Literature and the Digital Age With Colin Barrett, Dean Fee, Kit Fryatt, Christodoulos Makris, Bebe Ashley, Rob Doyle, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan and Paul Whyte
In Partnership with DCU
Join us on DCU’s St Patrick’s Campus for a day-long series of events examining the fate of the written word and storytelling in the content flood of the modern digital world. As technology allows storytellers to tell their tales in previously inconceivable new ways, will there still be space for the human voice, speaking its story? Featuring performances, readings, and passionate discussion.
Curated by DCU Cultural Arts office Marcella Bannon and Arts Council Writer in Residence Colin Barrett.
11am – 12pm | UPLOAD – Student & Guest Open Mic
Location: Belvedere Library, DCU St Patrick’s campus
Host: Colin Barrett (Arts Council Writer in Residence 2026)
An open mic celebrating the pulse of student and university community writing in the digital age. Featuring flash fiction, spoken word, gaming-inspired narratives, dystopian fiction, and explorations of online identity.
1pm – 2pm | New Frequencies: Poetry in a Digital Age
Location: Belvedere Library, DCU St Patrick’s Campus
Poets Kit Fryatt, Christodoulos Makris, and Bebe Ashley perform original work responding to the festival theme, Literature and the Digital Age. Discover how technology and the internet are shaping contemporary poetic voices.
4pm – 5pm | Panel: Can Technologies Make Us Better Writers?
Location: Belvedere Library, DCU St Patrick’s Campus
Host: Rob Doyle
Irish contemporary writers explore how digital technologies, AI, and online platforms are transforming the ways we write, create, and share stories.
7pm – 8pm | CTRL // LIVE
Location: Heaney Theatre, Cregan Library, DCU St Patrick’s Campus
Host: Dean Fee
Join editor Dean Fee and contributors Rob Doyle, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, and Paul Whyte for an evening of readings, discussion, and Q&A inspired by the publication of CTRL: Essays on Video Games.
In CTRL, writers turn their focus to one of the most influential and persistently misunderstood art forms of the modern era. Through memoir, criticism, and narrative exploration, the collection charts the ways video games intersect with memory, identity, imagination, and the complicated business of being human.
Hosted by Dean Fee, the writers will explore how video games have shaped their own creative work, how they view the world, and where this evolving art form is headed next.
This evening event caps off a day-long symposium at DCU exploring Literature and the Digital Age, which features a morning open mic session, an afternoon panel discussion alongside and poetry performance.
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Colin Barrett grew up in County Mayo, Ireland, and is a short story writer and novelist. His stories have been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper’s and The New Yorker. His first book, the short story collection Young Skins, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Barrett’s second short story collection, Homesickness, made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year and was a Book of the Year in Oprah Daily and the Irish Times. His debut novel Wild Houses was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.
Dean Fee is a writer and editor based in Donegal. His work has been published in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Banshee, London Magazine, on BBC Radio, and elsewhere. He the managing editor of The Pig’s Back literary journal, and is the editor of CTRL: Essays on Video Games.
Rob Doyle is the Dublin-born author of several internationally acclaimed books: Threshold, Autobibliography, This Is the Ritual, and Here Are the Young Men, which has been adapted for film. His work has been translated into several languages and nominated for various prizes. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Observer, New Statesman, Dublin Review and many other publications. His new novel, Cameo, is published by W&N.
Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan is an Irish-Indian writer, performer, and cultural consultant, published by Banshee, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland, and others. She has been artist-in-residence for several science initiatives and is a Skein Press ‘Play it Forward’ Fellow. Her debut poetry collection was published with Dedalus Press this year.
Paul Whyte is a writer and Dad. Originally from Tipperary, he now lives in Dublin. His short fiction, essays and articles have been published in The Moth, The Lonely Crowd, The Irish Examiner and more. In 2021 his debut novel Harrow the Boys was published by Maverick House. He is currently editing his follow-up and working on an essay collection.
Please note we may be capturing imagery at this event for use on our social media and website.
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