Shelfmarks
Shelfmarks is a podcast by our podcaster-in-residence Zoë Comyns. Zoë has spent time looking through the collections and library holdings in the Academy to explore how people have written about and observed our natural world over the centuries.
Each week Zoë will sift through the Academy collection for Shelfmarks (biographies, manuscripts, books and reference from the collection) and invite a weekly guest writer to discuss their own relationship with the natural world. Writers include Amanda Bell, Kerri Ní Dhochartaigh, Manchán Magan, Siobhán Mannion, Jane Clarke, Neil Hegarty and Elaine Feeney. Each writer has been specially commissioned to write pieces exploring their own relationship with nature.
From the walks and works of R.L. Praeger to the dragonflies collected by Cynthia Longfield or birds by ornithologist RM Barrington, each week will give listeners a sense of the people who have passed through the academy and how their work and the natural world still inspires writers today.
Shelfmarks is available on SoundCloud, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The series was launched on Culture Night 2021. You can watch the special episode here below.
About the podcaster
Zoë Comyns is a multi award-winning independent radio producer and works across drama, essay, fiction and factual features. Her programmes have broadcast on RTÉ (Radio 1, Lyric Fm & R1 Extra), Newstalk, BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. She presents and produces Keywords, the short writing programme for RTÉ Radio. She won the John McGahern Award for Literature 2019 for emerging writers and radio awards including the New York Festivals, AIB, IMRO, PPI and Åke Blomstrom.