Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Thursday, March 29, 2012

Irish Short Story-March 29 Update

Irish Short Story Week Year Two
March 11 to April 31
List of Posts by Participants
Some Great Anthologies
Update on My Plans

Dublin Book Sale-1960


Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

Writers of Irish short stories pretty much have set the tone for much of the cultural and literary trends of the last 100 years.   Bram Stroker and Joseph Sheridan La Fanu basically started the vampire craze that is still going strong all over the world.   Oscar Wilde helped create a new sensibility, that has opened up an entire new way of looking at the world.    Among Irish short story writers are James Joyce, most important 20th century and beyond novelist, Samuel Beckett the most important 20th century playwright, and William Butler Yeats, for sure the greatest poet of the Twentieth century and for me one of the very greatest of all times.    Stepping down from Mount Parnasssus, we have wonderful writers like my literary love, Elizabeth Bowen to represent the Anglo-Irish.   Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is considered among the very best writers of Ghost stories.   Not bad for a country just a little bit bigger than the American state of West Virginia and less than one percent the size of Australia.

Irish Short Story Week Year Two will now be open until at least April 31.   All are welcome to join us.   All you need do is to do a post on an Irish Short Story or a related matter (for example a biography of Elizabeth Bowen) and let me know about it.   You are also welcome to do a guest post on my blog.   Just let me know if you are interested in this option.

The most important reason I do periodic updates is to be sure that everyone knows of the truly great posts that the participants in Irish Short Story Week Year Two (yes long week) have done.  If someone is left out of this list it is more oversight and please let me know and I will fix it.   Thanks so much for joining in and plenty of time left.   


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 

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

"My eternal gratitude to all the
participants."-Carmella
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


New Posts since the first update


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, "Mysterious Kor"


ds of Third Story Window has done a very interesting post on  an ancient Irish myth, The Children of Lair.  She will be doing a post on a WWII short story of Elizabeth Bowen also.








I am having a great time with this event, otherwise I would not keep extending it.   Traffic on my blog has reached new highs and The Reading Life is getting some unexpected new attention from outside the book blog world.  


Fairy and Folk Tales Week is Over.  Emerging Irish Women Writers week was set to end today but as I am finding such great stories I will continue this until the end of the event.  At the end of the event I will do a post saluting all those who joined in the event.



First Week of April Susan of You Can Never Have To Many Books and I plan a joint post on 4 short stories by Bernie McGill (all can be read online)

I have also been having a lot of fun listening to a wide variety of Irish radio stations the last few weeks.  I use for this on my Ipad (also works on Iphones)  an application called Tune in Radio.  Some stories call for a haunting Celtic lament others for some good old fashioned pub music.   


I wish to offer my great gratitude to  the Sayajirao Gaelwad Institute  for their patronage of The Reading Life.




New Events

Stories about Priests Week (weeks will overlap)

Stories by William Trevor, Daniel Crockery, Frank O'Connor, Colm Tobias and more.


Ghost Story Week, starring Charlotte Riddell,

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Elizabeth Bowen will be back along with several real ghost stories from Charlotte Riddell.   Oscar Wilde might stop by also.




"Mel's Buying"-Rory

E. R. Week?


Have you seen ER, the medical show?  This is nothing like that.  Details to be revealed as it starts

Nobel Prize Winners Only Day

Self explanatory.

I still have about 30 short stories from the anthologies of Frank O'Connor, William Trevor and Joseph O'Connor I want to post on.   

I have recently found  two anthologies of short stories, flash fiction, and poetry edited by EM Reapy that focus on the work of emerging Irish writers, all very recent works.

This title and it companion volume are both available at a very fair price as a Kindel book on Amazon.

.


A Great Source of works
by Emerging Irish Writers-
short stories and poetry

Another Month, I love it, I even like Rory today-
Carmella
There are lot of online journals where you can find short stories  by emerging and established writers.  For well known writers, check The New Yorker.    

If you have any issues, questions, complaints, leave me a comment.   

Great short story writers from all over the world may also stop by and say hello during April.   

Lord Dunsany will show us how Flash fiction should be done!

Mel u






















8 comments:

Nancy said...

Am I reading this right? You will be extending the Irish Short Story Week to April 31? If yes, great!!! I still have a few more Irish short stories up my sleeve.

Mel u said...

Nancy-yes it does! there is just so much out there and I am getting lots of interest and inquiries-let us also do a post for our Short Stories of the Philippines next week-

Nancy said...

Yes, Mel, sure! That would be great. I have a lot of free time next week because it will be Holy Week.

Suko said...

Mel, perhaps you need to change the name of this to The Irish Short Story Extravaganza?! Read on!

ds said...

Noooo! I just posted about "The Children of Lir"--sorry it has taken so long (you know, I am slow). So thrilled that you are extending this through April!!!

Sarah said...

Please could you add my post to the list?
http://semifictional.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/mysterious-kor-by-elizabeth-bowen/
Thanks :-)

Mel u said...

Sarah-added a link to your great post on "Mysterious Kor", so sorry I left you off

if you posted anything, either as a new participant or an additional post and I did not add it yet, please let let me know, thanks

@parridhlantern said...

Hi Mel if you do this next year I think you'd better make it at least a month to fit it all in :~)