Announcing the Writers Selected for 2026’s National Mentoring Programme

After a national callout by the Irish Writers Centre for their National Mentoring Programme (NMP) in December 2025, 41 writers have been awarded places from a record number of applicants. Each writer will receive mentoring from an established writer over the course of 2026.

Founded in 1991, the Irish Writers Centre is Ireland’s leading resource and development organisation for writers. Its vision is to support the life of the writer at every stage of their career. As one of the largest writer mentoring programmes in Ireland, the National Mentoring Programme has an enormous impact on a writer’s journey by providing essential professional support, and this year saw an increase of over 150 applications from around the country. The programme is aimed at both emerging and established writers.

Since 2017, the programme has numerous published authors among its alumni including Amy Barry, Anne Walsh Donnelly, Geraldine Walsh, Molly Twomey, Sam Furlong, Simon Costello, and Tom Roseingrave to name just a few.

Last year’s mentor and National Mentoring Programme Judge Alan McMonagle, commented:

“As a practitioner always on the lookout for writerly wisdom myself, it has been very fulfilling for me to meet new writers, to spend time with their eagerness and enthusiasm, and to be in a position, via the NMP, to offer something that may contribute to their burgeoning talent.”

National Mentoring Programme 2025 Mentee Teri Donaghy was mentored by Jan Carson and had this to say about her experience:

“The National Mentoring Programme was a wonderful, enriching experience. I gained so much insight into the  process of how I write. The opportunity to incorporate constructive feedback, suggestions and comments was invaluable…”

The initiative is funded by a wide range of county councils, county arts centres and other organisations who guarantee that one or more writers from their counties are supported through the programme. This year’s supporting bodies are: 

Carlow County Arts Office, Cavan County Council, Dublin City Libraries & Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Arts Office, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Libraries, Droichead (Louth) Arts Centre, Fingal Arts, Galway City Arts Office, Kildare Arts Service, Kilkenny Arts Office, Laois County Council, Limerick City & County Arts Office, Mayo Arts Office, Meath Arts Office, Monaghan County Council, Offaly County Council, Roscommon Arts Centre, Sligo Arts Office, South Dublin Arts Office, The Source Arts Centre (Tipperary), Westmeath Arts Office, Wexford Arts Office and Wicklow Arts Office and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council, Ireland.

 

Selected Mentees

Laura Ambrose lives in Clare with her husband and children. A lifelong lover of stories, Laura’s writing is inspired by her work with young people. She writes for children and teens, and is currently working on a Young Adult novel.  Laura is a previous fellow of the Raising Voices Fellowship, offered as a collaboration between Children’s Books Ireland and the Arts Council.

Mary Clare Barnecutt is a Dublin-based musician and writer who was born in Belfast and grew up in Hull. She is concert programmer of the weekly Sunday concert series in the Hugh Lane Gallery, and co-director of Spike, Dublin’s alternative cello festival. She produces and records music on her label, Sharkwoman Records, and has released two albums, Into Air and Like Water as Mary and the Pigeons.  She has a M.Phil in Creative Writing from TCD and has had work published in The Stinging Fly, Cyphers and been shortlisted for the RTÉ Francis McManus Award.

Johannes Bulfin is a fly-fishing guide based in Offaly. His writing is comprised primarily of argumentative correspondence with government departments and social media posts for his business: Watershed Fly Fishing. He has, occasionally, written for journals such as Fly Culture (now unfortunately extinct), Trout and Salmon, and The Drake. His stress levels correlate directly with water-flow charts and Met Eireann predictions. He has a young family, who he is very grateful for, and often wonders what exactly it is that he brings to the table.

Joe Campbell is the author of the psychological thriller One Cold Kiss. He is also author of the upcoming, exciting YA adventure novel Barney Brewster and The Snows of Shambala. Joe hails from Belfast, Northern Ireland, now resides in County Carlow, is married with two daughters, both allegedly his, and Sadie the dog, allegedly theirs.

Derek Carney is a primary school teacher and writer based near the Sugarloaf Mountain in Co. Wicklow. He writes children’s and Young Adult fiction and has participated in several courses in the Irish Writers Centre, as well as being a long-term member of a writers’ group which started there. He is also a Book Doctor and reviewer with Children’s Books Ireland and most recently a member of the panel of judges for the 2026 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards.

Ronan Carr is a writer, actor and director based in Derry whose work spans theatre, film and radio. His credits include the BBC Radio 4 play The Barber of Moville and the RTÉ Radio Drama To Sean With Love. He won Best Short Film at the Galway Film Fleadh for Coolockland and co-wrote the feature film Rewind. He has also been commissioned to develop drama projects exploring social issues through performance and community collaboration. He is currently completing his debut novel, Clown Cuckoo Town, a satirical crime caper set in Derry.

Owen Churcher is a children’s book author and graphic design tutor working in north Dublin. He studied photography and multimedia. Owen worked in a series of bookshops, and in online learning before teaching. Owen is currently collaborating on a new series of picture books with his wife, the award-winning author and illustrator, Niamh Sharkey. Their titles together include: A Field Guide to Leaflings (Templar 2021) Hello Bird (Templar 2024) and their latest title Penguin TV (Gill Books 2025), shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards.

Abby Connolly is an emerging writer from Dublin. Her work is preoccupied with the absurd in the everyday and explores life in contemporary Ireland, driven by a strong character focus. Her fiction and non-fiction has been published in several Irish literary magazines.

Eddie Critchley is a graduate of English and Creative Writing (BA) from University of Galway. He works mainly in the short story form, drawing inspiration from writers such as Kevin Barry, Edna O’Brien and Flann O’Brien. His work was nominated for the SMEDIAS short story of the year in 2025. He has been selected to be a Young Writer Delegate for Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2026.

Niamh Cullen writes essays and short fiction. She has published essays in the Dublin Review, the Tangerine and the Stinging Fly, while her short fiction has been published in the London Magazine and the Irish Independent/New Irish Writing series. Her writing is concerned with motherhood and the body, history and folklore as well as the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. Originally from Dublin, she now lives in Belfast.

Gráinne Downey is an emerging writer originally from Newgrange, Co. Meath and now lives in the seaside village of Clogherhead, Co. Louth. Focussing on the short story genre she has published in the Munster Literature Centre’s literary journal Southword and was shortlisted for the 2005 Pencil short story competition. She has benefited from a number of Tyrone Guthrie Centre residencies. Committed to continual learning, she is deeply grateful to the teachers and writers who have guided and continue to inspire her. Her stories work to authentically and freshly describe what it is to be human.

Shona Doyle-Woods lives in Dublin. Her fiction has been published in journals such as The Ogham Stone, The Belfast Review, An Capall Dorcha, and The Bangor Literary Journal. She placed second in the Allingham Flash Fiction Competition and was shortlisted in Historical Novel Society UK’s First Chapters Competition. She has an M.Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin, is an alumna of Granta Workshops, and she received an Agility Award from the Arts Council. Her work in progress is a novel set in the north-east.

Briana Fitzsimons is a multiracial writer, educator, and mother of two who creates stories reflecting mixed-heritage identities that she longed for as a child. Originally from Yonkers, New York, she has lived in Ireland since 2017. She holds a BA from Boston College, an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh, and spent thirteen years teaching secondary school. She now delivers anti-racism training nationwide and is pursuing a PhD on belonging among multiracial students in Ireland. Her Irish Book Award–winning debut, Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers & Everyday Heroes (2023), is widely used in schools throughout the country.

Greg Flynn is a writer and lawyer from Maynooth, Co. Kildare. His work has appeared in Folding Rock, The Belfast Review, Sonder Magazine, The Wild Umbrella, and others. His story ‘My Daily Undoing’ was shortlisted for the Write by the Sea Festival Short Story Prize 2024. Greg is currently participating in The Stinging Fly’s Six-Month Fiction Writing Workshop 2025–2026 and is working toward his debut short story collection. Greg lives in Celbridge with his wife and their two dogs.

Simon Geraghty is a writer of literary fiction based in Co. Roscommon. He grew up in the Irish midlands, before spending two decades immersed in California’s glitz, energy, and false narratives. His writing explores the divergent possibilities of people’s lives, the power of the stories we tell the world and tell ourselves, and the unintended consequences of those stories. He was selected for The Stinging Fly new writers’ workshop in 2024, and the John Broderick Mentorship programme with Catherine Prasifka. He has a BA in English Literature and Philosophy from Trinity College. He is finishing his first novel.

Trudie Gorman is a writer, activist and youth worker based in Dublin. Her debut poetry collection Trust the Damage was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2023. In 2022 she was awarded a residency with Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris and in 2023 she was a Dublin Fringe Festival Artist in Residence. Trudie was selected for Poetry Ireland Versify Series in 2019 and was also shortlisted for the Creative Future Writing Award 2019. Her writing has been published in Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Poetry NI, Two Metre Review, Unapologetic Magazine, The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices and Washing Windows V: Women Revolutionise Irish Poetry, 1975-2025. She has performed her work across Ireland and the UK. She wrote the script for the interdisciplinary show Chronically Hopeful, which premiered at the Philarmonie, Luxembourg in November 2025.

Janet Hawkins is a Wicklow-based writer whose literary fiction explores how friendship can reshape a woman’s sense of her life, and how belief in a goal can make change possible. She owned the award-winning Blessington Bookstore & Coffeeshop, whose closure allowed her to focus on writing. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UCD (2024). Her debut screenplay, The Luckiest Village in Ireland, was shortlisted for the 2023 Galway Film Fleadh Pitching Competition. In 2025, she won the Maeve Binchy Travel Award, enabling her to travel across America, retracing the footsteps of Achill-born pilot Nancy Corrigan, inspiring her current novel.

Aaron Hickland is a writer from Loughinisland, County Down. He has been selected for Broken Silence’s Playwright’s Hive and a Writing for Children’s Television course with Myles McLeod through Screenskills. He has written for The Scene Podcast while his play PRIME MATE placed in the top 20% of entries of the Verity Bargate competition. For the past few years, he has been drafting his first middle grade novel with support from Inkwell Writers while attending classes with the Irish Writers Centre.

Sinéad Ingoldsby writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her essays have been broadcast on Sunday Miscellany, published in Ragaire, The Irish Times, BBC online, Timire, Tuairisc, and Meon Eile. Her first novel, Single White Fenian, won the 2024 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair, was long (long) listed for the 2023 Cheshire Novel Prize and is currently out on submission. Red Flags and Orange Men was staged at the 2025 Armagh Mini Plays Festival. She was placed third in the 2024 and 2025 Write by the Sea memoir competitions.
Sinéad graduated with a first-class honours MA in Creative Writing from University of Limerick.

Anja Jovanovic is a writer based in Dublin. Her work has appeared in English and Spanish, including in the anthology Riesgo de caída, and is forthcoming in The Spotlong Review. In 2025, she participated in The Stinging Fly’s Summer School under the guidance of Mary O’Donoghue. She holds an MPhil in Comparative Literature from Trinity College Dublin.

Sheila Killian is an award-winning Limerick author whose novel, Something Bigger (2021) is forthcoming in second edition from 451 Editions. Her short stories have been published in Ireland and the UK, and her poetry in Ireland and South Africa. She has had creative non-fiction broadcast on RTE and published in the national press. She has also published two non-fiction books and a wide range of peer-reviewed research articles.

She is a professional member of the Irish Writers Centre, and a member of Irish Pen, the Irish Writers Union, the Writepace writers’ collective in Limerick, and Achill Writers’ Group.

Daniela Krause is a bilingual writer, newly published author and emerging pop vocalist- songwriter, known under stage name Harlean Palfrey. She is settled in Spiddal, Co. Galway. With eighteen years across international industries, her writing carries the authority of lived experience. A 2025 Postgraduate in Creative Writing from the University of Galway, her work has appeared in the époque press ezine, issue 34 of ROPES literary journal, the Bard of Connacht Competition 2024 and the Cuirt International Festival of Literature 2025/2026. She is currently developing her debut Fantasy Fiction novel.

Alice Lynch completed a Masters in Drama and Theatre in UCD in 2011 and has been writing since then, winning several awards for her plays and reaching the top 5% in the International First Pages prize with her first novel for children.

Angela Lyons is a retired primary school teacher. Her debut novel, Pearl began when she won the Bryan McMahon Short Story Award in Listowel with a 3,000-word short story. She has been shortlisted for the Francis McManus Award (three years running), Listowel Writers Week (winner 2020, second place, 2019), Hennessey New Irish Writing among others. She was also selected to meet with a literary agent at ‘Date with an Agent’ at the 2025 Dublin Literature Festival. She has written for radio and has had many short plays performed in local theatres. She achieved First Class Honours in her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at DCU.

Morgan Lyons is a writer currently based in Westmeath with a passion for depicting queer joy, mental health and fantasy worlds full of female characters. Her poetry and fiction has been published by Good Day Cork, New Word Order, Lesbian Art Circle, Rainbow Library Anthology and The Louisville Review. Morgan holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCD, where she lectures in fiction. She is lead facilitator for Rainbow Library workshops in Cork, and has spoken at Dublin Book Festival and West Cork Literary Festival. Morgan is currently completing a YA fantasy manuscript.

Jessie Magee is a freelance writer and special needs assistant based in Knockmore, Co Mayo and originally from Co Wicklow. She won the Fish Poetry Prize, RTÉ’s 100 Words, 100 Books flash fiction prize and was published in two anthologies. Her work was commended for The Moth Poetry Prize. She took part in The Stinging Fly Summer School with Annemarie Ní Churreáin and in 2025, completed a mentorship programme with Carmel McMahon. After 25 years in Dublin, Jessie moved to north Mayo in search of the good life with her husband, daughter and a clatter of cats, chickens and guinea pigs.

Sinéad McClure was highly commended in the 2024 Patrick Kavanagh Awards and 2^nd runner up in the 2025 Mairtín Crawford Poetry Award.  She has published two chapbooks, The Word According to Crow (Calendar Road Press) and The songs I sing are sisters a collaborative work with the Scottish poet Cáit O’ Neill McCullagh (Dreich Press). Publishing credits include: Southword, The Stinging Fly, The Honest Ulsterman, Channel Magazine, The Poetry Bus and Live Encounters. Sinéad is a recipient of an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary and is currently putting the finishing touches to her first full collection.

Tanya McGinn (she/her) is a fiction writer from Monaghan. She was a bursary recipient of the John Hewitt Summer School 2025. Her flash fiction piece ‘Race Against Time’ will appear in the May 2026 edition of Impspired and will be her first published work. She is currently working on her first middle-grade novel. Tamely feminist, she hopes to raise her three kids as such, with the help of her sidekick/husband John. She is a primary teacher by trade and sneaks across the border from rural Monaghan to write.

Caitríona McGuire began writing in 2023, drawing on a broad range of life experiences. She has co-produced a documentary about her expedition to Sulawesi and has worked as a television stage manager, camerawoman, and frontline paramedic. She now works in cancer services and has been a member of the Gloria Gay Choir for twenty years. Caitríona lives in Dublin with her wife and two adult sons.

Lucy Murphy is a Dublin- born contemporary fiction writer of both long-form fiction and short stories. She is currently building a collection of short stories and working on a novel about love and tension within an extended family living in Dublin. She is an active member of All About Writing, a writing group for emerging writers.

Sarah Myers is a Storyteller with the Heritage in Schools program. She lives in Tullow, Co. Carlow. Her writing is inspired by Carlow’s history, mythology, and landscape. Sarah writes historical fiction and magical realism for all ages. Terry Pratchett, Catherine Doyle, and Sarah J. Maas are among her biggest writing influences. Gothic, humorous, and heartfelt, Sarah’s stories are set in Ireland and explore themes of loss, isolation, and growth. Sarah is currently working on a young adult novel the Earthbound, set in Victorian Ireland.

Úna Nic Cárthaigh is from West Cork but lives in Galway. She has a degree in Communications from the University of Galway and a Professional Master of Education from Mary Immaculate College. Her short stories and poems for adults have been published in literary magazines Howl, Comhar and Aneas and she writes reviews of children’s books for InTouch, Inis, Love Leabhar Gaeilge, Books Ireland Magazine and Tuairisc.ie. She won third prize at the Dingle Literary Festival short story competition in 2024 and won the Cúirt New Writing Prize (Gaeilge) in 2025.

Nora O’ Murchú is a writer, curator, and researcher whose work explores how digital infrastructures shape culture, politics, and collective life. Writing across critical essays, academic journals, artists’ books, and exhibition catalogues, she examines the ontology of computation and the ways technical systems organise power, extract value, and shape contemporary experience. She is co-editor of Are You a Software Update? (Aksioma, 2025) and A Short Incomplete History of Technologies That Scale (Aksioma/transmediale, 2023). Her texts have appeared in The Journal of Curatorial Studies, OVER Journal, and IEEE MultiMedia, as well as in commissioned publications for MMCA Seoul, the National Asian Culture Center, the Ars Electronica Prix catalogue, and Kerber Verlag. From 2020 to 2024 she was Artistic Director of transmediale in Berlin. She is Professor at the University of Limerick and is currently writing Irish Cosmotechnics: Towards Collective Technologies.

Holly Packham is a twenty-seven-year-old music teacher and aspiring writer from Dublin. Music and books are her world, and it was inevitable that the two would meet and inspire. In fact, every single one of her novel ideas have sprouted from a particular piece of classical music.

Nigel Quinlan has written two books for children – The Maloney’s Magical Weatherbox and The Cloak of Feathers – several short stories, and at least one poem. He was writer in residence at Nenagh Arts Centre and has reviewed books for Children’s Books Ireland. He lives in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary.

Kareen Pennefather is a writer, theatre maker and scriptwriter, living in Co Kilkenny. Co-founder and Artistic Director of Trickster, she has written and directed original work for stage and audio for over two decades. Her audio drama The Listener, produced for RTÉjr, won the IMRO Gold Award for Best Drama in 2023. Born in the North Pennines with Irish roots, she came to Ireland to study Theatre and Philosophy at the University of Ulster, and has been here ever since. She is currently working on her debut novel.

Dominic Stevens is a writer and architect who lives in New Ross, Co. Wexford.  His collection of illustrated short stories Architectural Tales was published in 2024 by Gandon Editions and his first novel The Coloured Room was a winner in the 2024 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair and is out on submission. His short story ‘Dream of a Lost Friend’ was published in Winter Papers, and another, On the Stairs in the Irish Independent. He is working on Spiral, a paranormal eco-thriller about a celebrity architect possessed by the spirit of an ancient shaman.

Margaret Anne Suggs is an illustrator, author and lecturer. The Dandelion’s Tale – An Allegory of Migration, was nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal in Illustration and Robin and Pip was selected for the 2025 Golden Pen of Belgrade Exhibition. Her work reflects themes of migration, belonging and nature. Mags is a member of Illustrators Ireland and is the Administrator of the Silent Book Collections for IBBY Ireland. She was the Jury Chairperson for the 2023 Bratislava Illustration Biennial and is serving on the 2026 International Jury for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards. Her illustration work is held in the National Library.

Derval Tubridy is a poet whose work responds to the intimate traces that bind and blind. Born in Bandon, Co. Cork, she is based in Dublin. Author of Thomas Kinsella: The Peppercanister Poems (UCD Press, 2001) and Samuel Beckett and the Language of Subjectivity (Cambridge UP, 2018) she is Professor Emerita of Goldsmiths, London. Winner of the 2023 Red Line Poetry Competition, she was shortlisted for the 2024 Poetry Business International Pamphlet competition, the 2024 Fool For Poetry Chapbook competition and the Patrick Kavanagh Prize 2025. Her poetry has been published in The Stinging Fly, Howl, The Irish Times, The Stony Thursday Poetry Book, The Monster’s Back, and The North.

Suzanne Walsh/Zan Breathnach is a writer and cross-disciplinary artist from Co.Wexford. They write creative-non fiction, poetry, and fiction. They also work with experimental text for performance, recordings, and installation, as well as with sound/voice. Recent art-works also play with language, including Irish, Latin, and the Yola dialect of Wexford. They’ve published essays and art-writing for the art-world for various art publications, and galleries. Their work has been published by Paper Visual Art Journal, Mirror Lamp Press, Fallowmedia, gorse journal, and Winter Papers. They are currently working on a publication with Veer 2 press.

Jess Worsdale is a writer living in Belfast. She holds an MA in Prose Fiction from UEA. Her novel-in-progress, speculative fiction exploring the capitalisation of mental health and climate anxiety, was longlisted for the Discoveries Prize (Women’s Prize/Curtis Brown) and shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award and the Mslexia Novel Competition. Her short fiction has been published in Banshee, Five South, The Belfast Review and elsewhere.