PenFest 2015 in Carlow Central Library

Carlow County Library

A weekend of creativity, inspiration, fun and some hard work!

People of all ages descended en masse to Carlow Central Library last weekend for a weekend of creativity, inspiration, fun and some hard work at this years PenFest writing festival for emerging writers.

The festival was launched on Friday evening by Hennessy Award winning local poet Simon Lewis who modestly imparted the story of his writing life so far and provided plenty of encouragement to new Carlow writers waiting to showcase their work for the first time in front of a live audience. They did not disappoint. Having received guidance and tutelage from Eimear Chesty and Pauric Brennan with the support of Carlow Arts Office over the previous six months both Carlow Library Writing Group and young writers Voices from the Vault (CRYS) entertained with stories, poems and even some RAP. Classical guitarist James McDonald charmed all ears with with a beautiful selection of musical interludes before everyone tucked in to a spread of home baking thanks to Carlow Regional Youth Services.

Saturday saw full day workshops for young people with E.M Reapy, founder of wordlegs.com and Dr. Eibhear Walshe, lecturer in the School of English, UCC who brought adult participants down many different memory lanes with his memoir writing workshop, Tell Your Story. Children were included for the first time this year and enjoyed a two hour comic workshop with the talented Declan Pierce on Sunday while adults engaged in panel discussion So You Think You Want To Write where all their questions on writing and publishing were answered. The panel included Lisa Frank and John Walsh from Doire Press, veteran local author John MacKenna and newly published Enniscorthy native Paul O'Reilly who imparted their extensive knowledge to an eager audience.

PenFest 2015 was a huge success and Carlow County Library Service are already making plans for a sixth consecutive year of the festival which provides support, encouragement and guidance to new and emerging writers in Carlow.