Irish PEN: The Irish PEN Committee

The Irish PEN Committee

About our 2012 Committee

I am delighted on behalf of Irish PEN members and associates to welcome new members to the committee since the last newsletter. Timmy Conway , treasurer, Emer Liston , membership, and R.F Long, email manager, have arrived hot on the heels of another new arrival , Carol Robinson Tweed who is our correspondence secretary. Kay Boland coordinates the Irish the PEN annual dinner and award. Vanessa O’Loughlin edits our Irish PEN newsletter editor and is PR for the Irish PEN Committee. Máire Moriarty, minutes secretary, has joined Chris Murray, web-master and social-media , Tony Gaughan, and myself Joe Armstrong chair, Irish PEN.

Joe Armstrong: Chair.

Joe Armstrong is the former Managing Editor for Ireland for an international academic publisher. He is author of Men’s Health – the Common Sense Approach, Write Way to Stop Smoking, Workplace Stress in Ireland, The NUJ and Your Rights at Work, and joint author with Ian Montgomery of From Special Care to Specialist Treatment: A History of Muckamore Abbey. www.joearmstrong.ie

Carol Robinson Tweed: Correspondence Secretary

Carol represents our Associate Members. She originally graduated in history and politics, before qualifying in social work and psychology. She has worked in social services, probation and welfare, psychometrics and careers analysis. Carol has had many articles published in newspapers, journals and magazines and is currently the editor of a magazine.

Vanessa O’Loughlin: PR and Newsletter

Vanessa O’Loughlin runs Inkwell Writers’ Workshops, bringing bestselling authors to guide & inspire new writers plus services ranging from online workshops to critiquing and editing. Vanessa is also the driving force behind the new Irish writing resources website www.writing.ie. In 2010 she compiled The Big Book of Hope with Hazel Larkin and the Hope Foundation (Poolbeg) and has published an eBook of writing tips and technique ‘Bringing the Dream Alive: Writing to Get Published’

J Anthony Gaughan

J Anthony Gaughan, PhD, D.Litt, is a parish priest, writer and historian. He has published 24 books on a wide range of subjects. His book Scouting in Ireland was launched at Writers’ Week, Listowel in 2006.

Emer Liston Membership Secretary/WiPC

Emer Liston is a Dublin dweller, and an Irish and Spanish speaker. She has worked as a teacher, focussing on PLC classes, as a promoter and translator with Dún Laoghaire VEC as an tOifigeach Gaeilge, as well as working on various events throughout Ireland. Emer’s strongest interests in writing lie in fiction, playwriting and performance.

Chris Murray Social Media, and Webmaster

Chris has a B.A in Art History (UCD) and is a City and Guilds (Grade 1) Stone-cutter. She is a member of the International PEN Women Writer’s Committee, and she manages a poetry blog, called Poethead which is linked to a number of literary blogs, including Nomadics (A Pierre Joris Blog), 53 Degrees (Eoin O Mahony), The Anti-Room blog, and Dialogues Blog. Poethead is also named as a literary blog on The Tangled Web , Poetry Ireland’s resources page. She has recently completed a book of poetry, and is the Social Media coordinator for Irish PEN. http://poethead.wordpress.com/

R. F. Long , Email Manager

Always had a thing for fantasy, romance and ancient mysteries. The combination was bound to cause trouble. In university she studied English Literature, History of Religions and Celtic Civilisation, which just compounded the problem.
Her novels The Scroll Thief and Soul Fire and novellas,The Wolf’s Sister and The Wolf’s Mate (or print collection Songs of the Wolf) are currently available from Samhain publishing. Her dark contemporary YA fantasy The Treachery of Beautiful Things will be available from Dial Books for Young Readers in the summer of 2012.

Timmy Conway, Treasurer

Timmy has an Accountancy practice in Naas with his two brothers Donie and Chris. Timmy is also an extremely talented writer who has published six Poetry books, along with a Christmas CD and three novels. He lives with his wife Catherine and their five children at Thomastown, Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland.

http://www.kildare.ie/timmyconway/

Irish PEN Membership

Membership is €40 a year for full members, and €30 a year for associate members.

For full membership, please list titles of published books, plays staged or broadcast, scripts, contributions to periodicals and other relevant details.

Associate membership is open to all who have an interest in writing but have not yet been fully published, those attending creative writing classes and members of writing groups etc.

The membership form is available to download and print http://www.irishpen.com/wordpress/irish-pen-membership-form/

The 2011 Irish PEN Committee