Sketches of Maeve Brennan | Molly Hennigan and contributors on An Asylum for my Affections
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Join us for an evening of Maeve Brennan through the words of contemporary Irish writers, reflecting on her legacy and the lasting impact of her work. Editor of the anthology, Molly Hennigan, will be joined by contributing writers Belinda McKeon and Kate Phelan to discuss An Asylum for my Affections: Sketches of Maeve Brennan, an anthology exploring mythology and folklore, loneliness and transience, history and more.
All are welcome, attendance is free but booking is essential.
ABOUT
MAEVE BRENNAN (1917-1993) was an Irish writer and a journalist. In 1934 she moved to the USA, where she worked in The New Yorker writing sketches, short stories, essays and fashion notes. In the 1950s and 1960s she was well-known in the USA, but not in Ireland, though Dublin was a frequent setting of her short stories. Her published works include The Long-Winded Lady: Notes from The New Yorker (1969), In and Out of Never-Never Land (1969) and Christmas Eve (1974). Her novella The Visitor written in 1940s was discovered and published only in 2000.
MOLLY HENNIGAN is an Irish writer and editor. Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, Tolka and The Pig’s Back. Her first book The Celestial Realm was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year and the Royal Irish Academy’s Michel Déon Prize. She is the editor of an anthology of Irish writing on Maeve Brennan published by New Island Books.
BELINDA MCKEON is the author of Solace (2011) and Tender (2016) and the editor of A Kind of Compass: Stories on Distance (2015). In 2017 she wrote the preface to Maeve Brennan’s The Long-Winded Lady (Stinging Fly). She directs the MA in creative writing at Maynooth University.
KATE PHELAN is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Maynooth University, where she is completing a creative non-fiction project exploring the writing of lost histories of familial mental illness. Kate is a former Hume Scholar and recipient of the 2024 National University of Ireland Travelling Doctoral Studentship in Humanities. Her writing has been longlisted for the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition and published in Irish literary journals such as Banshee.
