Booker-nominated novelist Donal Ryan and Patrick Kavanagh Award-winning poet Martin Dyar will be in Castlebar next week to present Hearts and Minds, a special evening of collaborative and interactive explorations of their work, at the Linenhall Arts Centre.
Donal Ryan is the author of novels The Spinning Heart (which has just been awarded Irish Book of the Decade by Dublin Book Festival ) and The Thing About December, and short story collection A Slanting of the Sun. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature, and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His third novel, All We Shall Know, was published worldwide in September 2016.
Martin Dyar grew up in Swinford, Co Mayo. His debut book Maiden Names was a Book of the Year selection in the Guardian and The Irish Times and was the winner of the 2009 Patrick Kavanagh Award, and the Strokestown International Poetry Award in 2001. His poem Death and the Post Office has been added to the 2019 Leaving Cert prescribed poetry syllabus.
Reading in a special ‘call-and-response’ format, the two writers will also offer reflections on their creative processes and the centrality of rural Ireland to their writing. The event will be followed by a signing, with special-edition books available on the night.
Hearts and Minds with Donal Ryan and Martin Dyar, takes place at the Linenhall Arts Centre on Wednesday November 30 at 8pm. Booking is advised. Phone 094 9023733 or book online at www.thelinenhall.com
