clara

they should call the last one Dune: Done

Thank you so much, folks! Enjoy the rest of the week! 💜

Thanks so much for joining us @claralaherty.bsky.social and for really embracing everything the festival has to offer. Best of luck with your writing - we'll be keeping an eye out for you 😊

Bantry Bay on an overcast day.

Here's the bay 🚣

I had to get my bus home after that. But huge thanks again to @wcorklitfest.bsky.social for the artist pass and to @childrensbooksireland.ie for covering my accommodation.

More than lip service, these orgs are doing the real work of allyship, and I appreciate it so much.

Back at the Marino Church after lunch, there was a great event around The Coastal Atlas of Ireland – this 900-page product of love for the water and for place.

A lot of really engaged and thoughtful talk on conservation, and care, and careful sustained attention.

Then Kevin Moran of The Doomsday Club, an Irish spin on Goosebumps!

I'm having fun coming along to children's book events, and Kevin was so lively with it and great with the kids.

Will Sliney, seated, speaks to an audience in a sheltered area outside Bantry House.

Bantry House, a lovely old three-storey building with bricks in warm colours. My buddies Caoimhe Hennessy and Anna Higgons walk along in front of it.

My last day at #WCLF2025 – I got started with Will Sliney, comics mastermind of Star Wars, Spider-Man, and The Shrouded College. Very funny, great to see such success.

Bantry House was a beautiful venue too!

Genuinely it was so good to meet you and hang out. I'm sure our paths will cross again 👉😎👉

More tomorrow 💜

Daniel Galvin speaks into a microphone to an audience at Marino Church.

And finally: grapevvine! A storytelling platform by fellow NUIG Creative Writing alumni Daniel Galvin.

Massive fun, massive laughs. Great cap to the whole day

Quynh Tran speaks into a microphone to an audience at Marino Church. Seán Farrell is to his right.

Then back to church for Seán Farrell and Quynh Tran, both writing novels for adults with child POVs.

Different tone to children's writers of talking about the work, but similar central concerns: capturing the voice of a child (not in an evil magic way)

Five teenage contributors to Rainbow Library pose for a photograph in a school hall

In the middle of this, we have the launch of the second edition of Rainbow Library, tge youth LGBT anthology.

Fair play to Kel Menton again for facilitating the project

So gorgeous. Really strong, cool work.

Also I watched @griffski.bsky.social teach a teenager how to draw the cool S.

Balsam Karam speaks to an audience in Marino Church from a seat behind a table. Saskia Vogel is to her right

In the Marino Church, Balsam Karam talked about her new novel The Singularity with her translator Saskia Vogel.

So many writers at the festival this year engaging with motherhood and children in really interesting ways

A person reads to an audience in a library

A waterfall built around a balcony next to a street

Then I swung to the library for a reading from assorted writing groups facilitated by Leeanne O'Donnell – lovely, lovely stuff. And such an attractive venue. What library has a waterfall?

Kel Menton reads from his novel A FIX OF LIGHT into a microphone to an audience at Bantry Bookstore. Molly Twomey is to their left. Kel wears a white shirt and glasses and has short, fair hair.

First up today was @kelmenton.bsky.social of A FIX OF LIGHT – it's so good to have trans writers hitting it big in Irish YA, and Kel is the real deal (and a dote)

Me, Amelia Etherton, Jen Wallace, and Caoimhe Hennessy pose for a photo

Kids writers/illustrators meetup!

In the thick of it in Bantry and already loads more to look forward to...

I'm usually not able to go to things like this – it's all 💸 – and I'm very grateful to @childrensbooksireland.ie and the Raising Voices Fellowship for making it possible

We also had a gorgeous little meetup for children's writers and illustrators in a pub called Ma Murphys 💜

Caoilinn Hughes speaks into a microphone to an audience in the Maritime Hotel. She wears a white top and her hair is tied up. Claire Kilroy is on her left, and the MC is on her right (I didn't get the name, sorry to her). Behind them, a projector screen reads "West Cork Literary Festival, Friday 11 – 18 July 2025, Bantry, Co. Cork" with a red circle over it, surrounded by a red, dotted-pattern design.

Then later, Caoilinn Hughes and Claire Kilroy in the Maritime Hotel discussing their process and their new novels – really sharp, insightful, and funny #wclf2025

Patricia Forde speaks to an audience in the Work Shop. She has red hair and wears a brown dress. Sarah Webb is to her right, and Leona Forde is to her left. In front of her, a table holds loads of children's books.

My first event was @childrensbooksireland.ie! Where I learned lots:

- You don't usually have to give directions to an illustrator for a chapter book

- My book is probably 10,000 words too long

- And much more...

@sarahwebbwriter.bsky.social
@pforde123.bsky.social
@leonaforde1.bsky.social

I'm having a whale of a time ☺️

I'm off to West Cork Literary Festival for a couple of days!

I will keep a ✨thread✨ here

pop off

the style is dead on tho

I sent that last image to Kim and she replied with a Spotify link to Mr Brightside

Bathroom mirror selfie of me in a blue T-shirt with a floral design and orange fake-leather shorts

The Limerick Pride parade on O'Connell Street under a clear blue sky, with one bird in flight.

My buddy Nell bridal-carries me! She's grimacing but she's doing it

merry pridemas #TreatyCity

this is silly but i think she's got a "kind of like Robinson and McAleese" aspect that will genuinely get votes from people who aren't engaged

anyway i made a music visualiser in the style of 2015 dubstepgutter/trap nation

♫ - an old riddim-ish WIP from a year ago that i might finish someday