18 – Claire-Louise Bennett

Welcome to Day 18 of our West Cork Literary Festival Advent Calendar. Our author today is Claire-Louise Bennett.

Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire in the UK and studied literature and drama at the University of Roehampton, before moving to Ireland where she worked in and studied theatre for several years. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize and her debut book, Pond, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2016. Her second novel Checkout 19 was published by Jonathan Cape in 2021. Claire-Louise’s fiction and essays have appeared in a number of publications including White Review, Stinging Fly, gorse, Harper’s Magazine, Vogue Italia, Music & Literature, and New York Times Magazine. She lives in Galway.

Claire-Louise is reading an extract from Checkout 19 which was published by Jonathan Cape in August 2021. Today’s video unlocked on 18th December 2021 and may be viewed below. Closed caption subtitles are available and may be turned on or off. Click on “youtube” or “full screen” icon in the video to watch it in full screen or visit youtube here.

About our WCLF Literary Advent Calendar

2021 was another wonderful year for Irish writing and so many incredible books by Irish authors and authors living in Ireland were released this year. Even though festivals returned in-person and online not every author had the opportunity to launch their books with a public celebration or to engage with audiences in the “usual” way. We’re delighted to bring you a small selection of these authors and we’ve invited twenty-four writers to submit a short video reading from their new books. Our selection is an attempt to show the wide range of Irish writing and in particular to focus on writers whose books we feel deserve more attention and those who were not previously featured in WCLF 2021 events. We hope that you will enjoy the chance to hear these writers reading their own work and to discover some new books for your reading piles.