patterson.  Our People Listen now to the latest episode of QUB in Conversation with Professor Emerita Edna Longley. Among other matters, Edna talks to Professor Richard English about poetry and the tradition of poetry at Queen’s.  Listen now on iTunes or Spotify.   The Tangerine have announced their editorial team will include Padraig Regan as Poetry Editor and Dane Holt as Contributing Editor. They'll be joining editors Tara McEvoy, Michael Nolan, Sacha White and designer Michael Morete.  The Tangerine is a labour of love, from a small but dedicated team, working on a voluntary basis around other work (and studies at the Seamus Heaney Centre!) If you can, consider supporting them with a donation or as a patron.  And their tenth issue is available to pre-order now! Cover image coming soon...  Poetry Summer School participant Lorraine Carey has had her work published in the latest issue of The High Window. Read more here.  A review of The Sound of the Shuttle, by Grald Dawe in the latest issue of Reading Ireland.  "In The Sound of the Shuttle, Gerald Dawe has, in essence, written a strongly worded love letter to and about the Protestant culture of Northern Ireland, in line with the luminous writing of [Robert McLiam Wilson's] Eureka Street: “Because, sometimes, they glittered, my people here. Sometimes, they shone”. - Brian McCabe, Reading Ireland. Hear more from Gerry in his special episode of our SHC Podcast.  The Friday Critique We're putting flash criticism into the world, on a weekly basis. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate. This week: Sharon Dempsey on The Last House on Needless Street, by Catriona Ward. Call for Submissions! The Cormorant is a broadsheet of new writing edited by our Fellow Louise Kennedy, along with Una Mannion and Eoin McNamee. Their next issue will be guest-edited by Niamh MacCabe and submissions are now open! Deadline 1 May Send Prose (250 words) or Poetry (25 lines) to cormorant...@gmail.com  We already have Tiny Masterclasses on Odes, Point of View, Food Writing, plus exercises with sound and memories. They'll be edited and on our website soon before getting them out to school groups through our friends at Fighting Words NI.  If you have tips or advice for young writers, get in touch! In the meantime, here's Andrew Rahal making a sound map - a useful exercise in observation and finding narratives.  Reminders Deadline approaching! Submissions are open for the 2021 First Collection Poetry Prize. More information and submission guidelines can be found here.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

View this email in your browser Weekly updates from the Seamus Heaney Centre

Where Are We Now? by Glenn Patterson - World Book Night 2021 To mark this year's World Book Night on Friday 23 April, free copies of Glenn Patterson's latest novel have been gifted to community groups, book clubs and members of the public. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the MAC and Libraries NI have come together to encourage readers to enjoy this year’s World Book Night celebrations; the annual celebration of reading campaign by The Reading Agency on Friday 23rd April 2021. To mark the occasion, the Arts Council and the MAC will be gifting 160 free copies of East Belfast-author Glenn Patterson’s latest novel, Where Are We Now? to community groups, book clubs and members of the public. Find out more about World Book Night here.  Hear Manuela Moser's recommendation of the book, as part of our 12 Reads of Christmas series, late last year.  Listen back to PhD student Tara West's short story You Forgot Me First, specially commissioned for BBC Radio 4's Short Works series.  The Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Summer School - coming soon... Submissions are open for the 2021 Poetry Summer School - deadline 30 April! Read more about last year's online programme and apply here.

"The 1-1s with tutors were excellent: illuminating, educational and full of practical, helpful advice. And it worked really well online. Got to say, having some of the best contemporary poets around popping up for a direct chat on screen was pretty cool. It was also great to meet writers from so many different backgrounds, with such varied experience, skills and approaches. The whole week was thoroughly inspiring - and extremely busy!”

Iain Whiteley, Poetry Online Summer School 2020 We love to hear from former Summer School students as they continue their writing careers. Collections by former students are available now including The Limit of Light by Grace Wilentz (Gallery, 2020) and Fox Trousers by Eithne Hand (Salmon Poetry, 2020.  The Friday Critique We're putting flash criticism into the world every week. Reviews are by students on our creative writing courses. Novelists, scriptwriters, poets, critics and readers; they are invested in contemporary literature, and dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate. This week: Alanna Offield on Break the Mould, by Sinéad Burke. Alanna was a student with us last year on the Poetry Summer School. You can hear some of her work in the Summer School Podcast here.  Call for Submissions! Play It Forward is a professional development programme aimed at nurturing and amplifying the talents of writers whose voices and stories have traditionally been underrepresented in Irish literature and publishing. It is a joint initiative between The Stinging Fly and Skein Press, spearheaded by poet and editor Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe. Deadline 30 April - applications open from 1 April to eligible writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

The Cormorant is a broadsheet of new writing edited by our Fellow Louise Kennedy, along with Una Mannion and Eoin McNamee. Their next issue will be guest-edited by Niamh MacCabe and submissions are now open!

Send Prose (250 words) or Poetry (25 lines) to cormorant...@gmail.com

Deadline 1 May

Reminders Deadline approaching! Submissions are open for the 2021 First Collection Poetry Prize. More information and submission guidelines can be found here. Have news to share with the Seamus Heaney Centre community? Send us details by Friday afternoon for inclusion in the following Monday's email!

If you're reading this through a second party site, make sure you're signed up to our email list here... Subscribe for weekly updates from the SHC Share Tweet Forward

Copyright © 2021 The Seamus Heaney Centre, All rights reserved.

You're on this list as a contact of the SHC Summer School.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

[Rachel]

You are receiving this email as a friend of the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Our mailing address is: The Seamus Heaney Centre Queen's University Belfast 46 - 48 University Road Belfast, Co Antrim BT7 1NN United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.