The Linenhall Arts Centre is proposing a residency with writer Mike McCormack (winner of the International Dublin Literary Award) at the Linenhall in Autumn Winter 2019/2020 with “Surveying” as the theme. It’s a theme of ongoing interest to Mike, which briefly featured in his novel “Solar Bones” (Tramp Press, 2016) and which he wishes to explore further. The theme is also one which resonates with the Linenhall in so far as the 18th century façade on the Linenhall building is home to a beautiful surveying bench mark. Many more of these bench marks survive in Castlebar and in towns all around Mayo, carved into stones on buildings, bridges and other structures of note (see attached maps), and others have disappeared as towns have developed.
The residency will be multifaceted in that Mike will work with the writing community in Mayo, specifically 10 Mayo writers (5 previously published and 5 by open call), as well as visual artists from Engage Art Studios, to respond to the theme. The residency will also have a public engagement dimension, in the form of reading, in-conversation, exhibition and workshop events. We project full capacity audiences for these events.

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.