Tipperary poet and writer Eleanor Hooker features in two categories in the An Post Irish Book Awards 2020.
Eleanor’s poem ‘Through the Ears of a Fish’ published in Poetry magazine (Chicago) in June of this year, is one of four poems shortlisted for the Listowel Writers’ Week, Irish Poem of the Year, at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2020. The judge was Richard Skinner, poet and writer and Director of the Faber Academy for Fiction. The poems are available to read on the Listowel Writers Week website.
The winner is decided by public vote, which closes November 16th. Votes can be made online.
In addition, Eleanor has a memoir piece in the book A Page from My Life, shortlisted in the Best Irish-Published Book of the Year category in the An Post Irish Book Awards.
During the lockdown, in May of this year, Ray D’Arcy asked listeners to his RTÉ 1 radio programme, to submit 500 words to A Page from My Life competition, recounting a memorable event or story from their lives. The judges, Donal Ryan, Emilie Pine, Emer McLysaght and Eoin Colfer read the 2,500 entries, of which 150 were selected for publication.
Surprised by the huge response to the competition, Ray D’Arcy said ‘We asked listeners to be honest, creative, funny, engaging and evocative in their writing … to try to make us laugh, cry and think. We never imagined we would get the quantity and quality of entries that we did…’
The anthology was launched on October 29 by Harper Collins Ireland, their first title in Ireland. Proceeds will benefit the Laura Lynn House charity. For more details click here.
Of the book, Donal Ryan said ‘I love that this book exists and that so many people have been given a chance to share their stories, funny, sad, surprising, inspiring, always fascinating, with a large and appreciative audience, and that so many words that might otherwise have been left unspoken or unheard will live forever now between its covers, waiting to be discovered, over and over again.’
Eleanor’s third collection of poetry and two chapbooks are due for publication in 2021. She is also working on a novel.
