Jim Harrison who died ten years ago, March 26, 2016. "Death steals everything except our stories."

Donie going to CPAC so you don't have to.

Step one: colonise half the planet Step two: steal their art Step three: charge them entry to see it

Good.

Let’s not forget what Ursula K. Le Guin had to say about JKR and Harry Potter.

Tres cool.

I remember watching it in the historic Garland Theatre in Spokane (for a dollar).

Stunning photo: James Bradford in 1961, arrested for reading in the Jackson, Mississippi public library.

You haven’t made it as a writer until you’re featured in the Ballymena Guardian beneath an article about the Milwaukee Tools Road Show. Thanks to Philip Taylor for the lovely write up and @waterstonesballymena for hosting the launch on April 16th at 7pm #FewAndFarBetween

One of the greatest Irish novels, unpacking the obligations of family & documenting an Ireland of stifling morality, thankfully long gone. McGahern excels at small-town claustrophobia and there is no better chronicler of Leitrim's green lanes. Honoured to write this foreword. @faberbooks.bsky.social

Available for international order if you’re living outside the North. If you’re coming to the launch at the Crescent Arts Centre you’ll be able to pick up your preorder on the night.

Tracy Kidder was a lovely writer, an absolute pro to work with, and, in our few but memorable encounters, quite the nicest fellow. I'm very sorry to read of his death.

A Phone-Free Childhood? One Irish Village Is Making It Happen. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/r...

Post a non-religious picture you think of as holy

On this day in 1961 Samuel Beckett married Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil in Folkestone Registry Office.

Mayne Reid, Ulster-born “Giant of the Westerns.” That face should be better known...(whatever about the novels!)

An Taoiseach Mícheál Martin launches my friend and colleague Ronan McGreevy’s edited memoir of Seán Lemass this evening at the National Library. Sean Haughey, Lemass’s grandson, also spoke

Bratislava is surprising. It has a wonderful English language bookshop Megabooks. One of the booksellers there asked where I was from in Ireland. When I mentioned living in Cork for years she said, "I thought I recognised Cork in your voice. My father is from Tipperary." We are everywhere.

Delighted to be doing a wee #FewAndFarBetween event with the lovely folk at Elk Books in Warrenpoint. Places are free but limited so reserve your spot asap if you’d like to join us.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: "Poetry is the shortest distance between two humans."

The full series of Leonard and Hungry Paul is now available on the RTE Player. Shyness is nice, as Morrissey once sang in the good old days. www.rte.ie/player/serie...

"Maggie O'Farrell and fellow judges" seems a weird way of reporting this instead of "Anne Dempsey wins Hilary Mantel prize" – I know Hamnet is red hot at the moment but still.

Come join us on April 23! @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

"WITCH WILL CONTINUE"

When I am not busy being the ILT, I occasionally do things like this. Thanks to @ruthmckee.bsky.social and @booksireland.bsky.social who do, to borrow the words once attributed to a Kiltyclogher councillor, "trojan work for the community at large".

Some book festivals are just a wee bit fancier than others. Had a fantastic afternoon at Magheramorne Literary Festival talking about #FewAndFarBetween with Wendy Erskine and Freya McClements

"Schofield is one of the most adventurous writers in the English language today."

"Tóibín is the consummate cartographer of the private self, summoning with restrained acuity (and a delicious streak of sly humour) the thoughts his characters struggle to find words for." ~~Clare Clark, The Guardian

New collection of stories from Colm Toibin to be published March 26 #colmtoibin www.panmacmillan.com/authors/colm...

Michael Harding recalling a segment of a conversation between two elderly men in a restaurant in a west Cavan village as the conversation turned towards the weather: “Horrid day.” “Shocking.” “Odious.” “The snipe would need wellingtons.”

Being only a blow-in to Cavan myself as a toddler, I am not in the slightest bit offended by Niall Tóibín’s humour: “I saw a Cavan man stripping wallpaper one day. I see you’re decorating, says I. No, says he, we’re moving!”

Leonard and Hungry Paul is on RTE tonight at 10.30pm, gently dispelling those Sunday evening Glenroe feelings.

Eavan Boland Body In the morning they were both found dead. Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history. But her feet were held against his breastbone. The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Utterly moving. Huge fan of Boland here.

Mother Ireland, Eavan Boland is up there. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

"Being with her was intimate and helpful, like a cure you didn't notice happening". ❤️ I must have read those words a hundred times & they have never lost their meaning (The Wellhead, Heaney).

Breaking red alert car parked in a red zone about to disintegrate it's oh so quiet you can almost hear it rust Ciaran Carson,from 'Breaking News (2003)

The dry stone wall builders of Aran fascinated me as a child on holiday. Now I stare at a poster of Máirtín Ó Direáin’s ‘An Clochadóir’ on the wall above my desk. Making me wonder again, as I search for the right words for a column, at their easy skill in selecting the perfect stones for their task.

The Planter's Daughter by Austin Clarke

Rita Ann Higgins

Do You Believe in God? Pádraig Ó Tuama “you-the hum at the heart of an atom; you-nothing: you-my favorite emptiness”

Tip your glass right back at the wonderful @sheilawriter.bsky.social to celebrate her birthday!

The Hatchet of Billy the Ballad. Sorry, I meant the Billy of Hatchet the Ballad. No wait, The Hatchet of Ballad the Billy. I meant, Billy the Hatchet of Ballad. Ah, fuck sake, writing is hard, I give up. #constaflubberfygibbert

This painting sums up how I imagine the relationship between writer and reader. That's me in the middle in the green latex suit with the giant pink cotton buds and that's you sitting down on the right.

Calling all readers! Electric Literature is now accepting applications to join our editorial team as a volunteer reading for Recommended Reading, EL’s weekly fiction magazine. Learn more about the role here: buff.ly/AdHjbhd

I really enjoyed this excellent workshop today, thanks very much! A great way to spend part of #WorldPoetryDay