Poetry Ireland and the Irish Writers Centre return to Boston for the third year with Bualadh BOSton, a boutique literature festival that brings together some of Ireland’s finest contemporary writers in historic Boston, the capital of Irish America.
(Bualadh BOSton is a play on the Irish phrase for "Applause" which is Bualadh Bas or the banging of palms).
This will happen on April 5 - 6 at the Harvard Club in Boston.
I attended this wonderful gathering last year, and was so impressed to hear Irish poet extraordinaire Paul Muldoon, and onetime Poet Lauréat , Robert Pinsky read. This is a high quality, free event well worth checking out. Congrats to Irish Consul General, Fionnuala Quinlan and her staff for helping organize it again for 2019.
In the first session, awarding winning novelists Mike McCormack and Alice McDermott will read from and discuss their recent work. Ms. McDermott is of course, best known for her captivating work Charming Billy, and has a brand new novel called The Ninth Hour.
Recently, Mike McCormack visited our WGBH studios in Boston, and our chat (listen by clicking on the play button above) was a wide ranging and relaxed catch-up on his work as a writer. We also discussed his deep Co. Mayo family connections, the fact he was born in London, how his year at Villa Nova University is going, what makes a writer distinctly"Irish," the current state of new Irish literature (he's bullish!), and the unique structure of his sensational latest novel, Solar Bones - it is written in a single sentence spanning 270 pages, and covers a single hour in time. Check it out, and let's us know what you think.
~ Brian O'Donovan
