November 3rd to 6th 2022
The Rolling Sun Book Festival Westport is back—and it’s going to be a good one.
The 2022 festival runs from Thursday 3rd November to Sunday 6th November, and features a great line-up of local, national and international authors with a range of events planned for over the four days.
Festival organisers are delighted to welcome bestselling author Kit de Waal who will open this year’s Rolling Sun Book Festival with an event at 8pm on Thursday 3rd November.
Kit’s debut novel, My Name is Leon, was a bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. Her memoir, Without Warning and Only Sometimes, was published to rave reviews this summer. Between her debut novel and her current memoir, Kit has seen the publication of her second novel, as well as a young adult novel, a collection of short stories and an anthology of working-class memoir, Common People, which she crowdfunded and edited.
Born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, Kit was brought up among the Irish community in Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It is her childhood and teen years that are recounted in the author’s memoir.
Kit will be interviewed by journalist, broadcaster and author, Barbara Scully, at the opening event of the festival.
Three of the Ireland’s bestselling crime writers will talk about their work and the reading public’s endless fascination with crime at “Murder She Wrote” on Friday 4th November.
Catherine Ryan Howard, whose recent best sellers have included The Nothing Man and 56 Days; Patricia Gibney, prolific author and the creator of Detective Lottie Parker; and Andrea Mara, whose 2021 thriller, All Her Fault, sold more than 100,000 copies, will discuss their experiences of crime writing during what’s certain to be a lively session at 6.45pm on Friday 4th November in the Clew Bay Hotel.
Flor MacCarthy, author of The Presidents’ Letters, An Unexpected History of Ireland, will be joined by a lively panel of journalists and commentators who contributed to the book on 5th November in the Town Hall Theatre, Westport.
Among those who will share insights into letters to and from Áras an Úachtaráin over the years are historian, author and RTE journalist, David McCullagh, award-winning columnist Justine McCarthy, journalist and author Martina Devlin, and journalist and regular visitor to the Rolling Sun, Lise Hand. Each contributed to the book and will share stories on their research into this fascinating aspect of our history.
A number of other events are planned, and details will be announced here in the coming days.
A full schedule and details of how to get tickets will also be available here soon.