Birds from Cork

It was impossible to attend all the events at the Short Story Conference, so I missed readings and panels I wanted to attend. One was a reading by Nuala Ní Chonchúir. But I did manage to attend an Editor’s Roundtable in which Nuala participated.

I’ve just seen that Nuala has posted on her blog about the Conference, so here’s some cross-pollination.

Nuala was fiction editor of Southword 14, New Writing from Ireland which I just had to buy since the Conference was after all a short story conference in Ireland, its theme echoing the title of Frank O’Connor’s “The Lonely Voice”. I came across some familiar names in Southword 14 : Matthew Sweeney (who had taught at the Geneva Writers’ Conference), Tania Hershman of The Short Review, Katie Singer (from several Conferences on the Short Story), and Vanessa Gebbie (via Zoe King and Alex Keegan’s Boot Camp in the late 90s); so I’m looking forward to seeing new and old friends.

Nuala also told me about a short story contest she is judging with a deadline end July, open to anyone anywhere, and did I hear online submission? Hope I didn’t dream this and will check this out.

To be continued ….

Ha! Comments to the rescue! Just in case the links on the comments to this post don’t come through, check out the submission rules for the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize which has a deadline 31 July 2008 and a maximum word count of 3K. And the judge even lets you know the sort of stories she likes and lists stories that appealed to her.