Clare Libraries is delighted to present the line up for our annual Clare Readers Festival. Each year we invite authors from Clare and beyond to talk about their books and give an insight into their writing process. Our aim is to bring a variety of authors and literature to audiences around Clare to inspire future writers and encoruage reading for pleasure. Book Club sets for titles by the featured authors are available to borrow ahead of the events.
This year’s Festival takes place in Ennis in Shannon libraries from the 14 – 23 November. Clare Reader’s Festival is funded by Creative Ireland.
Ennis Library, Tuesday 14 November, 18:30 – 19:30 pm: Moïra Fowley in conversation with Sarah Marie Griffin. Moira Fowley is an author, tarot reader, and part-time witch. Moïra will discuss her first book for adults, Eyes Guts Throat Bones, a collection of short stories about (queer, female) bodies and the end of the world. Moïra is the author of three critically acclaimed Young Adult novels which have been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Irish Book Awards, and the Children’s Books Ireland Awards, as well as being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and winning the School Library Association of Ireland Great Reads Award.
Moïra has just been nominated for Short Story of the Year with the An Post Irish Book Awards.
Shannon Library, Thursday 16 November, 19:00 – 20:00 pm: Donal Ryan in conversation with Madge O’Callaghan. Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, is the author of six number one-bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and four Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award.
Shannon Library, Thursday 23 November, 19:00 – 20:00 pm: Kerri Ní Dochartaigh in conversation with Kelly Giradi. Kerri Ní Dochartaigh is the author of Thin Places (Canongate, 2020) which was highly commended by the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021. She has written for the Guardian, the Irish Times, the BBC, Winter Papers, and others. Her second book, Cacophony of Bone, was published in April 2023.