STACCATO, Dublin’s newest spoken word event, takes place in Toner’s Pub, Baggot Street on the last Wednesday of the month. It’s facilitated by writers Tanya Farrelly and David Butler who do a great job of curating a night with an enjoyably eclectic mix of poetry, fiction and live music.

I took part in their January event in the company of some wonderful writers.

It’s tough to choose the right novel extract to read, I find. You want to pick something that gives a decent flavour of the book but that also works as a stand-alone episode. The worst thing you can do is bore everyone to tears with lengthy backstory explanations before you even start, or confuse them by introducing multiple characters. I ended up opting for chapter 5 of Skin, Paper, Stone for those reasons. 

Kate Dempsey gave a wonderful reading of poems from her recently published collection The Space Between (Doire Press, 2015).  

Jack Harte read “The Silent One”, a powerful short story about the loss of childhood innocence and the dangers of religious fundamentalism. The story is available to read here via Ofi Press.  

Iggy McGovern read a selection of his poems, some of which are available to read here, including my personal favourite “The Bony”. 

My highlight of the evening was Órfhlaith Foyle’s chillingly compelling story “How I Murdered Lucrezia”. It features in her short story collection Clemency Brown Dreams of Gin. You can read more about Órfhlaith’s work via her blog here. 

Phil Lynch read a selection of poems from his début collection which will be published later this year. Make sure to keep an eye out for it. 

We were also treated to a rendition of “Space Oddity” by MC Tanya Farrelly and singer-songwriter Mark Flynn which was the perfect ending to the evening.

The next STACCATO event takes place on Wednesday, February 24th. For more information you can follow on facebook and twitter.