share their skills in poetry, fiction, theatre, and screen – with workshops in song writing, comic writing and storytelling also subsequently added. Writers' Week also provides a programme of literary events including lectures, readings, workshops, book launches, seminars, theatre, literary and historical tours, art exhibitions, music and dance. Competitions are also held, together with a series of literary awards. The total prize fund of €35,000 includes the Kerry Group Novel of the Year and The Pigott Poetry Prize. Participants have included: Nobel Laureate and Booker Prize-winner J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Booker Prize winners Kazuo Ishiguro, John Banville, James Kelman and Anne Enright, Poets Laureate Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy, and Andrew Motion, playwrights Tom Murphy, Brian Friel, Roddy Doyle, Frank McGuinness and Hugh Leonard, poets Michael Hartnett, Leland Bardwell, John Montague, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Roger McGough, Rita Ann Higgins and Kate Cruise O'Brien, and other novelists and writers including Blake Morrison, Chris Whyte, Lionel Shriver, Colm Tóibín, Jennifer Johnston, John McGahern, Joseph O'Neill, Sebastian Barry, Joseph O'Connor, Hugo Hamilton, Edna O'Brien, Douglas Kennedy, Patrick McGrath, William Trevor, Colum McCann, Gerard Donovan, Frank McCourt, Irvine Welsh, Robyn Rowland, Andrew Lindsay, Michael Cunningham, Jane Urquhart, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Cees Nooteboom, Michael Dibdin, Abdel Bari Atwan, Clive James, Melvyn Bragg, Alain De Botton, Lloyd Jones, Robert Fisk, Jung Chang, Terry Jones, Gabriel Byrne, and Graham Norton. John B. Keane of Listowel wrote: Beautiful Listowel, serenaded night and day by the gentle waters of the River Feale. Listowel where it is easier to write than not to write, Where first love never dies, and the tall streets hide the loveliness, The heartbreak and the moods, great and small, Of all the gentle souls of a great and good community. Sweet, incomparable hometown that shaped and made me. Listowel Food Fair The Listowel food Fair has been running annually since 1995. The festival promotes local artisan food products, and attracts celebrity chefs, nutritionists and artisan food entrepreneurs. Political representation At Irish local government level, the town of Listowel is located in the Municipal District of Listowel, which is named after the town. This is one of the six municipal districts in County Kerry, each of which also acts as a local electoral area (LEA) for the purpose of returning members to the local authority. The Listowel LEA currently elects six of the 33 members of Kerry County Council. In the 2019