Some Ideas and Resources for Irish Short Story Week-Sunday Salon

Irish Short Story Week

March 14th to March 20th

Irish Short Story Week begins tomorrow.    Ireland is not a big country but it has produced more than its share of the greatest writers of all time.    Among Irish short story writers of the 20th century we can count the greatest poet of the 20th century (at least), the most important novelist, and the most important playwright.    An Irish short story writer gave us the Vampire as a central cultural figure.    Oscar Wilde helped create a new sensibility.   An Irish short story writer was the first write to deal with the onset of menstruation in young women.  Irish short story writers have given us amazing studies of the family, of the points of view of children, and of women.  Irish short story writers have helped us understand colonialism.    Irish short story writers are over all very into the reading life and in love with the sounds of the spoken word.   Most are, in an old fashioned way, seekers of wisdom and truth.   It is true that over all the Irish short story is a "manly" genre.   There are wonderful women short story writers from Ireland.    We will start with one on Elizabeth Bowen day-which will be kind of a party day.  (The Irish short story writer does like to have a good time!)  I have discover several new to me female writers I will post on.

"See you soon"-Carmilla

I hope others will join in by posting on an Irish Short story during the week.   I hope to make it an annual event.   I want to list a few resources for potential participants.


Last year Dublin was declared by UNESCO a "World Literature City" because of the huge number of great writers that have called Dublin home.    If you look through the list of writers mentioned on their web page below you may get some reading ideas.


  Dublin-City of Literature 


Readprint.com has lots of older Irish short stories on line.   I really like their screen format for online reading.   You can find, for example, lots of short stories by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce.   


Read Print-lots and lots of Irish Short Stories can be found here.


Island Ireland is web page devoted to resources on Irish Literature with lots of links.


Irish Literature Resources

Bram Stoker, creator of Dracula, also wrote a lot of short stories.

Stories by Bram Stoker

Another good resource is the archives of The New Yorker magazine.    With a little patience you can find stories by Frank O'Conner, William Trevor, and Anne Enright.    You can even find pod casts of some stories by Irish authors.    The Manchester Guardian Pod Cast page also has a few Irish Short Stories online.  They have one of Elizabeth Bowen's most highly regarded short stories online as a podcast.

The New Yorker


The Manchester Guardian



If you just Google "Irish Literature" or "Irish Short Stories" you will find lots of ideas.

I hope we will have some virtual visitors this week, some time travelers may drop in.    Not everyone who drops by will be  be Irish, all that is required is a that you love a good story.

I know a lot of people do not like short stories.    I felt the same way a year ago.    Some of the authors we will meet this week thought deeply about the nature of the short story.   I will also try to take a look at the nature of the short story through their ideas.

If you want to join in all you have to do is post on an Irish Short story during  the week-or everyday if you like!-Send me a comment and a link and I will link back to you in a closing post or as I go along.  

My co-hosts, Rory O'Halloran from Stephen Benet's wonderful short story "The Luck of the Irish" and Carmilla, who probably is the first literary lesbian Vampire, will also be here.   She and Rory have their issues so we will see what happens.

This is all an experiment for me.   I hope it can become an annual Reading Life event.

thanks

Mel u