Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award

Congratulations to J. P. Dunleavy who won the prestigious Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent Irish Book Awards. Previous winners of this award include Maeve Binchy, Seamus Heaney, and John Banville to name but a few.

Check out the recent winners of the Irish Book Awards at www.irishbookawards.ie and vote for your overall book of the year before 17th  December 2015!

                                      

Costa Book Awards 2015

The shortlist for the 2015 Costa Book Awards has just been announced. I am delighted to see that Anne Enright's The Green Road and Sara Baume's Spill Simmer Falter Wither are included on the shortlist. The winner will be announced on the 4th January 2016 and each category winner will receive £5000.00. For further details and information check out www.costabookawards.com!

                                          

Irish Book Awards 2015

The Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards 2015 shortlist was announced earlier this month. Hundreds of books were submitted this year and the public are being asked to cast their vote on the best books via www.bgeirishbookawards.ie. So let your voice be heard and cast your vote before midnight November 20th 2015!

                                                 

Dublin Book Festival

The 2015 Dublin Book Festival takes place this weekend, the 12th - 15th November. Guest speakers include Kevin Barry, Judi Curtin, Claire Kilroy, Donal Ryan and Ian Sansom. A wide variety of events are planned for the weekend including literary walking tours, book launches, children & young writers workshops and a live broadcast of RTE Radio 1's Arena programme. For further details and bookings check out www.dublinbookfestival.com

         

                                                               

NaNoWriMo for November

November is NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month.  The concept is that you write a 50,000 word novel during the month, which means a word count of 1,667 for each day of the month. This is an intensive event but the idea is to ignore your inner critic and to let your creativity run wild. The goal is moving forward with your writing, to develop plot and character with a sense of freedom and to return to editing at a later stage. Sounds good! 

Check out www.nanowrimo.org for further details and information.