F(AI)CT OR F(AI)CTION

Conor Kostick is the author of Epic, an internationally acclaimed SciFi novel about a world where everyone must have an avatar in a role-playing game. His other novels include The Retreat and for younger readers, The Book of Wishes and The Book of Curses. A long-time mentor and teacher with the Irish Writers Centre, Conor is often called upon to judge new works, twice being president of the Irish jury for the EU Prize for Literature. At their 2009 awards, the Reading Association of Ireland gave Kostick the Special Merit Award ‘in recognition of his significant contribution to writing for children in Ireland’. Conor was a nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2012 and 2013. 

As an advocate for authors, Conor has served as the Disputes Officer for the Irish Writers Union for over a decade and is currently leading the campaign to hold AI companies to account for their pirated use of Irish writing in training their models. Conor was a board member of the National Library of Ireland for seven years and is currently a board member of the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency and Reading Services.

Derek O’Connor is an award-winning writer and filmmaker, and the Digital Culture Editor for RTÉ. He is the co-founder of the Sound! Film Festival in Donegal.

Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024 and Scribner (US) in July 2024. Her writing has been aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE.

She was the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast 2025 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit was produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between is forthcoming from Doubleday in early 2026 and will be published by Scribner in the US.

Joanna Walsh a multidisciplinary writer for print, digital and performance. The author of twelve books (several co-written with DIY AIs that she coded), her publishers include Semiotext(e), Bloomsbury and Verso. She is the creator of the digital narratives, seed-story.com and miss-communication.ie. Her work has been performed/exhibited at venues including IMMA, the ICA, BETA Festival Dublin, and Sample Studios Cork. She founded and directed the online activist projects Read Women (2014-18), and No Entry Arts(2019_2024). She was the 2020 Markievicz Awardee for Literature in Ireland, the 2017 UK Arts Foundation fellow for literature; the Anthony Burgess Centenary Writer Fellow at the University of Manchester in 2017 and the 2024 DAAD Artists in Berlin awardee for literature (refused in solidarity with Palestine).

Age & Opportunity is the national organisation working to enhance wellbeing for older people through participation in sport and physical activity, arts and creative engagement, personal development, community collaboration and active citizenship.

The Bealtaine Festival, an Age & Opportunity Arts initiative, is one of our flagship events. The festival continues to grow with the support and collaboration of our partners and hundreds of organisers throughout the country, as well as all those who attend a Bealtaine event. We are grateful to all those who organised events and look forward to another creative and inspiring year of Bealtaine Festival.

Bealtaine Festival is an Age & Opportunity arts initiative funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.