The real Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, ca. 1927
Thanks to History In Pictures for the image.
The Great Teddy Bear Library Sleepover is happening on 13th Sept @ 7 pm as part of Mountains to Sea 2014
Would your Teddy or animal friend like to take part in our very special Library Sleepover? Drop her/him off at the Mountains to Sea festival tent in Dun Laoghaire and she/he will be escorted to the library for lots of sleepover fun with other bears. Follow your Teddy’s antics on our festival’s Facebook page here during the evening from 7pm until their bedtime at 8pm. Teddy bears or soft toys welcome (Their owners will be sleeping at home!)
Venue: dlr LexIcon
Register: Saturday September 13th between 2pm and 4pm at the festival desk at dlr LexIcon.*
Collect your bear: Sunday September 14th between 2pm and 4pm (at the festival desk)**
Age: all ages welcome
Free - no booking required
Register: Saturday September 13th between 2pm and 4pm at the festival desk at dlr LexIcon.*
Collect your bear: Sunday September 14th between 2pm and 4pm (at the festival desk)**
Age: all ages welcome
Free - no booking required
*Please note, no new Teddy Bears can be accepted after this time
** Please collect your Teddy Bears on time or they will worry!
** Please collect your Teddy Bears on time or they will worry!
Tara Bergin was born and grew up in Dublin. She moved to England in 2002. In 2012 she completed her PhD research at Newcastle University on Ted Hughes’s translations of János Pilinszky. Her poetry was published in the bestselling Carcanet anthology New Poetries V and her debut collection This is Yarrow was published last year.
Paula Cunningham was born in Omagh and lives in Belfast where she works part-time as a dentist. Her chapbook A Dog called Chance was a winner in The Poetry Business Competition in 1999 and was published by Smith|Doorstop. She has also written drama and short fiction, and has thrice held awards from the Arts Council of NI. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised. Her first full poetry collection Heimlich's Manoeuvre was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2013. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh Best First Collection Prize 2013 and the 2014 Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection. Individual poems in the collection have also won awards. Paula is currently working towards her next collection.
Martin Dyar won the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2009. Nominated by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature he was appointed a fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2013/14 and was the inaugural Ambassador for Irish Literature in Iowa City. Huckleberry Finn Day, a limited edition chapbook of his work, was published by the University of Iowa. He received his Ph.D. from Trinity College on the work of Wallace Stevens, Maiden Names was shortlisted by Carol Ann Duffy and John Boland for the inaugural Pigott Poetry Prixe in 2014. Martin is currently completing his debut novel.
Nicki Griffin grew up in Cheshire in the north west of England but has lived in East Clare since 1997. She completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2009. She won the 2010 Over the Edge New Poet of the Year prize and in 2012 was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council. She writes for Inland Waterways News and co-edits poetry magazine Skylight 47. Her first work of non-fiction, The Skipper and Her Mate, was published by New Island in 2013.Unbelonging, her debut poetry collection, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013. Her second collection, due in 2016, will also be published by Salmon.
After graduating in Music and English from University College Dublin, Jim Maguire worked in journalism, writing mainly about the arts. He completed an M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin in 1999. For many years he lived in Korea, the setting for his collection of short stories Quiet People (Lapwing, 2008). His poems have won several awards and prizes, including the Brendan Kennelly Award, the RTE/Rattlebag Poetry Slam, The Dromineer Poetry Prize and the Strokestown International Poetry Prize. He was the recipient of an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary in 2010. His occasional work for radio includes a documentary on the letters of Leos Janacek for Lyric FM. His debut collection Music Field was published by Poetry Salzburg.
Nick Laird was born in 1975 in Co. Tyrone and studied English at the University of Cambridge, where he won the Quiller-Couch Award for creative writing. His debut collection, To a Fault (2005), won the Aldeburgh Poetry Prize; his second, On Purpose (2007), the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He is the author of two novels and lives in London. Photo credit: Mark Pringle
Sinéad Morrissey was born in 1972 and grew up in Belfast. She read English and German at Trinity College, Dublin, from which she took her PhD in 2003. Her five collections are There Was Fire in Vancouver(1996), Between Here and There (2002), The State of the Prisons (2005), Through the Square Window (2009) and the T S Eliot Prize-winning Parallax(2013) all of which are published by Carcanet Press. She has lived in Germany, Japan and New Zealand and now lectures in creative writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast. She is Belfast's inaugural Poet Laureate. Photo credit: Sam Russica
Conor O’Callaghan was born in Newry, County Down, in 1968, and grew up in Dundalk. The Gallery Press has published his four collections. The History of Rain, published in 1993, was shortlisted for the Forward ‘Best First Collection’ Prize and won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. Fiction(2005) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Sun King was published in 2013. He has been co-holder of the Heimbold Chair in Irish Studies at Villanova University and from 2005-2010 was poet-in-residence at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He has also been director of the annual Poetry Now Festival in Dublin (2000-2003). Photo credit: Eve O'Callaghan
Billy Ramsell was born in Cork in 1977 and educated at the North Monastery and UCC. Complicated Pleasures, his first collection, was published by the Dedalus Press in 2007. Well known for his spirited, memorable performances, he has read at poetry festival as far afield as San Francisco and Shanghai. He holds the Chair of Ireland Bursary for 2013 and has been shortlisted for several other prizes. He edits the Irish section of the Poetry International website and co-runs an educational publishing company. Photo credit: John Minihan