These back-to-back seminars which are taking place as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin, are aimed at seasoned writers and curious readers. They promise to get to the heart of crafting fiction.

Christine Montalbetti and Anthony Glavin will each deliver a one-hour lecture on different aspects of writing.

The seminars are designed to enlighten emerging writers and enrich technical aspects of their work, giving all writers present a chance to soak up the authors’ knowledge and experience. Each lecture will be followed by a Q&A session.

10.30am Christine Montalbetti | On Digression
Montalbetti plans to speak about the concept of Loiterature (Loiter+Literature), the fact that digression is at the heart of her writing, that it can be the very center and purpose of the text, about her interest in long sentences. She will also speak about the place of the reader in her writing and about why her novels are frequently set abroad, in unfamiliar landscapes.

Christine Montalbetti is a novelist and playwright. At Éditions P.O.L she has published a novella, two collections of short stories, and seven novels, the most recent of which is Plus rien que les vagues et le vent (2015), which won Franz Hessel Prize and Henri Queffelec Prize. Her play Le Cas Jekyll (2010), also published by P.O.L, debuted at the Théâtre National de Chaillot and has played throughout France. Western and L’origine de l’homme (The Origin of Man) have been published in English translation by Dalkey Archive Press, and Journée américaine is in the process of being translated.

12.05pm Anthony Glavin | Sychronicity as a Dimension of Beauty: The Role Chance Plays in the Stories We Tell
Glavin plans to talk about the role that “personality” (as defined by Sean O’Faolain) plays in the narrative voice of the fiction we craft, along with how characters sometimes emerge, plus the differences ‘twixt the short story & the novel, and yes, how happenstance can also offer up and/or contribute to a storyline.

Anthony Glavin is the author of an acclaimed novel, Nighthawk Alley, and two story collections, One for Sorrow and The Draughtsman and the Unicorn.  Editor of ‘New Irish Writing’ in the Irish Press from 1986-88, he has worked as an editor for New Island Books since 1994, for whom he has edited novels, story collections and memoirs by Angela Burke, John MacKenna, Martin Malone, Joseph O’Connor, Peter Woods, Jack Hanna, Ciarán Folan, Brian Leyden, and Nuala O’Faolain among others.