Galway city's The Western Writers' Centre, the only writers' centre in the West of Ireland founded six years ago, is often bombarded with strange and bizarre e-mails when it posts on Indymedia Ireland. The Centre, whose website is www.twwc.ie, is currently looking for new prose and poetry for its website, work in French, Irish Gaelic or English.
"It would appear that someone is taken a child's delight in being able to use different made-up names to deliver these various verbal attacks, ranging mnostly at myself and covering anything from politics to literature," says the Centre's founder-Manager, Fred Johnston.
Johnston, who is also a political activist, is surprised at the vituperativeness of some of the comments. "Somebody seems to be able to produce whole articles I published, whole letters, months, even years ago, and posts them on the Indymedia site. In true cowardly fashion, naturally, they remain anonymous."
Meantime the Western Writers' Centre is opening a season of poets from Ireland's academy, Aosdána, including Anthony Cronin, Leland Bardwell, Macdara Woods and Irish poet Tony Curtis. The Centre's web pages also host 'Kiosque!', a review of books and book news. The Centre can be contacted at 091.533595.