 |
||
Who is Brendan Harding?Brendan Harding, a native of Carlow town in the Republic of Ireland, is an award winning writer of both travel-related fact and fiction.The many themes he has covered over the yerars are: stories related to five years spent in the ex-Soviet Union and Russian states; his extensive travels through Croatia, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe and most recently as a chronicler of voluntary works conducted by a team of opticians in the semi-arid lands of Eastern Kenya’s Ukambani region. Currently he is working on a novel based in East Africa. His work has been serialised in newspaper and online. He writes a weekly travel column ‘Small World’ in the Carlow Nationalist and is a winner of the Simomseeks ‘Travel Writers of the Year’ award. His work is currently featured in the new Lyric FM Book 'The Quiet Quarter - 10 Years of Great Irish Writing'. Brendan Harding has been immersed in creativity for over twenty-five years. From his late teens until the age of 28 Brendan worked as a Visual Merchandiser throughout Ireland - winning many accoladates and awards along the way. In 1990 he traveled to the ex-Soviet Union where he worked as a senior Visual Merchandiser for Aer Riannta International at their Duty Free stores in Moscow's international airport - Sheremetyevo II. Returning to Ireland from Russia in 1996 Brendan retrained in computer graphic applications for the print and design trade and spent the next six years working for many major Irish Print and Design companies. In 2002 Brendan headed the call to return to his lifetime passion - writing. He started scribbling in earnest and soon his work was being taken seriously by his peers, but it wasn't enough. He returned to study Creative Writing at Carlow College where he continued to hone his craft under the tutelage of several of Ireland's luminaries of the literary stage. At present he is working on his debut novel - '360 Degrees of Insanity'' as its working title. The novel is set in the remote bush of Eastern Kenya where Brendan has spent much time working with a charity he co-founded back in 2006. Along with Irish optician Bernard Jennings the two have commited themselves to providing quality eyecare in an area where the basics of health-care are thin on the ground. Along with writing and philantrophy Brendan Harding is an accomplished visual artist dealing with the issues affecting our natural environment through two collections of images from nature which have been iinfused with art from the streets - the works are titled Photo-Graffiti. Both exhibitions, the first in 2008 and the second in summer of 2009 were sell-outs and were heaped with praise from his contemporaries. The art and writings of Brendan are evolving on a daily basis and it won't be long before he becomes a household name in the world of the Arts. Brendan is a past winner of the Dunlavin Short Story festival and the Bradt/Polly Evans Travel Writing award. In December 2009 he was a shortlisted finalist in the Varilux Irish short-story competion. Also in December his work from Kenya was published in the Lyric FM book 'The Quiet Quarter - 10 Years of Great Irish Writing'. January 2010.
Brendan Harding may be contacted at mytraveltales@gmail.com |
 Brendan Harding pictured by Michael 'Rowdy' Thorsnes at the 2009 Bantry Literary Festival.
 A farmer leads his herd in the never-ending search for water in Kenya's drought-afflicted Ukambani. Photograph by Brendan Harding
 An image 'Babochka' from the recent collection 'Photo-Graffiti 1'. |
|
