This article is from page 34 of the 2008-02-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 34 JPG
GORT will celebrate it’s first ever literary festival this May when a two-day long events hosted by the Western Writers’ Centre rolls into town. The festival, which 1s entitled The Forge at Gort – A Writers Gath- ering, will take place on March 28 and 29 at various locations around the town.
“We have called it the forge, which related to one of Yeat’s poems where he mentions the forge in Gort.
“That forge is still there in the main street in Gort,’ said Fred John- son, founder of the Cuirt Festival and member of the Western Writers’
Centre.
“The Western Writer Centre has or- ganised a lot of events in the western region. I was in Gort as we had or- ganised a reading for Evelyn Conlon the novelist, and I looked around and thought that Gort would be a lovely town to have a little festival in. The best way to do these thing is to start modestly, and have a small festival which reflects the literary history of Gort.”
One of the main aims of the festival is to take an all inclusive approach to literature.
“We will have poetry workshops, Christy O’Connor will be down to talk about his book on hurling “Last
Man Standing’, we are trying to keep it as open as possible,” continued Fred.
“The last thing that we would want is to have anything that is too elitist. We really want to be as all inclusive as possible. If anyone locally has ide- as and would like to get their group involved then we would love to hear from them.
“We have been in touch, for exam- ple, with the Brazilian community in Gort and we hope that we will be able to organise something with them. But if anyone has an idea, all they need to do is give us a shout.
“We are supported by the Arts Council, Galway City and County
Councils and Poetry Ireland but we are hoping for other sponsorship if it is forthcoming.”
The festival line-up so far includes novelist Geraldine Mills, poet Knute Skinner, a poetry workshop with poet Nessa O’Mahony, poetry read- ing with Frank Golden, a talk with Christy O’Connor, a reading for children and adults with Eddie Leni- han a workshop on poetry publish- ing, with the head of Salmon Poetry, Jessie Lendennie and The Rahaline Experiment, a drama by John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy.
For more info check out www. twwe.ie or contact 091 533594 or westernwriters @eircom.net.