Dublin Writers Festival in association with the Vancouver International Writers Festival
Ocean Reveries
Alistair MacLeod and Timothy Taylor

"Thousands and thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries."
from Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

From Melville to Conrad, from Mark Twain to Iris Murdoch, water has inspired and influenced writers for generations. Alistair MacLeod‘s sublime prose is shaped by the author‘s intimate relationship with Nova Scotia's forbidding coastline. Renowned for their powerful sense of place, Timothy Taylor‘s evocative stories map out the physical and psychical landscapes of Vancouver, a city defined by the ocean.

Now in this very special one-off commission, these acclaimed Canadian novelists exchange their North American coasts for a literary encounter with Ireland's own coastal capital. Both writers have been specially commissioned to create a new piece of work inspired by their native environment and informed by their responses to Dublin's own engagement with water. Tonight they reveal the results with special readings and an extended discussion.

This exclusive event is the culmination of a unique literary exchange between Dublin and Vancouver writers festivals.