Hickory – Lenoir-Rhyne University’s Visiting Writers Series (VWS) will present Marie and Catherine Heaney, writers who were born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, on Wednesday, March 21 in Belk Centrum from 7 to 8 p.m.

Marie and Catherine Heaney are the wife and daughter respectively of the late Seamus Heaney, a Nobel Prize for Literature award recipient. Both are dedicated to preserving and promoting the work and legacy of Seamus Heaney.

Traditional Irish songs will be played by Martha Geouge Hill, a harpist for the Blue Mountain Harpers Society in Asheville, and Stone’s Throw, a local Celtic quartet. Hill was awarded the 2017 Clan Donald Land Trust’s Princess Margaret of the Isles Memorial Prize for best senior harper at the Scotland County Highland Games in October 2017. Marie Heaney will read poems during musical interludes.

Marie Heaney has written numerous books including the highly-acclaimed, “Over Nine Waves: A Book of Irish Legends.” She wrote and illustrated a children’s book on the same topic titled, “The Names Upon the Harp.” Marie Heaney has edited several anthologies, including “Heart’s Mysteries: 50 Poems from Ireland to Touch the Soul” and “A Sunday Miscellany.” Her most recent anthology, “All Through the Night: Night Poems & Lullabies,” was published in 2016. The book was written in memory of Seamus Heaney, whose favorite song was Johannes Brahms, “Lullaby,” and was dedicated to their three grandchildren, Anna Rose, Aibhín, and Síofra.

Catherine Heaney received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Trinity College Dublin. She works as a freelance writer and editor, most recently editing a volume of essays, “Trinity Tales,” published by The Lilliput Press in 2016. She is a director of the Seamus Heaney Estate and works with publishers and various institutions to continue promoting his works around the world. Catherine Heaney previously worked as an editor at European based publishing houses, Fourth Estate and Faber and Faber, and she directed the creative-writing school at Faber Academy. She currently lives in London.

The series will continue with the following authors:

March 22, 2018
Zadie Smith and Nick Laird
Belk Centrum, 7 – 8 p.m.

April 14, 2018
Robert Beatty
P.E. Monroe Auditorium, 12 – 1 p.m.

April 19, 2018
Terry Gifford
Belk Centrum, 7 – 8 p.m.

The VWS has provided outstanding literary arts programming that is free and open to the public for the past 29 years. Each year, the VWS invites authors to tell the stories behind their own works in a relaxed environment before an audience filled with campus and community members. The Writers Series’ mission is to build a community of readers, because it believes a community that reads is a more creative, open, and tolerant community. The VWS believes the beauty and power of words help people make sense of the world. Children’s writers, mystery writers, essayists, poets, and novelists all participate in this celebration of the written and spoken word.

Images: (top) Marie Heaney; Catherine Heaney