Launch of Athlone author's debut short story collection

A local author's debut short story collection is to be launched in Athlone next week.

To Avenge A Dead Glacier by Shane Tivenan is published by The Lilliput Press, and will be launched in The Athlone Bookshop on Lloyd's Lane at 7pm on Thursday, May 1.

Shane Tivenan was brought up in the parish of Drum with his two sisters. He went to Summerhill National School and, later, St Aloysius College in the town.

The former DJ and sound engineer spent almost a decade in Madrid before recently returning to this area.

In 2024, he was the winner of the John McGahern Award. His short story Flower Wild won the RTÉ Francis MacManus Award in 2020. His fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, the London Magazine and has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1.

The stories in the collection have been described as rich in the essential detail of human life, full of little triumphs and tragedies and certain to resonate with readers who would enjoy the work of Colin Barrett, Kevin Barry and Nicole Flattery.

The stories include that of a Donegal woman, ostracised from her family who spends twenty years living homeless in Madrid; a graffiti artist who uses his throw-ups to warn his townspeople of imminent dangers; a semi-retired plasterer haunted by the silencing of the birds in his townland, a silencing which he knows he took part in; and an elderly woman doing her best to celebrate her birthday in a nursing home in Roscommon while fighting back the hallucinations brought on by her condition.

Guest speaker at the launch will be the prominent novelist, short story writer and editor Lisa McInerney, who said: “These are stories with sharp edges and big ideas, and Tivenan writes with a depth of feeling and imagination that we should all be in awe of.”

The publication retails at €15.95 (paperback).