The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
MURDER, drink, pornography, dodgy footwear – just some of the elements of a good night out in the Town of Fiction, a collection of new short stories by the Atlantis Writers’ Collective, which features scribes from Limerick through Galway to Sligo.
The Town of Fiction could be anywhere, but on Friday April 24 it will be launched on an unsuspecting public as part of CUIRT festival of literature in Galway.
Among those taking part are Patricia Byrne, a member of the Killaloe Hedge School Writer Group who took up writing after working for Shannon Development for over 20 years.
Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been widely published in journals and anthologies and she has broadcast on RTÉ, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland.
The Atlantis Collective of anarchist scribes is made up (mostly) of graduates of the MA in Writing at NUI Galway and, in addition to Patricia, includes Aideen Henry, Dara Ó Foghlu, Paul MacMahon, Colm Brady, Maire Robinson, Alan Caden, Bob Whelan and contributing editor Dr John Kenny. This eclectic group concocted a selection of weird and wonderful stories over conspiratorial meetings in the dead of winter.
A wide variety of tales take a darkly comic look into the minds of a strange assortment of characters. A boy tries to fly, a lonely birdwatcher finds company and more besides. A playboy incurs the wrath of a gangster, while a schoolboy tries to work off the stigma of a naff pair of shoes. A young wino enters the inaugural Urinolympics. A disgruntled employee searches the Internet for a hit, while a boxer tries to shake off the effects of one. A woman lives out the last day of her life and an ex-pat attends a wedding in London. The seedy underbelly of a pub is exposed, a man tries to shake off the effects of ‘what happened’. Oblivious to it all, a dangerous ram roams the streets. In the Town of Fiction, anything can happen.
The launch is set to be an annual event dedicated to showcasing the best of new literary talent on the western seaboard. Keep informed via the website www.atlantiscollective.com.
