Here comes the summer! Allegedly. A time for festivals, which lately means a time for welly boots and waterproof poncho things and all manner of desperate sartorial measures. The things we do for the arts, eh? 

Well what if I was to tell you that you can indeed have it all, and have it indoors to boot! Get thee to the capital between the 4th and the 10th of June for the Dublin Writers Festival, and get rid of that poncho please!

We are truly spoiled for choice this year, with readings, discussions, debates, workshops, performance and screenings taking place in venues all over the city. I know what you’re thinking, I do. The programme is so vast and you are but one reader, Dear Reader. You’re hoping I’m going to give you a few helpful hints! Of course I am, why else are we here?!

Edmund White and Colm Tóibín decamp to Liberty Hall on Monday, 4th June, for what promises to be an excellent conversation. Author, biographer and memoirist White comes to town fresh from publication of his latest novel Jack Holmes and His Friend, but will no doubt also discuss his famed back catalogue, which includes seminal works like A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty and Hotel de Dream.

Theatre-goers may have witnessed the wonderful interview Colm Tóbín conducted with Vanessa Redgrave a few years ago, this promises to be more of the same wonderful style from him. Early grabbing of tickets would be advised!

Described by the London Review of Books as “a jet-age Tennyson” and by me as “totally awesome”, Wendy Cope graces the Gate Theatre on the afternoon of Sunday 10th, and you’ll pick me out from the crowd because I will be there with bells on.

She is that rare bird on the literary scene, a successful contemporary poet, and if you haven’t heard of her, cancel hanging your head in shame and just go out and get some of her brilliant collections, I recommend Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis and Serious Concerns.  She appears with Dennis O’Driscoll, who introduces his new collection Dear Life

Hang around Parnell Square on the 10th, because the Gate keeps them coming that day – none other than Jeanette Winterson brings the festival to a close on Sunday evening.

She burst onto the scene 27 years ago with the bestselling and award-winning Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and she has transcended expectations ever since. You might also remember The Passion, Sexing the Cherry, Written on the Body, The World and Other Places, The PowerBook, The Stone Gods, to name but a few!  Her most recent work is Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? (her adoptive mother’s response to the news that Winterson was gay), a memoir.

View the full programme and book tickets here, or contact the box office at Filmbase – 01 687 7977.