Graham Norton will return to Listowel Writers Week 2017!

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We are thrilled to reveal that Graham Norton will be joining us once more in Listowel, on Saturday 3rd June 2017, with his award-winning debut novel Holding.

Our Festival dates are 31st May – 4th June 2017.

Graham had a terrific reception here in 2015 for ‘An Evening with Graham Norton’. Tickets sold like the proverbial hotcakes, with the 850 seater venue selling out within hours. Born in Dublin and educated in Cork, Graham Norton is one of the UK’s most treasured comedians and presenters. His first major TV appearance was as Father Noel Furlong on Channel 4’s Father Ted in the early 1990s. He then secured a prime time slot on Channel 4 with his chat shows So Graham Norton and V Graham Norton. Graham then hosted a variety of shows on BBC One such as Strictly Dance Fever, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, The Eurovision Song Contest and The BAFTA Awards.  Known for his quick wit, Graham was soon approached by the BBC to front his own self-titled chat show The Graham Norton Show in 2007; his talent secured him 7 BAFTAs for Best Entertainment Performance and Best Entertainment Programme. He also presents a show on BBC Radio 2 every Saturday and writes a weekly Agony Aunt column for The Telegraph.

With his characteristic wry and wicked humour, Graham will be introducing the Listowel
audience to his darkly comic and profoundly sad debut novel, Holding, winner of this year’s Irish Independent Popular Fiction Book of the Year at the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards 2016.

A skilled storyteller, Graham weaves black humour and emotional intelligence to create a compelling and gripping narrative. Taut and perfectly paced, his characters’ secrets, dreams and heartbreaks come fully to life. Everyone is ‘holding’ on to something – a lost love, an old regret, a deep secret… here’s a brief flavour:

Duneen is a quiet place, far enough from the big towns to have kept its own rhythms. Its
residents include downcast policeman PJ who lives a lonely, uneventful life punctuated only by the next meal. The beautiful and mysterious family of three spinster sisters each with their own secrets and sorrows together with a grim discovery on an old farm sets off a chain of events that result in the village’s dark secrets and undercurrents coming to life.

Tickets for the event are €30 + €3 Booking Fee and will go on sale this Thursday 1st December 2016 at 10am!
In other news, the Listowel Writers Week Box Office will be open for their programme of Creative Writing Workshops 2017. This year’s line-up will include mentors such as Richard Skinner, MJ Hyland, Thomas McCarthy, Michael Harding, Ruth Gilligan, Helen Lederer, Ron Rash and Giles Foden.