Former teacher scoops Listowel short story award

A former Cork city teacher who quit the profession to pursue a writing career has been awarded the 2015 Bryan McMahon Short Story Award from Listowel Writers Week.

Joseph Sweeney, who lives in Blarney, Co Cork, took the honours with Bad Grapes, a satirical tale centred on a violent incident in a fictitious middleclass Dublin housing estate.

It is the writer’s third Listowel Writers’ accolade since 2007, the year he stepped down from Cork’s North Monastery Secondary School.