Latest news with #ThePrompt
RTÉ News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
The Prompt - 'Tearing it Down' with author Dave Rudden
For the latest episode of RTÉ Radio 1's new writing showcase The Prompt, author Dave Rudden chose the prompt 'Tearing it Down'. Dave's bestselling novel Knights of the Borrowed Dark won Children's Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards in 2016 and is now a syllabus has also authored multiple works in the Doctor Who universe. Since 2022, he has served as an Ambassador for Ireland Reads and is currently Writer-in-Residence for the Kids Love Books podcast on RTÉ, as well as Artist-in-Residence at Dublin City University. He tells Zoë Comyns that he used to be a teacher and believes that every kid is a 'story kid'. Dave started to focus on writing for children knowing they would tell him exactly what they thought of his work: 'Adults will be polite and kids will be honest'. Dave selected three pieces blind from the shortlist of submissions sent into The Prompt: C O'Shea - From Da Ground Up J Anthony - Nightshift A Bell - On Waking to More of the Same 2024 L El Gammal - On Ruido P Shine - The Reformer S Meehan - The Egg P McNally - Crazy Dash R Callaghan - A Daughter of Dissidence The first piece selected for broadcast was by Lobna El Gammal, entitled On Ruido. Lobna is an Egyptian-Canadian based in Ireland. Lobna describes herself as "part engineer, part poet, full human," dabbling creatively at the intersection of Art and Science. She draws inspiration from nature, diaspora experiences, the Islamic faith, and the Arabic language. Many submissions to the prompt 'Tearing it Down' pexplored today's global uncertainty — politically and environmentally and Lobna's piece begins as prose and morphs into poetry. Lobna explores how the air metaphorically and literally carries our words and how little control we feel we have over this. 'The news channels have been warning us not to breathe too much this week. Red is the colour they choose to mark danger; it is the colour of our insides. The government says there are too many particles in the air, its quality index too high. I wonder what they were saying to smog the skies like this, to choke the breath out of air. It's bad timing. I was planning to tell you that I love you this week' This repeated line runs throughout "I was planning to tell you that I love you this week" highlighting the urgency and vulnerability of trying to express love in the chaos of the world. Listen to last week's episode of The Prompt: 'A World Without' The second piece in the programme selected by Dave is from Amanda Bell, echoing themes from Lobna's On Ruido — questioning who holds power and agency for change: Protesters fill the streets in desperate throngs, keen to make vicarious amends. The carpet bombing carries on. Can faith in social structures be kept strong confronted with malevolent intent? I dreamt the past had ended; I was wrong. It tackles complicity and futility in responses to modern conflict. Amanda Bell is a writer, editor, and award-winning poet who has published seven books,and she says this villanelle came from two ideas: "First, the concept of waiting for the past to end. I have young adult children, elderly parents, and as an individual I feel constantly on the cusp of life-changing events, but then that is the circle of life – no beginnings or endings, just cycles." Has human nature been thus, all along – debate the laws of war, pursue revenge while carpet bombing carries on? I dreamt the past had ended; I was wrong. "Second, once the destruction of Gaza began.. my overall feeling was that humans have learned nothing from history beyond brute aggression. The prompt 'Tearing it Down' spoke to me not only of the epic destruction of infrastructure, but also of any semblance of civilised society." Listen: Dave Rudden talks to Brendan Courtney For Dave Rudden, the piece expresses "a frustration….we're supposed to have systems that stop this and they're not working, maybe they never worked, but we're being confronted constantly with the situation that rules and bonds don't seem to matter when cruel people want to do cruel things." The final piece in the episode is by Peter Shine, originally from Roscommon, Ireland, and now lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and son. He works as a Program Coordinator at the University of Texas. An actor as well, Peter has performed with Fregoli Theatre, Austin Shakespeare, Decadent Theatre, and Druid Theatre. His piece takes the prompt in an entirely different direction; in his piece The Reformer, a man is tethered to a school quad, a ghost bound by time and place. He witnesses the endless building, tearing down and rebuilding of the world around him. 'After the school was levelled, Thomas would wake and rise and walk in that same spot undisturbed by the detritus underfoot. No matter the strange surroundings he awoke to, Thomas was steadfast in his ritual. For a time, he awoke in a hallway with long bright lights overhead. Then it was a great big room. Then a series of small rooms, another hallway, then a gap between two buildings. Then came a time when there was nothing but bare, barren land. Then a thicket of trees. Then a clearing. Then Thomas would wake and find himself among structures that defied understanding. This, then, gave way to a time without structure - where Thomas had been told to stay until he was told otherwise.' Dave chats about how this writer explores a ghost's perspective when they're doomed to repeat the same routine forever: "They're seeing what's going on but they're not really understanding it…and cannot piece the mystery together' for themself. 'If there was a chance for people to understand this person's [the ghost's] story, those people are gone and now this person is haunting a clearing or a forest and no one even recognises who they might have been." Horror is very much Dave Rudden's territory - his latest book is Conn of the Dead, a tale written for children that takes on horror, necromancers and zombies. Zoë and Dave discuss how kids cope well with the horror genre. Conn in Conn of the Dead has individual and behavioural needs and through writing the book Dave realised he shares many neurodivergent traits with Conn. The character harnesses these traits to tackle the villain in the book.
RTÉ News
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
The Prompt - imagining 'A World Without' with Sinéad Moriarty
This week on The Prompt on RTÉ Radio 1, guest writer Sinéad Moriarty's writing prompt is 'A World Without'. Sinead chose three pieces blind from the shortlist: C B Dunne - Looking At You Like You Were Unbreakable D Black- Ground G Faller - Birdsong J Godsil - A World Without Me Is Now Impossible T Mixon- A Pile Of Hurt A Pembroke - The Fractured Nest S Schlecht - Seed On Fertile Ground The first of the pieces selected for broadcast is by Jillian Godsil from Arklow Writers Group – her piece is a crafty take on the prompt imagining how it is now almost impossible to be forgotten with AI and digital tools to preserve us. "I used to imagine the world without me as something noble," she says. "A quiet vanishing. A gentle fade into the background hum of memory and mismatched stories. The kind of disappearance people toasted with bittersweet wine and said things like "They were one of the good ones"..." Jillian imagines "A world where "gone" is negotiable. Where you don't die, you just get archived. Where your kids don't light candles, they just ping your avatar and say, "Mum, quick one, how do I cook a ham?"" Sinéad Moriarty and The Prompt's presenter Zoë Comyns discuss the pros and cons of persisting as digital versions of ourselves. With a completely different approach to the prompt, Sebastian Schlecht imagines a being who accompanies and almost haunts the narrator from within: 'There is a little man. He lives in my heart. His favourite pastime is playing the drums. He likes to play in the middle of the night - once I fall asleep, when all is calm inside of me. Only when nothing but my blood is humming quietly does he start his act.' Sinead felt this piece handled that feeling of when 'you're in the grip of whatever worries you have and you can't think straight'. Schlecht said he 'woke up one night with my heart racing — almost like a mild panic attack. At first, my thoughts went into panic mode, but I was able to calm myself quickly. It wasn't a new feeling to me. I recognised it as a stress response rather than something dangerous — something happening in my body, not something that is me. "That sparked the image of a little person living inside my body. With the image of the little man came the thought that fear might not actually be mine. That it is sometimes inherited — a kind of generational fear, passed down from the people who came before me. That expanded the emotional world of the piece." Listen to last week's edition of The Prompt with guest writer Edel Coffey The final piece for this episode is written under the pen name Alice Pembroke. The author is a professional writer with several published books, currently parenting two small children while living in a nesting situation that inspired this work. She told The Prompt she would use a pen name due to legal sensitivities. "Family law proceedings in Ireland are subject to the in-camera rule," she says, "meaning that cases are heard behind closed doors to protect families' privacy. However, this also restricts discussion of matters like maintenance, access, and custody. Court-ordered reports, where assessors interview family members to recommend arrangements, are particularly sensitive. 'Nesting' (where children stay in the family home while parents move in and out) is often proposed but, due to the housing crisis, can leave separated parties stuck without secure accommodation." Alice's piece The Fractured Nest is a mix of fiction and memoir but outlines the complexities and psychological stress caused by this nesting arrangement. 'This is the court's solution. A "bird nest" arrangement. A home that stays steady, with parents drifting in and out like weather.' This piece moved Sinéad, who 'feels viscerally the story of love and loss, in the world that she now has to navigate.' 'Every week, I carry my life in the boot of my car—half a wardrobe, a laptop, charger, shampoo, and a book I am always too tired to read. On the other weeks, I disappear. I rent a room, small and scentless, with laminate floors and a humming radiator. I keep the blinds closed. I speak to no one. I wake up with the shape of them still pressed into my arms, their voices echoing in the crumple of the pillow. I wonder if they notice. The absence of my coat in the hall, the missing clutter of my tea mugs by the sink. Do they scan the house for me and find it flat, colourless?' "It transports you into another person's life," Sinéad says. "The power of this is that without having experienced it you feel every single bit of pain and loss that she's experiencing." Sinéad Moriaty's most recent novel Good Sisters is out now and her next book The In-Laws will be out in July, both published by Sandycove.
RTÉ News
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Get Creative: The craft of non-fiction - writing groups and first readers
Ever thought about writing non-fiction, be it an essay, a memoir or even a brief snapshot of your life? Why not take the leap? In a new series, author, critic and broadcaster Cristín Leach explores the craft of non-fiction. I'm going to start with a touchy topic and end with a complicated one. I have heard more than one tale of an emerging writer sharing their work with a writing group only to find their idea appropriated or coming back at them later, recognisable in different but similar form. The only advice here is to never do that to someone else, and to be careful about where you share your works in progress. The best first readers, advice and feedback-givers are symbiotic not parasitic. I recommend finding a reader-writer peer at a similar stage in their writing career to pair with. Attending workshops with a focus on the kind of writing you interesting in doing can be a good way to meet someone. In a pairing scenario, you give some time to their writing and they give some time to yours. It's the kind of fruitful attention bartering that can be invaluable because it is free and mutually respectful. It can also be helpful to have a first reader who is not also a writer; a reader who treats your work with joy and respect, and requires nothing back other than the pleasure of doing this important early-response job for you. It goes without saying that you should not join a writing group where the traffic is all one way. Watch: Demystifying Submissions - advice from the editors of Irish literary journals If possible, another option is to find a professional mentor. The Irish Writers Centre in Dublin runs an annual open-submission 32-county National Mentoring Programme, which includes writers of creative non-fiction, pairing selected mentees with professional writers over a period of six to eight months. If your first reader is someone close to you and you are writing non-fiction in the form of memoir or personal essay, you may hit the second topic quite quickly. It's a question of ethics, and voice, and how to own your story in public when it is a personal one. Personal essays tend to have real life other people in them, unless the account is of an entirely solo adventure, and even then no one exists in a vacuum. Listen: The Prompt - RTÉ's new showcase for fresh Irish writing There's no definitive, foolproof way to approach this. I can offer a few steps. First, give yourself permission to tell your own story. Second, identify what elements of the story are in fact yours. Third, don't try to tell the story from a perspective that isn't yours. Anonymise where possible. It is also acceptable to change names and other details to protect identities. After that, whether to invite comment, feelings, thoughts, or permissions has to be a personal choice. Melissa Febos' Bodywork: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative (2022) is an excellent resource on this complicated territory. She writes, "it is difficult to predict what will upset people… Each person who was present for the events about which I have written has a different true story for them." And she offers this pertinent advice for the memoirist: "There are good essays that there are good reasons not to write."
RTÉ News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
The Prompt - RTÉ Radio 1's new showcase for fresh Irish writing
The first episode of The Prompt presented by Zoë Comyns airs on Sundays at 7.30pm on RTÉ Radio 1, beginning Sunday, May 25th . Eight of Ireland's best writers set writing prompts and the public were invited to submit up to 750 words of poetry or prose. The Prompt received 900 submissions sparked by the prompts set by Mike McCormack, Edel Coffey, Belinda McKeon, Sinéad Moriarty, Dave Rudden, Wedny Erskine, Lucy Caldwell and Caoilinn Hughes. "The response to the series has been phenomenal," says Zoë Comyns. "Across eight episodes, you'll hear three standout pieces selected by our guest writer for each prompt—fresh, original voices responding to the challenge in striking ways." In the first episode, '...the patron saint of…' was chosen as the prompt acclaimed writer Mike McCormack. The shorllist for this prompt featured eight talented writers: Amanda Bell – One for Sorrow John Paul Davies – Patron Saint of the Homeless Ben Donnellan – Matron Saint of Hopeless Cases Ella Gaynor – Patron Saint of Good Excuses Brendan Kileen – The Patron Saint Jackie Lynam – Patron Saint of Being Colm McAuliffe – I Hear You Call My Name Tom O'Brien – Pictures or It Didn't Happen Three pieces were selected blind from the shortlist read by Mike McCormack. They are by writers Colm McAuliffe, John Paul Davies and Brendan Kileen. Colm McAuliffe's story I Hear You Call My Name opens with the lines "It must have been around the spring of 1989 when my mother became fond of Fr Ryan. I can see now why she was drawn to him: as well as being charismatic, he possessed a great listening face and was one of those people you opened up to without realising." Colm says of his piece that it 'was an attempt to capture an innocence through childhood, parentage, and nationhood. I find myself reflecting on my own youth in the late 1980s and early 1990s and my obsessions with popular culture and how every magazine I read, or song I heard, felt like a tantalising entry point into another world which was just slightly out of reach.' I Hear You Call My Name revolves around the song Like a Prayer by Madonna: "I was almost seven and entering my Madonna phase," he says. "The three of us bonded over Like A Prayer, which was topping the charts at the time. While my mother had indicated a certain indignation over the lyrical content, Fr Ryan assured her that it was all above board and Madonna's faith was, indeed, quite sincere. I let on that I, too, had initially struggled with the song, but after some intense reflection, was happy to confirm the priest's hypothesis." Colm says that "the 'Patron Saint' prompt made me realise that some of those patron saints who facilitate those key moments can come from such blatantly obvious places that we can so easily miss them, especially once we reach a state of maturity." Mike McCormack says of this story that he never expected a piece as 'jubilant and joyous as this… it's funny and full of existential weight'. John Paul Davies' poem Patron Saint of the Homeless is an elegy to a man the writer remembers from his youth. "Tencoats was a legendary character from my childhood, and though not exactly a 'Patron Saint,' I hoped this figure could symbolise homelessness in some way. I was also thinking about 'the places we get to call home' – either intentionally or otherwise – and how uncertain having a place to live can suddenly become, regardless of a person's circumstances." Tencoats was said to live in the air raid shelter above the man-made waterfall on Spital Dam. In permanent dusk, the tramp's den a squat stone survivor from our school books. Listless on an idle end-of-summer day, we left the village to look for him. Mike McCormack calls this work 'sure and certain in deploying images' and 'echoes with the previous piece and the places we get to call home.' Mike says he is at a time in his life where he himself is meditating on the notion of home - 'is it a place, is it a time, is it other people?' - and this poem chimes with that. The final piece in the programme is by Brendan Kileen, exploring grief after the death of a boy from the point of view of another young boy. " After dinner Seanie's mother bursts into the kitchen and grabs Aine in a hug like we learnt at swimming – a hug to save a drowning person except I couldn't tell who was saving and who was drowning." Writer Brendan Kileen says 'This story is a fictionalised version of actual events. "My childhood friend, Barry died when I was a boy, having become ill a couple of years before. Barry was cared for at home by his own family, with huge love and affection and compassion and passion, especially by his parents, his mam, being an experienced nurse. Barry lay in a bed in the family living room throughout his illness. His eventual death was a huge event in the lives of his family, my family and the entire community in North Dublin. I remember feeling devastated by his death. I also recall observing how helpless the adults around me were in the face of their own grief and I began to understand that they did not have any more understanding than I had. This is probably the centre point of the story: me understanding their inability to understand what was happening." In the story to be broadcast on The Prompt a local publican looks after the young boy character, showing him kindness by minding him in his house. I never said much to Paddy Flynn but now he's standing above me in the rain. 'C'mon,' he says holding out his hand. Paddy manages a pub in town. He's a countryman. He takes me across the road to his house where his wife Kate is waiting. I sit on the sofa. A statue on the mantlepiece of an old man looks at me through painted eyes. He has wounds in both his hands. Paddy brings a coke in a real glass coke bottle and a huge, pub packet of Tayto crisps. He has a packet too. 'Now,' Paddy says, 'we're going to drink coke and eat all the crisps we can.' I look at the statue looking at me. 'Who's your man?' I ask. 'Who, him?' Paddy askes nodding at him. 'Him,' I say. 'He's the patron saint of misery,' Paddy's says looking right at me. Kate moves one folder arm to her neck and rubs it. 'What's misery?' I ask. 'Never mind pet, it's for grown-ups,' Kate says. Mike McCormack says the piece explores 'an incoherent grief' and is a 'beautifully balanced piece in three scenes' ending in a ' prayer, a comfort, a confusion'. The three selected pieces will be broadcast on Sunday, May 25th at 7.30pm on RTÉ Radio 1. Meet The Writers Colm McAuliffe is a writer from Co. Cork. He's written about popular—and unpopular—culture for The Guardian, Sight & Sound, frieze, and many others. He's currently working on his first novel. John Paul Davies is a former winner of the Penguin Ireland Story Award. He's been placed in the TU Dublin Story Prize and Waterford Poetry Prize, and published in Southword, Banshee, Crannóg, Manchester Review, Channel, Grain, and Sonder. Brendan Killeen is an Irish writer and editor living in Copenhagen. He won the 2022 RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Prize, and has been published in The Stinging Fly. Mike McCormack lectures in Creative Writing and is the author of four novels - Crowe's Requiem (1998), Notes from a Coma (2005), Solar Bones (2016) and This Plague of Souls (2023) and two collections of short stories - Getting It in the Head (1996) and Forensic Songs (2012). He is the Director of the MA (Writing) at University of Galway.
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Prompt: Deepfake Detection Is A Booming Business
Welcome back to The Prompt, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads. Now Meta is launching yet another app— this time focused on artificial intelligence. Meta AI is the social media giant's answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT. The standalone app is built on the company's latest model, Llama 4, and allows users to spin up images and search for information. The app can be connected to user's Meta accounts for a more personalized experience, as well. There's also a voice mode to have conversations with the AI, but it doesn't have real-time access to the internet. Now let's get into the headlines. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Take It Down Act, which makes it illegal to distribute nonconsensual pornographic images (including those generated with the help of AI) and requires social media platforms to remove such images within 48 hours of being reported. The bipartisan bill, endorsed by First Lady Melania Trump, comes as nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes rampantly spread across platforms like Reddit, Ebay and Etsy and many more after a surge in popularity of AI tools. Language learning app company Duolingo plans to stop paying contractors for the work that can be done by AI, its billionaire CEO Luis Von Ahn said in an all-hands email to employees. It also plans to make AI use a deciding factor of performance reviews and hiring and only allocate human headcount to jobs that can't be automated. The company, which is building an AI tutor to help people learn new languages, has added a slew of AI abilities within its app from an interactive game to a video calling AI 'friend.' Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke recently shared a similar note with his employees regarding AI use. Meta's AI companions, often modeled after popular celebrities and different characters, can engage in sexually explicit and romantic role play conversations with underage users as well as adults, according to multiple tests conducted by The Wall Street Journal. Senior leaders at the social media behemoth were reportedly aware of the chatbots' tendencies to foray into risque and explicit discussions and multiple staffers flagged their concerns internally. In 2024, Pindrop bolstered its offerings with a new product to use AI technology and determine if the caller is a machine or not. In January of last year, Atlanta-based startup Pindrop, a robocall and fraud-busting platform used mostly by call centers, had its 15 minutes of fame by defending the president. AI technology was being used to clone and impersonate former President Joe Biden's voice in New Hampshire, discouraging Democrats from voting. Pindrop was referenced across national media outlets as it accomplished what only a few in the space could: it identified the fraud at play and leveraged its massive collection of audio recordings to figure out what technology was used. Flash forward more than a year, and Pindrop has passed a new milestone in its more than 10 years of operations by reaching annual recurring revenue (signed contracts) worth more than $100 million. That growth is built on an increasingly lucrative offering in this new age of AI: Fighting deepfakes, or digitally created hoax recordings, images or videos, often used for nefarious reasons. 'Its growth reflects both the urgency of the challenge and the standout accuracy of its platform,' Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a Pindrop investor, told Forbes. Pindrop offers three main products that combat fraud and identity theft. Its core products authenticate phone calls by verifying the caller's voice or if they're calling from a trusted device. In 2024, it bolstered its offerings with a new product to use AI technology and determine if the caller is a machine or not. Pindrop's services are already used at the call centers of eight of the ten largest banks, to screen calls, identifying suspicious speech patterns and outing fraudsters. And the company has been making inroads into health care and retail in recent years. Fighting voice impersonation hasn't always been a booming business. Pindrop entered the deepfake space in 2017 and quickly was noticed for identifying false voice clips from a documentary about chef Anthony Bourdain in 2018. These early detection abilities would evolve into its proprietary deepfake-identifying product. Read the full story on Forbes. OpenAI has added new shopping-related features to ChatGPT that allow people to search for products, compare them based on reviews and get visual details about them. The search results direct people to the retailer's site where the transaction can be completed. OpenAI said the chatbot's answers are not ads and are determined independently Researchers from the University of Zurich secretly conducted an experiment on users on Change My View, a sub-Reddit where people post their opinions on different topics and invite others to challenge them. The study used AI bots to influence people's opinions by writing and posting hundreds of AI-generated comments. The bots, which personalized their responses based on the political orientation, age, gender and other attributes of the original poster, were about three to six times more successful than humans at persuading people, the study found.
