This 42nd edition of Listowel Writers’ Week features a wealth of talent from home and abroad, with appearances from Nadeem Aslam, Dermot Bolger, Marina Chapman, Emma Donoghue, Honor Donohoe, Robin Dunbar, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, Peggy Gallagher, Thomas Keneally, Gene Kerrigan, Martha Long, Colum McCann, Alison Moore, Andrew Miller, Rebecca Miller, Peter Murphy, Audrey Niffenegger, Colm Tóibín and Willy Vlautin.
Speaking about the programme for 2013, Sean Lyons, Chairman of Listowel Writers’ Week said, “This year’s festival has a truly international scope, from our programme of the best global talent in fiction to our inaugural Italian-Irish literary exchange, with themes of the Festival focusing on emigration and The Gathering. This year we have expanded our children’s programme and writers’ workshops. The Festival is devoted to bringing together writers and audiences from around the world and to provide a forum to celebrate, learn and share their love of the written word.”
The Festival will feature a number of defined strands centred around The Gathering. Highlights include Across the Waves, a captivating look at how the experience of migration is expressed in contemporary Irish writing featuring Catherine Dunne and US-based Irish authors, Colm Toibin and Colum McCann. Australian author of Schindler’s Ark, Thomas Keneally explores the darkest period in modern Irish history in Mapping the Irish Famine, and there will be a bilingual celebration to the work of Irish Poet, Maire Mhac an tSaoi, facilitated by Louis de Paor. An event entitled The Irish-American Short Story will investigate literary connections between the two countries, looking at writers including Flannery O’Connor, Frank O’Connor and Eudora Welty.
The children’s programme, which takes place at the Fossett's Circus' Big Top has been expanded this year with 60 events and workshops aimed at younger audiences. Visiting writers include Cathy Cassidy, Deirdre Cowman, Chris Judge, Tom McLaughlin, Darren Shan and Sarah Webb.
The inaugural New Writers Salon will showcase some of the best and most exciting emergent voices in Ireland today, with award-winning writers who have yet to be published presenting their work to new audiences.
Also new for 2013 is a series of exchanges with literary events and festivals outside Ireland, as Listowel Writers’ Week hosts a group of writers from Onoma near Verona in Italy.
