NEW BOOK: Reading Rites by Evelyn Conlon
For over five decades, Evelyn Conlon has revelled in the secret joy of writing and in the power of a well-crafted story. Hers has been a life of literature, travel and of challenging authority, including campaigning for women’s reproductive rights in Ireland and for an end to the death penalty in the US.
Reading Rites offers the reader an unflinching and unapologetic account of a woman happily perched on the outside of society. Witty, humorous and always honest, it is an insight into one of Ireland’s finest and most compelling storytellers, and the personal, cultural and political forces that have made her the writer she is.
Book Launch
Gutter Bookshop, Cow’s Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin.
Saturday, 11th November, 6.30pm.
Join us to celebrate the publication of Reading Rites: Books, writing and other things that matter (Blackstaff Press) by Evelyn Conlon, one of Ireland’s finest and most compelling writers. For over five decades, Evelyn has revelled in the secret joy of writing and in the power of a well-crafted story, and this memoir recounts with humour, wit and honesty stories from her life to date; a life of literature, travel and of challenging authority.
Dr Rebecca Pelan will be launching this event.
Evelyn Conlon is one of Ireland’s most important writers. She was born in County Monaghan and lives in Dublin. She is the author of four novels and four short story collections. Her work has been widely anthologised and translated. She is also the editor of four anthologies, including Cutting the Night in Two; Short Stories by Irish Women Writers, and Later On: The Monaghan Bombing Memorial Anthology, which became a centrepiece for a lecture series The Language of War at the University of Bologna. The title story of her first collection, ‘Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour’, has been performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, her radio essays are heard frequently on national radio, and she teaches writing on Carlow University, Pittsburgh’s MFA Writing Program. She is a member of Aosdána.
Dr Rebecca Pelan has worked in Ireland (North and South), Australia, and America in the fields of English, women’s studies, and Irish studies, and has published extensively on Irish fiction and drama, with a particular focus on women’s writing. She has extensive experience as an editor, including: General Editor of Irish Feminist Review (Galway) between 2002 and 2007, member of the Editorial Board of Hecate (Australia), and a member of the founding Editorial Advisory Board of the Australasian Journal of Irish Studies, as well as the (US) on-line journal Politics and Culture. Rebecca was the 2011 M.M. Fort Visiting Scholar in European Studies at Columbus State University, Georgia, where she was also guest editor of ANQ (formerly American Notes and Queries). She worked in UCD’s Gender Studies Outreach programme for several years before retiring in 2017.