LiteratureThe Lit Review

The Lit Review |69| The Refugee Tales

By Conor O'Donovan

Five Years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.

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It’s really more of a weekly, Lit Review sort of murmur.

Events

The longest day of the year has been and gone, but the Summer issue of The Stinging Fly is due to arrive. This latest edition of the journal, which has previously published Kevin Barry, Emma Donoghue, Paul Murray and AL Kennedy will be launched at 6:30pm in Books Upstairs on D’Olier Street on Tuesday 28th June.

There will also be a literary pub quiz in Toner’s this Thursday in aid of Fighting Words. The questions will be rolling from 7:30pm, and there will also be a raffle. The event has been organised by Publishing Ireland and The Booksellers Association in conjunction with this year’s Independent Booksellers Week.

News

This Thursday sees the publication of Refugee Tales by Manchester based publisher Comma Press. The collection features writing based on real accounts of detention and migration by poets and novelists such as Ali Smith, Patience Agbabi and Chris Cleave. The collection presents the anonymous accounts as modern day descendants of the pilgrim’s stories in Geoffrey Chaucher’s The Canterbury Tales. All proceeds from the collection will go towards the Gatwick Welfare Detainees Group.

Walden
The title page of Thoreau’s Walden, featuring an illustration by his sister. Source Wikimedia Commons

After an ultimately unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign in March, designer Mark Steel is returning to his ‘New Walden’ project. Steel states a preorder site will be launched some time this autumn, followed by the distribution of a run of 1000 limited print editions, to be accompanied by a digital edition. Following the campaign, “necessity required (Steel) to take a hiatus and focus on business development.” As per The Guardian, at the time of the initial fundraising campaign, Steel stated “I shared my enthusiasm for the book with anyone willing to listen. But I kept having to couch my recommendations: “This is an incredible book, but the 19th century language is hard to digest at times. But stick with it, and you’ll be glad you did!” This situation bothered me. I didn’t want to keep telling people they should read Walden?—?‘BUT’ … I realized that what this story needs is to be updated for modern readers.”

Situations

The deadline for the Drunken Druid’s first anthology is fast approaching on the 30th of June. Short Stories up to 3000 words, Flash fiction up to 100 words, and (up to) three poems submitted in a single six page document should be submitted in 12pt Times New Roman to [email protected], with the subject line ‘DD Submissions’.

The Twitterary Review

This week on Twitter, the Literary Review has been doing some investigative work…

The Lit Review would contest it depends on your definition of passive aggression.  Lol dat shade tho lol!

It’s official?

Julian Gough has some words for those harking back to ‘real grammar.’

Father’s Day has been and gone.

https://twitter.com/NeinQuarterly/status/744877823526076417

Always good to ask permission.

See you next week!

 

Conor O'Donovan 51 posts 0 comments

Conor writes and interviews people about books and storytelling. He grew up in Cork where a piece on the view from his bathroom window made it into his school yearbook. He studied English at Trinity and now works as Literature Editor for Headstuff. Spin him a yarn at [email protected]

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