The Lit Review |103| Hennessy Literary Awards and Escritoras
News
Winners of the Hennessy Literary Awards
Hennessey held their 46th annual Literary Awards on Tuesday night. The awards are one of the longest running cultural sponsorships, celebrating new Irish writing. This year’s judges were Elizabeth Day, Mike McCormack and Ciaran Carty. Rachel Donohue won Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year, along with the Emerging Fiction prize for her story ‘The Taking of Mrs Kennedy.’ Seán Tanner won the First Fiction category and Una Mannion the prize for Emerging Poetry. Donohue made it to the shortlist for the Hennessy First Fiction Award 2013 and the Emerging Fiction award 2014. The ceremony also included the induction of eminent poet and former editor of the Poetry Ireland Review Vona Groarke into the Hennessy Literary Awards Hall of Fame. Groarke actually won the Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year award in 1993.
New York’s AFest Underway
Afest,the conference for Chilean and Latin American women’s writing, began on Monday. The conference is named as such to illuminate the ‘a’ in escritoras, the feminine version of the Spanish word for writer. The conference is being held not only to provide a space for conversations about the impact of prevailing sexist and homogeneous literary market, but also aims to honour and celebrate the original conference, the International Conference on Latin American Women’s Literature, which was held in Santiago de Chile in August 1987. “Thirty years after that event that marked a generation of critical authorships, the writers who were present at that first conference will meet with new generations of women writers from Latin America and the United States to discuss gender, literature, and the shifting landscapes of literary circulation.” Talks are held in both English and Spanish, with topics such as “Women’s literature against authoritarianism, fascism, and capitalism” being addressed, along with a round-table on contemporary Latin American women’s writing, publishing and translation.
Events
Tomorrow, the Irish Writer’s Centre is holding their monthly open mic night. This month’s event is hosted by award winning poet Jessica Traynor,and encourages poets, prose writers, songwriters and musicians, comedians and anyone else who would like to perform to attend. Event is free and BYOB, and performers can sign up for a slot on the website. For more details, click here.
