I've just returned from the John Hewitt Summer School. A writers' week of readings, talks, workshops and performances; all taking place in the Market Place Theatre of the dual-cathedral town of Armagh. A short stride across the leafy Mall (not a large shopping centre, but an Eighteenth Century racecourse) and you were soon immersed.
I particularly enjoyed the readings of Carlo Gebler, Penelope Shuttle, Gavin Corbett, James Byrne, Deirdre Madden, Conor O'Callaghan and Anne Enright. The Voice Squad in concert were great too - celebrating the melancholic in popular song. But my highlight was The Play of The Book by Ian Sansom and The Wireless Mystery Theatre. This was a very witty and inventive insight into the life of a writer and the trials of the creative process. It managed to be funny as well as profound - no mean achievement.
Writing is of course a solitary pursuit. Writers create things and interact with characters inside their head. So for me the past week has been a veritable overdose of stimulation. Each day filled with writers and talk about writing from nine in the morning till after closing time. Plenty of recollections and banter with old friends as well as the delight of making some new ones. It's all been great and now I'm coming down, like an addict from crack cocaine.
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