Claire Keegan

Small Things Like These, the latest work by Irish writer Claire Keegan, is a beautiful and delicately wrought short novel. Publisher Alex Bowler says it is “An exquisite wintery parable, Claire Keegan’s long-awaited return tells the story of a simple act of courage and tenderness, in the face of conformity, fear and judgement. To read it is to be deeply touched by hope and by the sheer storytelling brilliance of one of Ireland’s great writers.”

Claire Keegan is best-known for her award-winning short stories, which have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Granta, and The Paris Review, and translated into 20 languages. Claire Keegan grew up on a farm in Wicklow. Keegan traveled to New Orleans, when she was seventeen and studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992 and later lived for a year in Cardiff, Wales, where she undertook an MA in creative writing and taught undergraduates at the University of Wales.

Her first collection of short stories, Antarctica, was completed in 1998. It announced her as an exceptionally gifted and versatile writer of contemporary fiction, and she was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her second short-story collection, Walk the Blue Fields, was published to enormous critical acclaim in 2007 and won her the 2008 Edge Hill Prize for Short Stories.

Foster, a short novel, was published in 2010 and won the Davy Byrnes Award, judged by Richard Ford—he praised Keegan’s “thrilling” instinct for the right words and her “patient attention to life’s vast consequence and finality”. Foster appeared in the New Yorker and was declared the “Best of the Year”. It was later published in long form by Faber, and is now included as a text for the Irish Leaving Certificate.

Tanya Farrelly is the author of four books. Her debut short fiction collection When Black Dogs Sing (Arlen House), was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and named winner of the Kate O’ Brien Award 2017. Two novels: The Girl Behind the Lens and When Your Eyes Close were published by Harper Collins, London. She curated and edited The Music of What Happens, an anthology of poems, stories and essays by over fifty Irish writers published in aid of Purple House Cancer Support Centre. (New Island, 2020) Her latest book: Nobody Needs to Know, a short fiction collection, was published by Arlen House in October 2021. She holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from Bangor University, Wales, and teaches at numerous institutions, including the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin, and the People’s College. She is the founder and director of Bray Literary Festival and is the current Writer-in-Residence at NUI Galway.

The Dingle Literary Festival was established in 2019 to create an annual book festival to bring readers and authors together in West Kerry. It’s a literary festival that celebrates living writers as well as honouring the literary heritage of the area. Festival events happen in both Irish and English and range across all genres and age groups. We present both author events and writers’ workshops.

Our vision is of a festival where literature, language and landscape converge to create moments to share stories, to connect minds and allow magic to blossom. It’s a place that sparks discussion, fosters innovation and collaboration in the arts and creates a multigenerational community of readers and writers.

The Dingle Literary Festival is a book festival that elevates and celebrates the richness of Irish language and literature in contemporary life. We encourage a vibrant, relevant literary community to support both established and emerging writers.

Follow this link for news of this year’s festival