Kentucky Author Forum with Colm Tóibín and Silas House

Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist, essayist, playwright, and author of Long Island, Interviewed by Silas House, bestselling author, playwright, and Kentucky Poet Laureate


Silas House was inducted as the Poet Laureate of Kentucky for 2023-2025. He is a bestselling author of seven novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and four plays. His most recent novel, Lark Ascending, was a Booklist Editors' Choice and is the winner of the Southern Book Prize, the Nautilus Book Award, and other honors. He was the recipient of the Duggins Prize, the largest award for an LGBTQ writer in the nation and was named Appalachian of the Year in a nationwide poll. House is also a Grammy finalist. Recently his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Garden & Gun, The New York Times, and many others.

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick. Tóibín’s Brooklyn was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan. Long Island is the quietly heartbreaking sequel, exploring societal pressures and expectations, longing, regret, secrets, and desire. Eilis Lacey’s return to Ireland in mid-life provides the backdrop for a nuanced and exquisite examination of personal choice and destiny.

Tóibín also authored Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Tóibín has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize.