CloudNine

Just some bits and pieces today. I'm happy to inform you that issue 5 of the wonderful Ouroboros Review will be on-line shortly. I've had a read through the proofs and the work is, generally, quite impressive. Some great poems from poets all over the globe including a couple from yours truly. Check the site out in a few days: http://www.ouroborosreview.com/ Also, I'm glad to see that a young poet whose work I personally very much admire - Miriam Gamble - has been awarded the 2010 Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. She was nominated by Michael Longley. Occasionally on the never-ending conveyor belt of poetry and prose competitions out there, there will be one that in itself stands out  - and can actually lead to the production of some special work. One such competition, I think, is the Millcove Gallery Writing Competition. Writers are asked here to respond to works shown at the gallery - works are also available for perusal on-line.  C...

The Churchill Theatre in Bromley, London, are looking for original short plays, no more than 20mins playing time, for no more than 6 characters. The winning submissions will be performed in rehearsed readings on stage at Churchill Theatre Bromley on Thurs 22 July 2010. A few rules… 1. The two age categories are as follows: age 16-26 & age 26+. 2. The deadline for all entries is Monday 7th June . 3. Each entry must be no longer than approximately 20 mins playing time. 4. Scripts should be for no more than a maximum of 6 characters. 5. Each entry must be accompanied by a completed application form. 6. All work must be original 7. Scripts should be typed or word-processed. For entry form contact: jennybatt@theambassadors.com

Here is a recent review for Horizon Review, issue 4. Am currently busy working on a new project for the Royal College of Art in London - and will report back soon. This issue of Horizon is jam-packed with excellent prose, poems and essays - well worth a look. http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/issues/04/index.htm "V icious When Cornered " by Jaki McCarrick Martin Stannard, Muriel Spark: The Biography (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009). ISBN: 9780297815921. £25.00 Martin Stannard initially considered calling his account of Muriel Spark’s life, The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark , structured as it is around the nine major places in which she lived — Edinburgh, Southern Rhodesia, Milton Bryan, Kensington, Aylesford, Camberwell, New York, Rome and Tuscany. It is a good indication of how much place defined his subject’s work and of her life-long sense of exile — which she did not lament, but rather, like Joyce, thought of as a calling. Stannard’s twenty-chapter biography docum...

Troubles wins Lost Man Booker Prize J G Farrell tops poll to find best novel of 1970 19 May 2010 Forty years after it was first published, Troubles , by J G Farrell, is announced as the winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize - a one-off prize to honour the books published in 1970, but not considered for the prize when its rules were changed. It won by a clear majority, winning 38% of the votes by the international reading public, more than double the votes cast for any other book on the shortlist. Troubles is the first in Farrell's Empire Trilogy, which was followed by The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) and The Singapore Grip (1978). The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker Prize in 1973 and was shortlisted for the Best of the Booker, a special award created to mark the 40th anniversary of the prize in 2008. J G Farrell died in 1979. Set in Ireland in 1919, just after the First World War, Troubles tells the tragic-comic story of Major Brendan Archer who has gone to visit Angela, a w...

My new website should be up and running soon. Meanwhile, my details have been updated on my lovely agent's website: http://www.rodhallagency.com/index.php?art_id=000272 Will be back soon with news of new work.

At the recent reading of Leopoldville in Belfast I got talking to an audience member afterwards. A man. We were halfways into the chat about the play when he realised I was its author. He was shocked. He thought that as Leopoldville has an all-male cast that it had been written by a man. I have to say I often get this reaction to my work. This is, I think, because I write a lot of male characters - and often for all-male casts. I'm told I write 'very good men' - a compliment I'm sure, but a very odd one I think. Why? Because male writers have been writing about women for centuries without the phrase 'he writes very good women' being so much as whispered.  No one bats an eyelid at Chekhov's women, Shakespeare's women, Ibsen's women, Tennessee Williams' women - but many eyelids are fluttered indeed when it comes to women writing about men. And that this is so is ridiculous. Think about some of literature's greatest male characters: Heathcliff, ...

Well, last night's reading of LEOPOLDVILLE in Belfast went very well indeed. It took place in a really beautiful building on Malone Road, Blick Studios, home to several art and graphic design companies. In the ground-floor room, in which we held the reading, an exhibition of the work of up and coming artist, Brian Mullan, was in situ. Mullan's work recalls the surreal cottages and landscapes of Markey Robinson - and is really great. In fact I recommend you get buying his work now before he hits the big-time. I'm saving my pennies already. So - for the reading - we had all this magnificent art on the walls before we'd even started. The Belfast cast were, naturally, very different to the London cast.  Richard Lavery, the director, made some excellent choices I think. James McAnespy played a really very unnerving and psychotic Devlin, but he gave him a tenderness also - which only added to the complexity of that character. Ryan Crown was absolutely brilliant as Joe, th...

INTERVIEW: Jaki McCarrick Gothic playwright Jaki McCarrick turns a childhood memory of a brutal murder into an award-winning play ‘Northern Ireland is the in thing in London this year,’ Jaki McCarrick says, balancing her sunglasses on top of her head. Her eyes crinkle cheerfully at the corners when she grins and adds deprecatingly, ‘Well, that’s what they tell me.’   The elegant McCarrick’s new play Leopoldville ( read the short that Leopoldville was based on here ) is set in Newry. At least the version performed by Accidental Theatre  at Blick Shared Studios will be. The play was originally set in Dundalk, McCarrick’s home town, and based on a brutal murder that she remembered hearing about when she was younger.   ‘A gang of boys broke into this pub and killed the landlord. They dropped a gas canister on his head.’ She taps a finger against her t...

The latest issue of Horizon Review (No. 4) is now available. This issue features some great new fiction, poems and essays. And a few book reviews. One of them by yours truly. Enjoy! http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/issues/04/index.htm

LEOPOLDVILLE by Jaki McCarrick A rehearsed reading presented by ACCIDENTAL THEATRE COMPAN Y Thursday MAY 13th, 2010, 7pm Entry is FREE (Drinks served afterwards)   At Blick Shared Studios:   51 Malone Road , Belfast, BT9 6RY Opposite entrance to Chlorine Gardens     www.blickstudios.org  

I was clearing out my study and came across some old head-shots. Have a look to the left here. Finding the shots made me sit down and take stock. When I first got my literary agent she gave me some advice. Do nothing but write for the next couple of years, she said.  It was good advice because I was one of those creatives in London who did everything. I trained in Dance and Drama, I choreographed my own work using text and movement, I directed and I acted in straight Shakespearian plays. And the truth is, unless I had narrowed that workload down I would never have got down to writing the plays I've written (and poems and prose - you see, I just can't stop myself...). But now I'm beginning to miss both dance - and acting. Dance, because it is the most beautiful way to keep fit and speak without words and acting because I miss building a role. I don't miss the stage-fright and I don't miss the come-down after a show. I do miss the camaraderie and collaborative aspect...

 Brilliant John Tusa interview with the playwright, Edward Bond. The man's mind is amazing, I think (Bond's that is): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/bond_transcript.shtml

Time is a strange thing. It’s been a week since the last showing of LEOPOLDVILLE at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London. A week that just seemed to zoom by. Yet in the same time-frame we had pretty much blocked the play in rehearsals. I always find Time a very curious thing – and sometimes subscribe to theories that Time is not real at all. Don’t think too much about that. I know someone who wrote a book on Time - and went mad. I’m still waiting to hear from a few people on whether or not the London production of the play has any further life left in it. The idea being that if it were to be staged elsewhere then we’d have another shot at attracting the Press and other literary managers etc. I think of my actors who gave so much to the work, who walk away now from the play knowing they’ve done incredible work that's mostly gone unrewarded. All their little masterpieces now shut away in the dark. That’s a tough call. Meanwhile, LEOPOLDVILLE - the play if not the London show - is ...