Award winning Irish Author Louise O’Neill to be interviewed at the 38th Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien, Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th June.
Cork born Louise O’Neill, author of Asking For It, will be interviewed by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, award winning teacher, researcher and novelist at the University of Limerick where she teaches creative writing as part of the Limerick Literary Festival which takes place this weekend, Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th in Limerick city at the Peoples Museum and the Belltable.
Louise O'Neill grew up in Clonakilty, a small town in West Cork, Ireland. Her first novel, Only Ever Yours, was released in 2014. Only Ever Yours went on to win the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year at the 2014 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards; the Children’s Books Ireland Eilís Dillon Award for a First Children’s Book; and The Bookseller‘s inaugural YA Book Prize 2015.
Louise’s second novel, Asking For It, was published in September 2015 to widespread critical acclaim. She went on to win the Specsaver’s Senior Children’s Book of the Year at the 2015 Irish Book Awards, the Literature Prize at Irish Tatler’s Women of the Year Awards, and the American Library Association's Michael L. Printz award. Asking For It was voted Book of the Year at the Irish Books Awards 2015 and spent 52 consecutive weeks in the Irish top 10 bestseller list. The New York Times called it "riveting and essential" and The Guardian named O' Neill "the best YA fiction writer alive today." Both novels have been optioned for screen.
O'Neill's first novel for adults, Almost Love, was published in March 2018, followed shortly by The Surface Breaks, her feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid which was released in May 2018.
Her second novel for adults, After the Silence, was published in September 2020 and spent six weeks in the top three of the Irish book charts.
Her third novel for adults, Idol, was released in May 2022 to widespread critical acclaim. It went straight in at number 1 in Ireland and number 12 in the U.K.
Louise and Sarah will be in conversation on Saturday June 18th at 2pm. Tickets are available to book through the festival website on www.limerickliteraryfestival.com or on Eventbrite here.
Other highlights of the festival include, biographer Frank Shovlin, poets Amanda Bell, Stephanie Conn and John Boland, a tribute to Limerick Artists Dave Lilburn and a special poetry and visual arts event Wild Wild Erie: A celebration of Paul Durcan. Actors Ingrid Craigie and Mark O’Regan will perform Paul Durcan poems, beginning with much-loved classics such as The Kilfenora Teaboy, Making Love Outside Áras an Uachtaráin and The Cabinet Table.
They will go on to read poems from Wild Wild Erie which will be accompanied by images of the artworks projected on a large screen.
This performance duration will last 50 mins.
In Wild Wild Erie, Paul Durcan with characteristic playfulness, insight and an altogether unusual way of looking responds to works in Toledo‘s extraordinary collection including works by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Victoria Dubourg, Edward Hopper, Matisse, Jack B. Yeats, Sean Scully and Diane Arbus.
For tickets, photos and more information see www.limerickliteraryfestival.com or contact Ella on 0872863428.
