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MUNSTER LITERATURE CENTRE
IONAD LITRÍOCHTA an DEISCIRT

MLC books

Welcome to the Munster

Literature Centre

Founded in 1993, the Munster Literature Centre (Ionad Litríochta an Deiscirt) is a non-profit arts organisation dedicated to the promotion and celebration of literature, especially that of Munster. To this end, we organise festivals, workshops, readings and competitions. Our publishing section, Southword Editions, publishes a biannual journal, poetry collections and short stories. We actively seek to support new and emerging writers and are assisted in our efforts through funding from Cork City Council, Cork County Council and the Arts Council of Ireland.

Originally located in Sullivan's Quay, the centre moved to its current premises in the Frank O'Connor House (the author's birthplace) at 84 Douglas Street, in 2003.

In 2000, the Munster Literature Centre organised the first Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival, an event dedicated to the celebration of the short story and named for one of Cork's most beloved authors. The festival showcases readings, literary forums and workshops. Following continued growth and additional funding, the Cork City - Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award was introduced in 2005, coinciding with Cork's designation as that year's European Capital of Culture. The award is now recognised as the single biggest prize for a short story collection in the world and is presented at the end of the festival.

In 2002, the Munster Literature Centre introduced the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize, an annual short story competition dedicated to one of Ireland's most accomplished story writers and theorists. This too is presented during the FOC festival. The centre also hosts the Cork Spring Literary Festival each year.

Workshops are held by featured authors in both autumn and spring, allowing the general public to receive creative guidance in an intimate setting for a minimal fee. In addition, the centre sponsors a Writer in Residence each year.

We invite you to browse our website for further information regarding our events, Munster literature, and other literary information. Should you have any queries, we would be happy to hear from you.

OTHER TITLES

Done Dating DJs
Jennifer Minniti-Shippey
Southword Editions, 2009.
Winner of the 2008 Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition

Done Dating DJs is the 2009 winner of the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition published by Southword Editions. Minniti-Shippey’s Done Dating DJs contains poems with precursors as varied as William Carlos Williams and Rita Ann Higgins. A wry sophisticated humour is invested in these crisp confident poems by a young poet who has found her voice. If Sex and the City were aimed at a higher brow level and written in verse, this could be it.

Never Trust Where a Cat Sits

Never Trust Where a Cat Sits
by Irene A. Mosvold
Southword Editions, 2005.
Winner of the Inaugural Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition

These poems speak with an honesty and straightforwardness, impossible to doubt. If the Wife of Bath had a descendant living in the New World, she could have written these. Of the body and the bawdy, these sixteen short pieces entertain by sly syllables, quick phrases, stunning twists. This is a prize-winning chapbook as refreshing and unabashed as a Sheela-na-gig. -Ron Houchin

**New titles added on an ongoing basis.

Writing Workshops
at the MLC