Award-winning Author & Journalist Rosita Boland set to host for Immrama Festival Literary Breakfast
The 2019 Immrama Festival of Travel Writing in Lismore County Waterford is set to host senior features writer and author Rosita Boland for the festivals annual Literary Breakfast.
Rosita Boland is Senior Features Writer, specialising in human interest stories. She was a 2009 Nieman Fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. She’s also the author of two collections of poetry and two non-fiction books about Ireland along with her newest book ‘Elsewhere: One Woman, One Rucksack, One Lifetime of Travel’ which has just been published to much acclaim.
Photograph:BRENDA FITZSIMONS
From her first life-changing solo trip to Australia as a young graduate, Rosita Boland was enthralled by travel. In the last thirty years, she has visited some of the most remote parts of the globe carrying little more than a battered rucksack and a diary. Documenting nine journeys from nine different moments in her life, Elsewhere reveals how exploring the world – and those we meet along the way – can dramatically shape the course of a person’s life. From death-defying bus journeys through Pakistan to witnessing the majestic icescapes of Antarctica to putting herself back together in Bali, Rosita experiences moments of profound joy and endures deep personal loss. In a series of jaw-dropping, illuminating and sometimes heart-breaking essays, Elsewhere is a book that celebrates the life well-travelled in all its messy and wondrous glory.
On Sunday morning June 16th Rosita will share details of her sometimes death-defying adventures at the Immrama Literary Breakfast at 8.30am at Lismore Golf Club. Tickets are now on sale at www.lismoreimmrama.com
The seventeenth annual Lismore Immrama Festival of Travel Writing has a stellar reputation for celebrating and sharing world-class travel writing and the 2019 festival line-up offers another all-star line up of internationally renowned writers and broadcasters with a keynote address from the first woman and youngest person to solo-row the Indian Ocean and also the Pacific Ocean adventurer and author Sarah Outen, Coast’s Neil Oliver.
Neil Oliver will speak at the festival on Saturday afternoon, 15th June. The archaeologist, historian, author and broadcaster Neil has travelled and explored every corner of Great Britain, most famously through hosting eight series of the BBC Two programme Coast.
Earlier on Saturday one of the founding members of De Dannan Charlie Piggott will be discussing music and travel. To open the festival on Wednesday, a screening of the documentary ‘Congo – An Irish Affair’ will take place; a poignant study of the Irish-led 1961 UN peacekeeping mission to Katanga. On Thursday, June 13th author Dr Robyn Rowland will share personal stories, exploring war, change, family and friendship – in Ireland, Turkey, the Balkans and Australia. On Friday, June 14th journalist and author Lerato Mogoatlhe who has been writing about Africa for more than 10 years Lerato Mogoatlhe will share tales from her book ‘Vagabond’.
Workshops, free speaker events and fringe are also on offer; for full details and for festival tickets see www.lismoreimmrama.com or call (058) 53803