Lucy Caldwell reads a very special, as-yet unpublished short story, called ‘Fiction’. This episode is celebrating her long-awaited second collection of short stories, Intimacies, which is out in the UK and Ireland on May 6th, 2021. Lucy is joined by Agnieszka Pokojska, a former Literature Ireland bursary recipient, who reads her translation into Polish.
Jan Carson, Lucy Caldwell, Adrian Duncan, Louise Kennedy & John Patrick McHugh discuss their recent collections of stories as part of the West Cork Literary Festival
Lucy Caldwell discusses her most recent publication, Intimacies (2021), in conversation with Keith Hopper.
“Beautifully crafted, and so finely balanced that she holds the reader right up against the tender humanity of her characters.” – Eimear McBride
The Strand is delighted to welcome the novelist and playwright, Lucy Caldwell, who hails from East Belfast, to launch her latest publication and first collection of shorts ‘Multitudes’. Glenn Patterson, another local literary talent, will be in conversation with Lucy, before she reads from the title short.
Lucy is an established and celebrated young novelist and playwright of our time. Her accolades to date include receiving the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and being shortlisted as Irish Novelist of the Year in 2013, as well as receiving the George Devine Award and the Imison Award for her stage and radio plays. She often draws on her own Belfast up-bringing to inform her work and Multitudes is no exception.
Multitudes’ eleven stories take you from Belfast to London and back, exploring the many facets of growing up – the pain and the heartache, the tenderness and the joy, the fleeting and the formative – or ‘the drunkenness of things being various’. Stories of longing and belonging, they culminate with the heart-wrenching and unforgettable title story.
I don’t know what it is I’m going to do but I’m going to do something. I’m going to be someone. I am! I’m sick of just being me. I’m going to be someone else. Someone better. I’m going to make a difference.
Chekhov’s masterpiece from 1900 is reset in 1990s Belfast by award-winning novelist and playwright Lucy Caldwell. Three sisters – Orla, Marianne and Erin – dream of a better tomorrow, perhaps even starting a new life in America. All three are dissatisfied with their lots in life for different reasons, but finding the resolve to make the life changes that will bring real happiness is hard. Can they break free, or will they be condemned to a life of unfulfilled ambition?
I don’t know what it is I’m going to do but I’m going to do something. I’m going to be someone. I am! I’m sick of just being me. I’m going to be someone else. Someone better. I’m going to make a difference.
Lucy Calwell’s reimagining of Checkov’s “Three Sisters” premieres at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast from October 15 to November 12.
Lucy Caldwell is among the celebrated writers commissioned to contribute to “Talking Statues”, a project in which celebrated actors and writers unite to give voice to statues across London and Manchester from August 19th
35 statues across London and Manchester will begin telling tales of the past through the voices of recognisable British actors and words from our best writers.
To hear the talking statues, visitors need to swipe their smartphones over signs beneath the statues to access the monologues.
Playing some of our most notable characters from history are Dominic West, as Achilles in Hyde Park; Jeremy Paxman as John Wilkes in Fetter Lane; Prunella Scales, as Queen Victoria in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens; and Patrick Stewart as the voice of the unknown soldier at Paddington Station. The statues are being brought to life as part of a project by Sing London, a non-profit arts organisation, with the intention of purely lifting the nation’s spirits.
Lucy has written a monologue for Xavier Corberó’s group scultpture The Broad Family located in Exchange Square, London in which she captures the voice of the little girl in the group of figures, a little girl who loves playing Statues, in which she follow human passers by. She dares you to join her game.
Best known for her role in Game of Thrones, Maisie Williams, who voices the little girl, said of Lucy’s monologue: “I loved the way the text captures the mind of a young girl. From a young age, I wondered what my teddy-bears were saying while I was away and this project encapsulates that feeling.”
For more information about the “Talking Statues” Project, visit the website at:
www.talkingstatues.co.uk
More information about Sing London, which produces city wide events in which the wider public can engage, can be found on their website.
www.singlondon.org
Lucy Caldwell, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2011
Pic: James Davies/©James Davies Photography.
Lucy Caldwell has won the 2011 Dylan Thomas Prize for her novel “The Meeting Point”. Judges described the novel as “a beautifully written and mature reflection on identity, loyalty and belief in a complex world”,
Speaking at the presentation ceremony in the late Welsh poet’s home city of Swansea, Lucy said Wales had played a major role in getting her career up and running. “In many ways my career started here. My very first play was premiered in Chapter arts centre in Cardiff.”
The founder of the University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize, Prof Peter Stead, said: “The Meeting Point is a lyrical modern day parable set in Bahrain depicting the crises in the faith and marriage of an Irish woman and her relationship with a troubled Muslim teenager. It is a beautifully written and mature reflection on identity, loyalty and belief in a complex world. We have no doubt that this is yet another significant step in what will undoubtedly be a striking career.”