LEAVES FESTIVAL OF WRITING AND MUSIC 2017

Emo Court events 10-12 November

Dunamaise events 7-9 November

The annual Leaves Festival of Writing and Music is just around the corner. Leaves celebrates the diversity and richness in today’s literary, music, theatre and film scene. Leaves aims to excite and engage with audiences young and old.

This year the weekend-long programme will be held in Emo Court; the magnificent Gandon designed neo-classical house and gardens on the outskirts of Portlaoise. At the recent launch of the Leaves Festival in Emo Court, Festival Curator, Muireann Ní Chonaill said, “the Leaves Festival is a great opportunity to celebrate writers, musicians and the world of film and theatre. We are very excited to be hosting the Leaves weekend in the beautiful surroundings of Emo Court and there is no better place to listen to and meet writers and musicians.”

Opening the weekend in the Drawing Room, Emo Court, on Friday night 10^th November, at 8.00pm are poets Jean Ó Brien, Martin Figura, and Helen Ivory. They will be joined by musician, Úna Keane and the event will be chaired by Arthur Broomfield.

The Tea Rooms in Emo Court is the venue for Saturday mornings writing workshop, to be led by Helen Ivory. It runs from 10am-12.30pm on Saturday 11^th November.

Returning to the Drawing Room for the rest of Saturday’s events(11^th November), are poets Denise Curtin, Paddy Moran, Karen J Mc Donnell, joined by Portlaoise born musician, Gary Dunne. This event will be chaired by Séamus Hosey and commences at 3.00pm.

To celebrate National Harp Day, Scottish Harpist, Catriona McKay together with Swedish nyckelharpa player Olov Johansson, will perform a special concert. They will be accompanied by the Music Generation Laois Harpists and it commences at 5.00pm on 11^th November.

Saturday evening (11^th November) will feature Lisa Harding and Kevin Barry reading and discussing their novels with Sean Rocks, presenter of Arena, on Radio 1 and it commences at 8.00pm.

On Sunday at noon, 12^th  November, the Drawing Room will be the setting for the premiere of Thresholds.

This new music commission celebrating the theme of pollination, by Ian Wilson will be performed by saxophonist, Cathal Roche. It was funded through the Creative Ireland Laois programme. The winning poems on the theme of pollination will be read by the prizewinners at this event. The new Laois Spoken Word artist, who will commence their ten month residency during the Leaves Festival will be introduced to the public at this gathering also. During their residency the Spoken Word artist will work with young people throughout the county, through secondary schools, Youth Theatre and Youthreach.

The Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise has scheduled events for Leaves, including cinema; My Cousin Rebecca and the live broadcast from the Harold Pinter Theatre, London of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  Dubliners’ Women, by Katie O’Kelly, featuring female characters from James Joyce’s Dubliners, will be performed.

Readings in the schools and libraries will be by Helen Ivory, Martin Figura and Alan Nolan.

Booking Box Office: 0578663355 or online at http://www.dunamaise.ie/

Follow us on Facebook at Leaves. For more information please contact the Arts Office, Laois County Council Portlaoise, Co Laois. Email artsoff@laoiscoco.ie Web http://www.laois.ie

The annual Leaves Festival of Writing and Music is just around the corner. Leaves celebrates the diversity and richness in today’s literary, music, theatre and film scene. Leaves aims to excite and engage with audiences young and old.  Running from the 7th to the 12th November it promises something for everyone. The programme will be launched on Friday 6th October at Emo Court. more information to come.

The Arts Office, Laois County Council will host a writers workshop titled “Unlocking the Creative Self” with writer Pauline Clooney at Laois Arthouse, Stradbally on Thursday 12^th October from 4pm-6pm as part of the Laois Connects Programme.

Free/Booking essential – Limited numbers – T: 057 8664033/13 or E: artsoff@laoiscoco.ie

Many writers have said that their own life experiences inform their writing whether that writing is fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction.  New writers will often be told to write about what they know, but this does not mean that you are restricted to write about what you have experienced.

Once you acquire the tools for flexing your writing muscle you will be taken to places you didn’t know you knew, characters you don’t remember meeting, events you’d forgotten you were part of. This workshop will take you through ways of exploring what it is you know and what you don’t realise you know. The workshop will be activity and discussion based. There will be a short piece of writing you will be asked to read in preparation for the course content. All you need on the day is a pen and some paper and an open mind.

 Pauline Clooney is a native of Portlaoise.  She holds an M.Litt from NUI Maynooth (2006), and an MA in Creative Writing from UCD (2015). She is an award winning writer having won the RTE Guide/Penguin Ireland Short Story competition in 2015 and being runner up in the Doolin Short Story competition (2015).  Her stories have been longlisted for the inaugural Colm Tóibín Short Story Competition (2016), the Fish Short Memoir competition (2014), the Fish Short Story Prize (2015). She is the 2017 recipient of Kildare County Council Tyrone Guthrie bursary.  Formerly an English and history teacher at second level she now teaches creative writing at the Kildare Writing Centre which she established in 2016. She is currently working on her debut novel.