THIS weekend, September 14-16, sees the sixth annual Benedict Kiely Literary Weekend taking place in a new venue, Strule Arts Centre, Omagh. This year will be a special celebration of the work and life of the writer Benedict Kiely who died on February 9 last.

A unique commemorative brochure to honour his memory will be launched at the weekend as a limited edition mainly for participants. The brochure features contributions from many previous speakers, among them Val Mulkerns, Owen Dudley Edwards, Anthony Glavin, Frank Galligan, Paul Clements and many more distinguished writers, poets and academics.

POEM

Of particular interest will be a poem written to honour Mr Kiely by Seamus Heaney, entitled Errata, which was read only at his funeral.

Speakers at this weekend's event include David Pierce, author and critic; Patricia Craig, anthologist and critic; Gerry Lynch, writer and musician and Eileen Battersby, literary correspondent with The Irish Times.

There will be readings by poets Michael Longley, who has recently been made the new Ireland Chair of Poetry, and Francis Harvey. Author and playwright Lucy Caldwell will read from her recent work and facilitate a writing workshop on Saturday afternoon in Strule Arts Centre.

The weekend will include a bus tour of Kiely country with local historian Stephen McKenna followed by a gala dinner in Kelly's Inn, Garvaghey.

For more information and to book contact the Box Office, Strule Arts Centre on 028 8224 7831 Email:struleartscentre@omagh.gov.uk

* See The Scene for interview with keynote speaker David Pierce

Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She graduated with a First in English from Queens' College, Cambridge, and completed with distinction a Masters in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, London. Her first novel, Where They Were Missed, was published in 2006 by Penguin/Viking and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Waverton Good Read Award. Her first play, Leaves, premiered in March 2007 in a co-production between Druid Theatre Company (Galway) and the Royal Court Theatre (London), directed by Garry Hynes. Leaves is the winner of the 2006 George Devine Award and a joint winner of the 29th Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Lucy spent much of the summer as a playwright in residence at the National Playwrights' Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Connecticut, working on her second play. Lucy has written short stories for BBC Radio 4, the V&A museum and various publications; she also writes a weekly column for the Independent newspaper. Lucy is currently working on her second novel; other projects include a play for Big Telly Theatre Company based on Seamus Heaney's 'bog poems', which will tour Ireland in the autumn, and a commission for the Royal Court Theatre's main stage.

Patricia Craig, is an acclaimed anthologist, critic and author. Her biography of Brian Moore was published by Bloomsbury in 2002. She has edited many anthologies, including the OXFORD BOOKS OF IRELAND, of ENGLISH DETECTIVE STORIES and MODERN WOMEN'S STORIES; and -for Blackstaff - THE BELFAST ANTHOLOGY(1999) and THE ULSTER ANTHOLOGY(2006). Her memoir, ASKING FOR TROUBLE, was published by Blackstaff on 01/09/07. A regular contributor to the TLS and Independent, she was born in Belfast, lived in London for many years, and now lives in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland.

David Pierce has taught, read, and written about modern literature and Irish writing for more than thirty years. A member of the Board of the International James Joyce Foundation and reviews editor for estudiosirlandeses,a Spanish internet site for Irish Studies, David's publications include Attitudes to Class in the English Novel (with Mary Eagleton) (Thames and Hudson, 1979), W.B. Yeats: State of the Art (Bristol Press, 1989), James Joyce's Ireland (Yale University Press, 1992), Yeats's Worlds: Ireland, England and the Poetic Imagination (Yale University Press, 1995), W.B. Yeats: Critical Assessments 4 Vols (Helm, 2001), Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader (Cork University Press, 2001), Light, Freedom and Song: A Cultural History of Modern Irish Writing (Yale University Press, 2005), Joyce and Company (Continuum, 2006), and Reading Joyce (Longman, 2007). His Irish interest stems from summers spent in Liscannor, County Clare with his mother's people. Indeed, running through all his academic work is a long-term concern with lines of connection and, in particular, with relations between Britain and Ireland. Recently retired, David lives happily in York.

Gerard Lynch

Gerry Lynch, a native of Omagh, was a senior English teacher for many years

at Clongowes Wood College, where he was also Head of Media Studies.

Since retiring from teaching some seven years ago, he has been pursuing

his interests as a writer and jazz musician.

In 2002 he was awarded the P. J. O'Connor prize at RTE for radio drama.

for his play "Sanctuary", produced by Aidan Matthews.

He has also been, on an occasional basis, a contributor to RTE's Sunday

Miscellany.

RTE also previously broadcast two other radio plays of his "Cat's Eye"

and "All Fall Down".

As a musician he has appeared over the years at Arts Festivals in Omagh,

as a duo with jazz guitarist Louis Stewart and with Dublin jazz sextet Jada.

Eileen Battersby was born in California. She received her B.A. Hons from U.C.D. in English and History and her MA on American writer Thomas Wolfe. She is Literary Correspondent with the Irish Times and writes about arts and heritage, historical geography and architectural history. She has won the Arts Journalist of the Year Award three times.

Poet Michael Longley was born in Belfast in 1939 and educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. After reading classics at Trinity College, Dublin, he taught in schools in Belfast, Dublin and London. He joined the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 1970, working in literature and the traditional arts as Combined Arts Director before taking early retirement from the post in 1991. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001.

His first collection of poetry, No Continuing City: Poems 1963-1968, was published in 1969, and the collection Poems 1963-1983 was published in 1985. There was a 12-year gap between the publication of The Echo Gate: Poems 1975-1979 (1979) and the acclaimed Gorse Fires (1991), winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award. The Weather in Japan (2000), won the Hawthornden Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Belfast Arts Award for Literature. He is editor of 20th Century Irish Poems (2002).

Michael Longley was Writer Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1993. He has written widely on the arts in Northern Ireland, contributing to magazines including Encounter and Phoenix and has written scripts for BBC radio. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of Aosdána, an affiliation of Irish artists engaged in literature, music and visual arts. He lives in Belfast with his wife, the critic Edna Longley.

His Collected Poems was published in 2006.

Poet Francis Harvey was born in Enniskillen in 1925 and has published four collections of poems, as well as Making Space: New & Selected Poems (Dedalus, 2001). His Collected Poems appeared from Dedalus in April 2007.

1958 Shared first prize in an RTE radio play competition with a play entitled Farewell to Every White Cascade. This play was translated into several European languages and broadcast in Ireland, the U.K. and the rest of Europe.Wrote several other radio plays which were broadcast.

1966 First short stories published in the Dublin magazine and the Kilkenny Magazine.

1970 Won an O.Z. Whitehead award for a stage play entitled They Feed Christians to Lions here don't they? This play was produced in the Peacock in Dublin and also received a production in Milwaukee, USA.

1977 Won the Irish Times /YEATS International Summer School prize for poetry.

1978 First collection of poetry in the Light on the Stones published by Gallery Press

Second collection of poetry The Rainmakers published by Gallery Press

Was awarded £1000 for his poem HERON in the Gurdian/WWF poetry competition in London

Won a Peterloo Poets prize

Received an Arts Council Bursary

Prize for his play Looking At Ben Bulben in the Mobil Ireland Playwriting Competition

1994 Rehearsed public reading of Looking At Ben Bulben in the PeacockTheatre Dublin.

Third collection of poetry The Boa Island Janus published by Dedalus

The rainmakers translated into Italian

Fourth collection of poetry 'Making Space:New & Selected Poems published by Dedalus.

Production of Looking at Ben Bulben

First Annual Samhain International Poetry Festival: Craobh na hEigse Accolade

Stories and poems have appeared in leading literary magazines here and abroad.