Culture Night : Dublin Dreaming

Well that was fun. A beautiful evening, begun with the sinking sun creating a gorgeous glow over the city outskirts as I bussed into town.

Then off the bus into a pleasant Friday evening bustle, which built as the night went on. Spirits were high all round town, a very positive vibe. I started off dipping into Temple Bar for the buskers and the buzz, dropping into the Original Print Gallery to see a great selection of small works on sale for only 50 euro each! Well worth a look. They were busy getting messy in there, kids and adults making prints with great gusto. Swung up to the Gallery of Photography for a nice show by Eoin O Conaill.

A duck and a dive over Capel Street Bridge to visit the artists of New Art Studios, open for the evening. Nice work. Nice People. Chilled out on the bridge on the way back to watch changing animations on Liberty Hall as the night deepened. This worked really well from many vantage points, a beacon for the surrounding activities.

Read more »

Walker Books : The Story in the Picture



THE leading children's book publisher Walker Books and The Reading Centre at The Church of Ireland Collegeof Education come together to present The Story in the Picture, a day of conversations about making picture books, featuring Patrick Benson, Bruce Ingman and our very own Niamh Sharkey, accompanied by Deirdre McDermott and Lizzie Spratt from Walker Books.

The event takes place this Saturday 25th April 2009, from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. at the Reading Centre at The Church of Ireland College of Education, 96 Upper Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.

This sounds like a really great opportunity to get below the skin of the processes involved in creating picture books.
The speakers are all seriously talented individuals, and very experienced in their field. While the emphasis might seem to be on illustration, it's bound to be of use to writers who are interested in this area too.

The cost is a very reasonable €35 (students €20) to include coffee/tea and lunch. Click here for a flyer about the event or contact vcoghlan@cice.ie or telephone 01 4970033 for further information.

Happy Birthday Abe

Isn't that a beaut! In keeping with my previous celebration of 200th birthdays of prominent Americans, I thought I'd note that today is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The image above is by Irish Illustrator PJ Lynch, from "Lincoln and His Boys," written by Rosemary Wells. (in bookshops now). PJ was on the Tubridy show on RTE radio 1 earlier today talking about the book and Lincoln in general. I believe its one of the first books PJ has illustrated using oils rather than his usual watercolours - looks like its all the richer for it!

Writing for Children Event

I was at the United Arts Club last night for Irish Pen's Writing for Children event - a panel discussion featuring Mags Doyle from Childrens Books Ireland, Helen Carr, Editor at O'Brien Press and Oisin McGann, author and illustrator. Irish Pen's own Sarah Webb was the moderator, and the event concluded with Q&A from the audience.

It was a very interesting and informative evening. While there was the familiar territory of classic dos and don'ts re manuscript submission, all panellists contributed further points of interest. McGann's overview of lessons learnt as he moved from novice to successful author were a highlight. A very pleasant guy, I had a nice chat with him in the bar afterwards. Among the audience of aspiring and published writers were Poetry Ireland's Dave Maybury and a few members of the Illustrators Guild of Ireland. Good company led to pints - so this post is being written with slightly fuzzy recall.

Luckily, Sarah has a bit more detail about the event over on her blog, here - phew!

Paper Capers!


















Total and Utter Chaos! Bedlam! Rí Rá agus Rúile Búile...
...and then some!

I was back at the Pavilion Theatre on Saturday last for Paper World, a gem of a show by Mimirichi, a touring company of Ukrainian clowns (I kid you not!) who created a blithely manic world for a rowdy and appreciative audience of adults and children. Paper World is part of the inaugural Flip Flop International Children's Theatre Festival at the Pavilion and bodes well for the future.

Large paper backdrops literally set the scene (paper courtesy of Datapac, Enniscorthy and The Event Guide and props of all scales and sizes were fashioned ad hoc from the same material. These were utilised with immense creativity (and abandon) to frame a delightfully surreal narrative, flipping from shadow play to mime to slapstick to dance to football(!) and far, far beyond. Audience participation was irreverantly pursued and consistently effective, with children baying in delight as parents were randomly and skilfully tomfooled into proceedings both on and off the stage.

The adults and children in our group enjoyed it immensely - with only the very youngest becoming uncomfortable on occasion, as the anarchy approached tipping point. After the show, the majority of children spilling out of the theatre seemed to bear their own malleable souvenir stash of semi-destroyed newsheet as testament to a show which, no doubt, continued to riot in young imaginations all the way home.

Flip Flop is running for the rest of the week with equally charming shows by Corona la Balance from Denmark and Ireland's own Monkeyshine Theatre, with their show GrimmJamm which gets down and delerious with some favourite Grimm Brothers tales.

It's perfect timing to start building that Halloween vibe, so grab a young relative (gently, of course) and get thee down to the Pavilion, while the lunacy prevails! Nyam Nyam!