Gerard Beirne is an Irish author and literary editor. He is a fiction editor for The Fiddlehead and curates the online magazine The Irish Literary Times.[1]

Gerard Beirne
Born (1962-10-30) October 30, 1962 (age 62)
County Tipperary, Ireland
NationalityIrish
CitizenshipIrish, Canadian
Alma materTrinity College, Dublin
Notable awardsSunday Tribune New Irish Writer of the Year, 1996
Spouse
(m. 1989; div. 2015)
Children4, including Luke Francis Beirne
Website
www.gerardbeirne.com

In 2008, Beirne served as Writer in Residence at the University of New Brunswick, where he taught creative writing.[2] Beirne currently teaches on the BA Writing and Literature Program at the Atlantic Technological University in Sligo.

Awards and honours

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In 1996, Beirne was awarded two Hennessey Literary Awards, "New Irish Writer of the Year" and "Best Emerging Fiction Writer".[3][4] His debut novel The Eskimo in the Net was short-listed for the 2004 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and was selected as Book of the Year by the Daily Express.[5] In 1997, Digging My Own Grave was runner-up for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award.[6] In 2000, Bono starred in a short film adaptation of Beirne's story "Sightings of Bono." Beirne's collaboration with composer Siobhán Cleary, Hum, was called "a theatrical tour de force" by The Irish Times.[7] Beirne's first short story collection, In a Time of Drought and Hunger was shortlisted for the 2016 Danuta Gleed Literary Award.[8] That same year, he was shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards for his short story "What a River Remembers of its Course."[9]

Selected works

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Novels

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  • The Eskimo in the Net. London: Marion Boyars, 2003.
  • Turtle. Ottawa: Oberon, 2009.
  • Charlie Tallulah. Ottawa: Oberon, 2013.
  • The Thickness of Ice. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2024.

Short story collections

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  • In a Time of Drought and Hunger. Ottawa: Oberon, 2015.

Poetry

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  • Digging My Own Grave. Dublin: Dedalus, 1997.
  • Games of Chance: A Gambler's Manual. Ottawa: Oberon, 2011.
  • The Death Poems: Songs, Visions, Meditations. Cromer: Salt Publishing, 2023.

Theatre and film

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References

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  1. ^ "Gerard Beirne - Poetry". Connotation Press. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  2. ^ "Gerard Beirne". University of New Brunswick (unb.ca). BA, BAI (Trinity College Dublin), MFA (Eastern Washington University). Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  3. ^ "New Irish Writing – Hennessy Literary Awards: Winners through the decades". The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  4. ^ "Gerard Beirne". Marion Boyars. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  5. ^ "Gerard Beirne". Irish Writers Online. Archived from the original on 4 October 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  6. ^ "After this/ I lead you into form: Poems — Gerard Beirne". Numéro Cinq. 12 September 2012. Archived from the original on 15 March 2015. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  7. ^ "Two Poems by Gerard Beirne". Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  8. ^ "Short-story award short list revealed". Winnipeg Free Press, June 11, 2016.
  9. ^ "Shortlists revealed for Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2016". The Irish Times. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
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