Dublin Represented at Reykjavík Short Story Festival

Two Dublin writers, Maggie Armstrong and Sheila Armstrong, travelled to Reykjavík to represent Dublin UNESCO City of Literature at Stelkur LIVE, an international festival celebrating writers and short fiction.

Held at Nordic House in Reykjavík on 5 and 6 September, Stelkur LIVE brought together writers from Iceland, Ireland, Finland, Lithuania and the Faroe Islands for a weekend dedicated to short stories. The festival marked the third anniversary of Stelkur, an Icelandic online literary magazine, and coincided with the publication of a special double festival edition featuring new work by the participating writers. 

Sheila Armstrong appeared on the Saturday programme alongside Icelandic writer Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir and Finnish author Tapio Koivukari. On Sunday, Maggie Armstrong joined Icelandic writer Einar Már Guðmundsson, Lithuanian author Alvydas Šlepikas and Faroese writer Vónbjørt Vang. The festival programme featured  original short stories from both writers, Maggie Armstrong’s Honeymoon (Icelandic: Hveitibrauðsdagar) and Sheila Armstrong’s Parallax, previously titled America (Icelandic: bandaríkin).

The festival offered audiences the opportunity to hear each story in full, with writers reading in their original languages while Icelandic translations were projected on screen. Both Maggie and Sheila Armstrong’s stories were translated by Ingunn Snædal, who previously translated a short story by Wendy Erskine as part of SEODA, collaboration involving Dublin and four other UNESCO Cities of literature. 

The Icelandic translations from the festival have been published on the Stelkur website.