DCU double – Computing academic and Communications graduate shortlisted for Hennessy Awards
Tuesday 22 May 2007

John Murphy

A DCU lecturer and a DCU graduate both received nominations for this year’s Hennessy Cognac Literary Awards which were announced on 17 April. The shortlist for the Hennessy Awards is chosen from stories and poems published each year in New Irish Writing in the Sunday Tribune on the first Sunday of each month.

There are three categories – ‘First Fiction’, ‘Emerging Poetry’ and ‘Emerging Fiction’. Each category winner receives a trophy and 1,500 Euros. The overall New Irish Writer of the Year, chosen from the three winners, receives a further 2,500 Euros. The Hennessy Awards were established in 1971 to celebrate the best short stories published each year in the New Irish Writing Page edited by David Marcus in the Irish Press. The awards were expanded to include poetry when New Irish Writing moved to the Sunday Tribune in 1988, where it has been edited ever since by Ciaran Carty.

John Murphy, senior lecturer in the School of Computing and Sarah Purcell, Communications graduate were both nominated in the ‘First Fiction’ category.

John Murphy was educated at St Paul's CBS at North Brunswick Street and Trinity College Dublin. He has published poetry in Poetry Ireland Review. His current work includes a book of loosely interlocking short stories set in the Stoneybatter area and is working on his first novel.

“I have been writing for many years but only got serious about it after attending a workshop given by playwright Marina Carr, a former ‘writer-in-residence’ at DCU. After this, I had poetry published in Poetry Ireland review and was shortlisted for the FISH International Short Story competition. I submitted a story (‘Epiphany’) as part of a workshop run by the writer Dermot Bolger. About six months after the workshop Dermot contacted me to say that he had shown Ciaran Carty the story and then Ciaran contacted me asking if he could publish it in the Tribune Review, where it was published in November 2006. There was a bit of a panic before publication as they asked me to edit it down from almost 4500 words to 3000 words – easier said than done when its already highly compressed. Anyway I am delighted to get the nomination and recognition even if I don’t win”, he said.

Sarah Purcell is a Communications graduate. She worked in film before moving to New York in 2001. She has been published in V and UNleashed magazines. Now living in Los Angeles with actor/writer Barry McEvoy; she is working on a novel titled Weedglitter.