Register for PLR

The Galway Library blog reported yesterday that Mr. Michael Kitt T.D. — Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government — recently signed Regulations which provide for a Public Lending Remuneration (PLR) Scheme in respect of the public library service.

The Scheme, which will be administered by An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (The Library Council) with the co-operation of the local authority library service, will provide that qualifying authors, whose books are loaned by public libraries, will receive remuneration in respect of such loans.

Under PLR, a payment will be made to registered authors, resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), in respect of books registered with the PLR and loaned by public library authorities.

Authors are required to register with An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, providing an address and bank details, etc. Details of books registered will be entered into an author/title database and checked against bibliographic databases for accuracy. Authors are required to register each title and each edition of each title for which they are claiming payment.

Public library authorities will provide An Chomhairle Leabharlanna with loans data, giving details of the number of times each book in their collections is issued during a specified period.

At the end of the PLR period, the loans data from each authority will be matched to the author/title data and a list of authors whose books have been loaned, and the number of issues of each, will be produced. Authors will then be notified of the amount they are to receive and payments will be made.

Payment will be made to authors in respect of their contribution to the work for which the payment is due. The scheme will allow for the percentage of the payment to be made for various levels of contribution, which include, inter alia, contributions such as sole author, joint author, editor, translator, and illustrator.

The rate of payment will be set each year and will be the product of the total number of loans for which a payment is due, divided by the total amount available. Illustrators, photographers, editors and translators may all register for PLR (providing they are named on the title page of a book).

Joyce Day

Tomorrow is the 103rd Bloomsday, and to celebrate the James Joyce Centre in Dublin has been organising activities in the run-up to the special day. There are walking tours, breakfasts, exhibitions and readings for those of you who want to celebrate James Joyce's most famous work, Ulysses.

Force 12 in Mayo

Mayo County Council Arts Office has announced the line-up for the 2007 Force 12 Writers' Weekend, which is taking place from Friday 8th - Sunday 10th June in Belmullet, Co. Mayo.

Chris Agee will direct the weekend, with a host of well-known writers including Michael Longley, Harry Clifton, Michael Coady, Patricia Craig, Deirdre Madden, Claire Keegan, Francis Harvey and Writer-in-Residence Paddy Bushe. The weekend is very much dedicated to visiting writers groups and it will provide a great opportunity for Mayo writers to interact with groups from all over the country.

Places are limited, so it is essential to book by Friday 1st June (today!). If you wish to attend any of the events contact the Mayo County Council Arts Office at 094-9024444, ext. 7558 & 7560, or mayoarts@mayococo.ie .

Children's TV is Toxic?

The Guardian reports on tirade about the state of programming for children on television from critically-acclaimed writer Philip Pullman. Pullman is the author of many children's books, including the Dark Materials trilogy, which are being filmed.

Pullman castigated broadcasters for sacrificing high-quality programmes in favour of those that yield more marketing opportunities. 'Children are regarded by broadcasters as a marketing opportunity at best, a dangerous and feral threat at worst, and an expensive nuisance otherwise,' Pullman said. 'This social poison goes much deeper than broadcasting, of course, but it's particularly visible there. ...

Pullman went on to say that fiction loses its value unless it 'tackles the great moral dilemmas of our time'. 'Fantasy, and fiction in general, is failing to do what it might be doing,' he said. 'It has unlimited potential to explore all sorts of metaphysical and moral questions, but it is not doing that.

'You can't leave morality out unless your work is so stupid and trivial and so worthless that nobody would want to read it anyway.

Landy Writes Adaptation

RTÉ reports that Irish screenwriter Derek Landy (Dead Bodies, Boy Eats Girl) will adapt his children's book, Skulduggery Pleasant, for the big screen after Warner Bros Pictures won a bidding war for the cinema rights. The deal includes rights to all the books in the proposed nine-book series, and is rumoured to be worth over $1m.

Gough Wins Best Short

RTÉ reports that Irish author, songwriter, and playwright, Julian Gough, has won the prestigious Britain's National Short Story Prize, and a sum of €22,000.

Gough's winning short story, 'The Orphan and the Mob', was broadcast by BBC 4 radio last week, and if you hurry you can still listen to it (click on the Tuesday reading; the story is read by Irish actor Conor Lovett).

Gough's new novel, Jude: Level 1, which continues the adventures of the hero of 'The Orphan and the Mob', will be published in July.

Novel hopes

According to The Guardian Irish screenwriter Derek Landy (Dead Bodies, Boy Eats Girl) has penned a young adult novel, entitled Skulduggery Pleasant, which hits the bookshops in Ireland and the UK on April 2.

Landy's publishing advance - said merely to be "in seven figures" - is one of the highest paid to an author of children's fiction and covers three books, aimed at children between eight and 13.

"It's horror with gothic sensibilities, fast talking characters and martial arts - all the things that are fun in life," he said.

The backdrop for the stories is Landy's native north County Dublin; he lives in Lusk just inland from the coast.