The Sigla Blog

From today, I’m delighted to say that the Musical Rooms will appear as an occasional column in The Ticket, in The Irish Times. People have been very supportive of the series since it started on the blog back in November. As I said in a comment yesterday, musicians who read it confess that it’s a […]

Last night on BBC Radio 3 Samantha Morton featured in a programme that might be of interest to anyone participating in Dreadful Thoughts. Words and Music examined various poems that have been inspired by the supernatural, with readings by Morton and Dominic West from The Wire. Poems by Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy and Robert […]

Niall and Una have already flagged this, but it’s an end of a particular era for Phantom 105.2 today. Edel Coffey is finishing up on Access All Areas this morning, having presented the show since the station went on air in October 2006. One of the station’s few female presenters, AAA is one of Phantom’s […]

Two related things:
- Don’t forget about the next Dreadful Thoughts meeting this Monday, April 21st. To take part, just read Edith Wharton’s story ‘Kerfol’ (online version in previous link) and join us for a discussion over at Fústar at 9pm.
- One author I’m sure we’ll get around to discussing is Sheridan Le Fanu. Tonight on […]

The Orange Prize shortlist has been announced today and Anne Enright isn’t on it. Seriously, The Gathering wins last year’s Booker Prize and there isn’t room for it on this shortlist of six books? Have to admit I’m very surprised. The shortlist includes three debut novelists - Sadie Jones, Heather O’Neill and Patricia Wood - […]

Congratulations to Pat McCabe, who is one of eight shortlisted authors for the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It’s the world’s largest financial literary prize (for a single work of fiction in English), with the winner scooping €100,000. The prize is voted for by libraries across the globe and it’s no mean feat making the […]

Last week, The New York Times

Starting today, for the next seven days, the Guardian is giving away free booklets on The Great Poets of the 20th Century. Each booklet features several works by each poet, an introduction by a literary figure, archive reviews and reproductions of original manuscripts.
Today it’s TS Eliot, and the other featured poets are Auden, Plath, […]

The Arts Show on RTE Radio 1 has been on a roll this past week. On Monday there was an interview with Junot Diaz about his new book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao . I can’t remember the last time a book was so hyped in the US before hitting these shores, […]

Today is World Book Day so here are 10 random book-related links:
1) You’ve watched the TV programme, now read the book: Boy A has won the inaugural Books to Talk About award announced to coincide with WBD.
2) Eloise Miller reminds me how much I loved Lolly Willowes. Must dig that out and reread it.
3) […]

This morning’s post brought a couple of packages that were sent to The Irish Times for me. One is from a US Management company and concerns a young singer/songwriter they would like to bring to my attention. Having gone to the trouble to get a journalist’s name rather than sending in a CD randomly and […]

Just as the paper demise of Mongrel and Foggy Notions has been announced (FN will still be online, but I’ll miss those free CDs), today State Magazine hits the shelves.
Declaration of interest: the recent London day of hell was to interview Goldfrapp for the magazine.
Apart from that I got my paws on it at […]