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Aidan Higgins at 80
A Celebration!
“The Memories of Things – are they better than the things themselves” ?Sat 5th May
9.30 – 10.00 Registration
10.00 – 10.45 Jester Higgins
Aidan Higgins is usually photographed wearing an expression of Dostoevskyian intensity. But he is also a jester. Not surprising when one of his favourite humourists is Flann O’Brien. In these readings with Shane Connaughton and Ingrid Craigie we touch on the lighter side.
10.45 – 11.15 Coffee/Tea
11.15 – 13.00 Fiction Master Class with Dermot Healy (12 people only)
Award winning novelist of “A Goat’s Song” will conduct a master class with emphasis on novel dialogue and interview technique. Open to published & unpublished writers (Maximum 12 people. Cost 20 euro.) See Registration form
11.15 – 12.00 Higgins on Radio
Senior Lecturer in Radio at the University of Northampton Richard Hollingum will speak on Higgins’ unique approach to this medium. With excerpts from “Boomtown –Texas”, “Zoo Station” and others
12.00 – 13.00 Balcony of Europe
Set in Andalucia Spain, eight years in preparation, reduced from1,000 pages to 463 but rich in stair winding hallucinatory prose. A work where the writer’s ambition is never in doubt. It divides critics but its supporters, mostly fellow writers, are fanatical in their devotion. With Neil Murphy, former Associate Professor at Nanyang University, Singapore, and currently teaching at the University of Ulster.
13.00 – 14.30 Lunch Break - (pubs / restaurants in town, two minutes walk )
14.30 –16.00 Langrishe, Go Down and Donkey’s Years
Two of Ireland’s finest writers, Booker prize-winning novelist & critic John Banville and biographer, essayist, and theatre critic, Fintan O’Toole will give their own very individual response to two of Higgins best known Celbridge works, one fiction, one autobiography, both set in his beloved Springfield House.
16.00 –16.30 Coffee/Tea
16.30 -17.15 Higgins locations
Slide show and talk of Celbridge and environs with Maura Gallagher
17.15 – 20.00 Evening Meal Break - (pubs / restaurants in town, two minutes walk )
20.00 –21.30 Music / Poetry from drop-in musicians and poets at Barberstown Castle Hotel
Sun 6th May
10.00 -10.30 Registration
10.30 - 11.15 Bornholm Night -Ferry
A mere holiday romance? But then these two are writers and oh how they love to write ! In the tradition of the epistolary novel. Much underrated when first published in 1983 its reputation has steadily grown. Reading with Bibbi Larsson and Denis Conway.
11.15 – 11.45 Coffee/Tea
11.45 – 12.30 Aidan Higgins reflects on his return to Celbridge
followed by Annie Proulx re-launching New Island’s new edition of “Langrishe, Go Down”
12.30 – 14.00 Lunch Break - (pubs / restaurants in town, two minutes walk )
14.00 – 15.30 Aidan Higgins’ Achievement
Symposium. Chaired by Gerry Dukes with Annie Proulx and Derek Mahon.
15.30 -16.00 Coffee/Tea
16.00 –17.00 In the Footsteps of Aidan Higgins
Prose Writing Competition winners announced by
Patrick McMahon, plus readings from winning entries.
17.00 Closing Remarks - Festival Ends
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Registration Forms are available for download
Getting There :
Buses 67, 67a, via Dublin Bus or by Bus Eireann from
Luas Stop at Connelly Station
Train from Heuston to Hazel Hatch
Celbridge Abbey is one minute walk from Town.
www.aidanhiggins.ie