[HYBRID] Celebrating Women With Words-In Person from 4.15PM, ONLINE 5.30PM]

Liv Monaghan has once again agreed to join us for Celebrating Women With Words

Vocalist and songwriter based in Paris. 

Her music pulls threads from Jazz, Soul, Rock, and Romanticism to create an alternative, sometimes experimental, often poetic and always original sound. 

Lover of the left-behind, of old things of letter-notes and half-light ghosts which get stitched, strung or typed back up together to make something new.

The evening will be a magical mix of Liv's music, conversation and the original writings of the winners of our international writing competition (see below)... read by the authors themselves.

The first Celebrating Women With Words Competition was inaugurated in 2020 at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. The competition invited submissions from writers celebrating Irish women, and entries ranged from personal stories of beloved aunts unjustly written out of family history, as in prose winner Grace Fahey’s piece, to unsung historical figures like Captain Priscilla Giotto, the subject of the winning poetry submission by Maria McManus.

In 2021, the competition moved online as part of an inspiring event honouring Irish award-winning author Edna O’Brien. As part of an initiative to open the competition to a more diverse range of voices and stories, submissions were welcomed in Irish, English, and French. Our winners, Karen J. McDonnell, Una Ní Cheallaigh, and Aine Ní Ghlinn, current Laureate na nÓg, spoke of silenced stories, and of a rising flood of voices that could no longer be held in check.

Last year, in 2022, we invited entries that celebrated inclusivity, equity, and diversity. We received entries in poetry and prose; stories of hopes and struggles, successes and failures, heartbreaks and triumphs, offering insight and even inspiration for a new Irish society, still then reeling in the wake of the global pandemic. We celebrate once again the following winners:

1st prize: Catherine Ann CULLEN

2nd prize: Jo O'Donoghue

3rd prize: Helen HUTCHINSON

This year, in 2023, we return to source: PLEASE SHARE YOUR TEXT ON ANY THEME THAT FEELS PERSONAL AND IMPORTANT TO YOU AS A WOMAN OR TO WOMEN IN GENERAL, ideally with a connection in some way with Ireland or an Irish woman.

Share your submissions to [email protected] by midnight Monday 20 March 2023: while you should please put your name in the copy of the email, please put your submission as an anonymous attachment.

Writing Guidelines

Short prose (less than 1000 words) or poetry (less that 40 lines)

For purposes of judging, entries should be in English.

Works should be unpublished as at 20 March 2023

Send your entry by Monday 20 March (Midnight in Paris) to [email protected]

Your entry should be an attachment to the email (PDF, Word...), on which your name does not appear, so that jury members are not influenced by affinities or friendships.

Selected entries will be invited to read their contributions on Sunday, 26 March, between 5.30PM & 6.30PM CET (local time in Paris), in person at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, or online.

Here's how we imagine the afternoon of Sunday 26 March, all times local to Paris, France:

From 4.15PM, we propose to open with informal conversations over Tea

Guests are welcome to share any home baking or other contributions from the home shopping. 

Seating is proposed in a an open circle ⭕️ such that those sharing from/to a distance are part of the circle. 

5PM: Once everyone is seated in a circle, we will listen to each other and connect to the moment BEFORE connecting online with guests. 

5.30PM Connecting Online in Hybrid Mode

- opening Music from Liv Monaghan

- guests introduced by Julie, Patricia & Róisín

- Musical interlude

- Winners of this year’s Spontaneous Flow of Writing

- Liv Monaghan sings us out

6.30PM Once disconnected, we listen once again to our in-person circle ⭕️ for resonance 

6.55PM Final concluding song from Liv

7PM Event closed, though conversations may continue in the courtyard

Acknowledgements:

Embassy of Ireland France - Ambassade d'Irlande en France

Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland

Host or Publisher Cercle littéraire irlandais