Irish Short Story Week Year Two April 26 Update

Irish Short Story Week Year Two April 26 Update

March 11 to July 1

Posts by Participants

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

It has been fifteen  days since I did an update on Irish Short Story Week Year II.   I tend to do more updates and such than a normal most people would do.  The main reason I am doing this is to make sure all of my readers are aware of the new posts by the great participants in the event that have been done since the last update.  It is also away of keeping myself focused, so my event does not just become a random series of posts (that is not necessarily a bad thing, it is just not what I want for my event). I also want to restate for new readers or stops overs why I am doing this event.

  Short stories go back further in the literary culture than novels, much further to pre-literate days.   They go back to the very start of what we like to call civilization and helped create the world’s major cultures and religions.

Why am I doing this Event?

"Please consider joining us"-Ruprecht

The cultural and literary influence of Irish Short Story writers is simply immense.  The literary techniques created by James Joyce have been behind almost every literary innovation of the 20th century and there is no sign of anyone coming along to take his place.  Just to give one example, the methods of magic realism that dominates the literature of Latin America (and literary fiction here in the Philippines) comes right from parts of Ulysses.    Oscar Wilde helped created a new sensibility.   Bram Stoker and Joseph Sheridan le Fanu  started the vampire craze that still has the world in its grip.  Samuel Becket wrote the most important plays since Shakespeare.  Elizabeth Bowen's World War Two Stories are world class cultural treasures.   There are easily fifty hundreds of Irish short story writers of world class quality.   The whole of human experience is in the Irish Short Story.   Ireland has had four winners of the Nobel Prize for literature.  Not bad for a country one percent the size of Australia with a population less than twenty five percent of that of Manila.  The stories are  also a lot of fun to read and are works of great beauty.   There are other reasons I am doing this and I will say more later.

Posts by Participants

Irish Short Story Week

Year Two

March 11 to July 1

You Can Never Have Too Many Books "No Angel" by Bernie Mcgill
Susan has also now done a post on James Joyce's "The Sisters" that I learned a lot from-

Beauty is a Sleeping Cat Stories by Kevin Barry, James Joyce, and Elizabeth Bowen. Additionally they have done an excellent post on a work by William Trevor

Free Listens  "The Wine Breath" by John Mcgahern

Lakeside Musings- "The Empty Family" by Colum Toibin

Parrish Lantern  Overview of Irish Folk and Fairy Tales by William Butler Yeats-Parrish Lantern now has a wonderful post on a story by Gerald Griffin about the horrors of the famine years and a folk take from William Trevors' Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories

A Simple Clockwork  Two Oscar Wilde Fairy Tales-Nancy,  the Host of Short Stories on Wednesday has done two illuminating posts on stories of Marie Edgeworth, the first serious Irish Woman short story writer

Buried In Print an Anthology of stories by Mary Lavin, In the Middle of the Field

"I time traveled 5500 years
to join ISSW2"-Eachan

"Discount Shoe Repairs to
all Participants"-Rory

From Kafka to Kintergarden "The First Confession"  by Frank O'Connor, "The Reaping Race" by Liam O'Flaherty, "Janey Mary" by James Plunket, and "The Confirmation Suit" by Brendan Behan.  There is a new post on The Space between Louis and Me by Mary O'Donnell and Sightseeing in Louth by Bernadette M. Smyth.  Both of these are new to me authors.  

Vapor Trails  "The Old Man of the Sea" by Maeve Brennan, and also "Something Special" which is Iris Murdoch's only published story story


The Sill of the World has an excellent post on "The Dead" by James Joyce


Bibliophiliac  has done a great post on "The Will" which  Frank O'Connor says is Mary Lavin's best story

Shauna Gilligan, a widely published short story writer from Dublin has contributed a very welcome guest post to Irish Short Story Week Year Two  devoted to Somewhere in Minnesota,  a powerful collection of short stories by Órfhlaith Foyle

Jillian of A Room of One's Own has done a very insightful moving post on "The Dead" by James Joyce

A Work in Process has done great posts on "The Happy Autumn Fields" by Elizabeth Bowen, this is one of Bowen's WWII stories and is a great cultural treasure.  There is also a very good post on William Trevor's "The Ballroom of Romance".

Winston's Dad has posted on a story by Oliver Goldsmith "The History of the Man in Black

Tales from the Reading Room has done a great post on Colm Toibin's new book New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families.

Vishy's Blog has done a wonderful post on two stories by James Joyce, and one by James Stephens, Elizabeth Bowen and Liam O'Flattery as well as six folk and fairy tales.   

Novroz of Polychome Interest, cohost of Indonesian Short Story Week has posted on some of the paranormal folk tales of Thomas Crofton.

semi-fictional has done a great post one of Elizabeth Bowen's World War Two Stories,

A guest post by Audra Martin D'Aroma on Joseph Sheridan le Fanu


Ripple Effects has done a very welcome post on two short stories and a novella by Colm McCann

Suko's Notebook has posted a review on another one of Ethel Rohan's short stories

If I left you out please accept my apology for this error.  Just let me know about your post and I will add it at once.  On all of my posts I include a link that will take you to a list of posts by participants.

My heart felt thanks to all who have joined so far.  Everyone is very welcome to join in.  If you do a post on an Irish short story, just leave a comment anywhere on my blog and I will see it.

Future Plans for ISSW2

There will be weeks devoted to Individual writers.   Weeks devoted to George Moore and the writing team of Edith Somerville and Violent Martin have already begun.  There will also be a week  devoted to William Carleton and also Desmond Hogan.   There may also be a week devoted to Edna O'Brien.  

Emerging Irish Women Writers was intended just to be a week long event.  I am finding such great new to me writers that it will become a permanent feature of The Reading Life.  I have three writers in the que and I am looking for others.  I know there are many many good picks but my problem is to identify the authors and obtain their permission to be included.   My view is anything published online or in print is fair game to be posted on but I prefer to obtain consent.  If you are interested in being included in this event, then by all means contact me.

Four Collections of Short Stories

"Emerging Women Writers is
my favorite part of ISSW2"-
Carmilla

I am also working my way through four collections of short stories.   The advantage of posting on and reading these stories is I have the security of knowing people with long experience with the Irish Short Story endorse them.  The disadvantage is most are under copyright so they cannot be read by those who do not have the books.  There are about 40 to 50 more stories in these collections I hope to post on but what I do not include this year I hope to post on during ISSW3 in 2013, which will run from March 1 to July 1, I hope.  

At some point I am going to dive into the world of flash fiction.  

I have now opened the event up to stories by Argentine writers of Irish descent (at least 500,000 people left Ireland for Argentina) and Irish Kiwis.   Irish American writers will be represented by Flannery O'Connor who will be making a guest appearance soon.   

I have begun to read Inventing Ireland:  The Literature of the Modern Nation by Declan Kiberd, a big brilliant book.

I hope there will be some interviews with current writers but these are all in the developing stages.

A well meaning family member has suggested by cohosts are tacky.  Of course I like them a lot so I guess they will stay.  There are over sixty days left in ISSW2 so lots more can and will still happen.

Mel u