The Book Show (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday nights, 7pm) has announced a competition inviting listeners to write a letter to a character from a novel.
They’re calling it the #DearCharacter competition.
You might want to offer some advice, give a piece of your mind or declare your love (or hate) to a hero or heroine from any novel.
The terms and conditions are here but bear in mind that the closing date is midnight on October 9th, and that the letter can be no longer than 500 words.
The Laureate for Irish Fiction, Anne Enright, will judge from a shortlist of entries and a selection of letters will be read at a special recording of The Book Show at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin on October 21st at noon. (The winning letter will also receive a €250 book token!)
A Letter To A Character will be an hour-long show presented by Sinéad Gleeson - joining her and Anne on stage will be writers Lisa McInerney (The Blood Miracles) and Donal Ryan (The Spinning Heart) as well as Paul Howard who has created one of Ireland’s best loved characters, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. They’ll be discussing characters in their own work and exploring why some characters are memorable while others are forgotten.
Tickets to the show and more information about it can be found here.
The Book Show asked the writer Kit de Waal (My Name Is Leon) to think of a character she’d like to write to and she immediately thought of Bertha Mason - the first Mrs Rochester from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Dragged over from Jamaica to a cold, lonely house in England by her unloving husband Edward Rochester, she became maligned as the madwoman in the attic.Kit de Waal has one piece of advice - Get Out Of There!
Listen: Kit De Waal's letter to the first Mrs Rochester
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Some years ago, Kit de Waal, obsessed with the story of Bronte’s misunderstood character, impersonated her in a letter to her husband Edward Rochester and she shared this piece of flash fiction with The Book Show.
The Book Show, RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday nights, 7pm
