From The Irish Times, August 9, 2008 - Jhumpa Lahiri, the winner of this year's Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, will read from Unaccustomed Earth, her winning collection, during the Ninth Annual Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork in September, as well as taking part in a public interview with this paper's literary correspondent, Eileen Battersby. The five-day festival will also see a former winner (in 2005) of the prize, Bejing-born Yiyun Li (see W6), making her first appearance in Cork for a reading and interview. Other writers taking part are Mary Leland, Wena Poon, Clare Wigfall, Mary O'Donnell, William Wall and Bernard MacLaverty . There are also workshops, including an introduction to short story writing with Jon Boilard, former fiction editor of Southword; the announcement of the €1,500 Sean O'Faolain Short Story Prize and a panel discussion on the short story chaired by Rosalind Porter, senior editor at Granta with Stinging Fly editor Declan Meade; Jen Hamilton-Emery, commissioning editor with the publishing house Salt; Lucy Luck, literary agent, and RTÉ's Seamus Hosey, organiser of the annual Francis MacManus awards.
© 2008 The Irish Times.
