Last week, Sasha de Buyl-Pisco made her first visit to Galway following her appointment as both the new director of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature and head of literature at Galway Arts Centre.
She comes to Cúirt from a post as manager of Scottish Books International, a cross-sector service developing projects and partnerships for Scottish writers, festivals, and publishers overseas.
Born in Belgium, Sasha grew up in West Cork. “My family moved here when I was five years old so I went straight into the Irish school system. I have a diverse family background with my dad from Belgium and my mum’s background is Spanish, but I do feel very much culturally Irish.”
After a decade in Scotland, where she did a dual degree in English and film studies at St Andrew’s University followed by work with a range of Scottish literature organizations, one imagines that Sasha must also feel some cultural affinity with that country. “I went to St Andrew’s in Scotland because it was a bit of an adventure and also because university was free,” she explains. “I had a fantastic time working in the world of Scottish literature. It is a fantastic sector. A lot of people are asking brilliant questions. Scottish arts organizations such as Creative Scotland aren’t resting on their laurels. There is an appetite for making the best possible work but also reaching the widest possible audience. I learned a huge amount from working there.”
Interestingly, as well as her many CV credits relating to the world of literature, Sasha also has been active in the realm of comics and visual arts. Her comics have been featured on the BBC and she gives workshops on making comics and zines. Might she programme artists and events from this sector in at Cúirt. “Definitely, yes,” she declares. “Admittedly I have put my visual art to the side because I was working so much in the literature sector. I assumed that there was no place for making art if you were working in arts management but I’m discovering that’s not the case but it’s just a hobby for me at the minute. Comics are doing wonderful things at the minute in terms of storytelling and I do think they are a form of literature and I’d love to bring some comics creators to Cuirt.”
I ask Sasha about which writers she admires; “At the moment I have a resurgence of interest in non-fiction writing but I do love stories at heart,” she replies. “In the past year most of my favourites have been essay collections like Maggie Nelson, she is a poet and essayist and an incredible writer. Alexander Chee is another American essayist and his book How to Write an Autobiographical Novel taught me more about writing and life and being a human being. When I was younger I loved transportative fiction like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I loved that when I was a teenager and I have just finished reading the second book in his new trilogy; it is such an amazing treat to be given all of those books as an adult. It’s great to hear another trilogy is coming from a writer that you trust and to go back into that world is such a gift.”
Surprisingly, Sasha has never been to Galway for the Cúirt festival. “I actually never attended Cúirt but I did know the previous director, Emily Cullen, so I was aware of its programme and was very impressed with what it was doing,” she states. “I remember saying to Emily that Cúirt was a brilliant festival and it would be lovely to work on something like that one day, so it’s funny that I am here now. I feel a huge amount of excitement to be appointed as the director of Cúirt, to be returning home to Ireland and to be making a new home in Galway. I’ve spent the last ten years in Scotland, keenly following Irish contemporary writing, reading voraciously and pressing its books upon anyone who’ll take them. I staunchly believe that Irish writing is among the best in the world, and I cannot wait to work with a programme that places Irish writing at its heart. It also feels very fitting to be coming back to work in a city that is being celebrated by the EU as European Capital of Culture in 2020, and I’m very excited to see how Cúirt can be involved and work with Galway Arts Centre to develop a literature programme year-round.”
Over the past number of years literature festivals, including Cúirt, have tended to present interviews with visiting writers rather than straightforward readings. What is Sasha’s opinion on this trend? “There has been a general shift toward that as an event format,” she agrees. “However Cúirt’s roots are in the poetry tradition and poetry events still tend to be reading focused. I think the programme will continue to maintain a good balance between poetry and fiction. I do a fair bit of moderating myself at festival events and I enjoy it. I personally enjoy hearing the writer talk about their process, and it can be a valuable experience for a writer to have an engaging conversation with someone who really knows their work and can ask good questions. It can draw out feelings for a writer and make them think about things they haven’t thought about before so new ideas are being created on the stage which the audience get to witness and that can be a magical experience. I am also interested in alternative formats, so events or readings don’t always have to look the same way.”
As the planning for next year’s Cúirt has already begun, festival goers will not really see Sasha’s stamp on the event until the years following; “Up until yesterday I hadn’t met the team at Cúirt but having met them I feel full of confidence about the festival,” she states. “I don’t think you will see that much change in next year’s programme because the planning for that has already begun in earnest, so I think I’ll be using next year’s festival as an opportunity to gather information for planning for future years and to use what I learn from 2020 to plan the next three/five years of the festival and Galway Arts Centre literature programme. I’ll be looking at the core values of Cúirt to see how we can change it or grow it in a sustainable fashion.”
