FICTION The Dunning Man By Kevin Fortuna The characters in The Dunning Man are your friends, your wives and husbands, your acquaintances you see too seldom and when you see them again you remember why you hadn’t seen them in a while. They are both better and worse versions of the people we could be and the people we know. This duality is possible because Kevin Fortuna has an … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Séan Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize Goes to Evelyn Walsh
The winner of the 2015 Séan Ó Faoláin short story prize is Evelyn Walsh, a first-generation Irish American living in Atlanta, Georgia. ‘White Rabbit,’ her winning short story, was selected from over 900 entered in this year’s competition. When judge Danielle McLaughlin recalls reading Walsh’s entry, she says the story “grabbed her from the very beginning and didn’t let go.” … [Read more...] about Séan Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize Goes to Evelyn Walsh
Shelley’s Irish Poem
A long-lost poetical pamphlet by Percy Bysshe Shelley was unveiled at the Bodleian Library in Oxford on November 10th. Shelley wrote the pamphlet, Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, in 1811 to protest Britain’s involvement in the Napoleonic war and, in particular, the jailing of Irish journalist Peter Finnerty, who had been accused of libel after critiquing British … [Read more...] about Shelley’s Irish Poem
Literarian Award for James Patterson
Novelist James Patterson, who grew up in a large, working-class Irish family in the Bronx, won the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award, which honors individuals for a lifetime of achievement in expanding the audience for books and reading. The prolific and best-selling author was recognized for donating books – more than 250,000 books for children to children in the … [Read more...] about Literarian Award for James Patterson
Joanie Madden: The Christmas Letter
A forgotten Irish song of emigration tells of a mother’s longing for her children who have gone so far away, is a big hit for Cherish the Ladies. Irish music was the soundtrack to life for Joanie Madden growing up in the Bronx, N.Y. back in the 1970s. Her father, Joe Madden, from Portumna in East Galway, was an All-Ireland accordion champion, who headed a popular … [Read more...] about Joanie Madden: The Christmas Letter