Author Archives for IWC_admin

Introducing the IWC/Cúirt Young Delegates

April 18, 2018 4:41 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

This week we are delighted to announce the selected IWC/Cúirt Young Writer Delegates! Congratulations to Jack Sheenan, Gloria McNeely, Supriya Dhaliwal, and Rachel Sargent who will be attending the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway this April for four days of full literary immersion. The selected four young writers will be given festival passes and accommodation for four days of full literary immersion in its events and activities. During this period, they will be supported by an IWC facilitator and mentor Alan McMonagle to reflect on the festival and share their views on the experience.  Keep an eye across our social media over the coming weeks to follow the group and find out more about the programme over on our blog! Full information on this year’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature programme is available at www.cuirt.ieread more.

Announcing our new Community Writer-in-Residence with the Irish Wheelchair Association

March 29, 2018 10:18 am Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

We are delighted to announce that playwright Rosaleen McDonagh will be working as our newest Community Writer-in-Residence with the Irish Wheelchair Association. Rosaleen McDonagh is a frequent contributor to Sunday Miscellany RTE Radio1 and also a columnist for the Irish Times. She is also a performer & member of Aosdána & is a board member of Pavee Point & Project Art Centre. Her theatre work includes; The Baby Doll Project, She’s Not Mine, and Rings. ‘Mainstream’ was produced  in 2017. Rosaleen will adapt Colum McCann’s novel ‘Zoli’, which is a fictionalised narrative of Papusza, a Roma poet, for production in 2019 with Fishamble Theatre Company. She has worked with Graeae Theatre Company and holds a BA, two MPhils from Trinity College Dublin.  Rosaleen is currently a PhD candidate in Northumbria University.  Rosaleen who has cerebral palsy, is a member of... Read Moreread more.

IWC’s first Roaming Writer-in-Residence is announced

January 31, 2018 5:43 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

Congratulations to Jan Carson who has been selected as our first ever Roaming Writer-in-Residence! Jan will travel by train to various universities throughout Ireland, where she will facilitate workshop with Creative Writing students. She will be working with the students to create and send “Postcard Stories”; pieces of micro-fiction written on postcards.  Jan is a Belfast-based writer and currently has published one novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears (Liberties Press, 2014), a short story collection, Children’s Children (Liberties Press, 2016) and a microfiction collection, Postcard Stories (Emma Press, 2017). Her next novel will be published in spring 2019. What is the Roaming Writer-in-Residence? Funded by ACNI and in partnership with Irish Rail and Translink, this is the Irish Writers Centre’s first ever mobile all-island residency working with a Roaming Writer-in-Residence (WIR). Travelling from north to south on our railway lines, the Roaming WIR will listen to voices... Read Moreread more.

Announcing the Novel Fair 2018 Finalists

January 29, 2018 11:35 am Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

Announcing the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2018 finalists – as selected by judges Anthony Glavin, Nuala O’Connor and Mairead Brady Twelve aspiring novelists have been selected from almost 250 applicants to participate in the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2018, an annual Irish Writers Centre initiative which will take place on Saturday 17 February. Now in its sixth year, the event presents a unique opportunity to gain face time with some of the most influential people in Irish publishing, and could truly kick-start a literary career for this year’s winners. Congratulations to this year’s winners who have been named as: Caroline Bale David Brennan Niamh Donnelly Aingeala Flannery Martin Keating Amanda Leahy Guy Le Jeune Joseph McDonnell Sean McNulty Adrienne Michel-Long Susanne Stich Bill Tinley The judging panel, who have remained anonymous up until this point, can now be... Read Moreread more.

New Community Writers-in-Residence in Northern Ireland

January 25, 2018 11:50 am Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

This week we are delighted to announce our two newest Community Writers-in-Residence in Northern Ireland; Mel Bradley with the Rainbow Project, Foyle and Deirdre Cartmill with Women’s Aid, Belfast. Congratulations to both writers and we look forward to seeing the work that they produce with their respective organisations!read more.

XBorders: Accord Participants Announced

January 10, 2018 12:26 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

We are delighted to announce the selected participants of the 2018 XBorders: Accord project. On foot of the exceptional success of the inaugural XBorders project in 2017, we will be continuing the project in 2018 as XBorders:Accord. As with last year’s project, ways of seeing and thinking about borders, their potential for art, and in particular, writing, will be explored. In 2018 the project will focus on ways of addressing conflict through various conflict-resolution means, such as negotiation, mediation, peace-building and political discourse towards building an accord. The notion of borders may be loosely interpreted in the act of writing, and can reflect inter-personal as well as concrete boundaries. The participants of XBorders have been selected.  Sue Divin Maeve O’Lynn James Patterson Marie O’Halloran Marcel Krueger Therese Kieran Susanne Stich Eli Davies R.M. Clarke Rory Duffy Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan Fionn Murray Orla McAlinden... Read Moreread more.

Nollaig Shona

December 14, 2017 3:57 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

We at the Irish Writers Centre would like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! The IWC will be closed for the Christmas break from Wednesday 20 December to Wednesday 3 January.  We look forward to welcoming you to the centre again in 2018. read more.

Life is very grey when I am not telling stories – New Irish Communities

October 3, 2017 4:37 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

Writing has always been part of my life. Introverted, I was mostly bored at school, sitting at the back of the class in Salvador city, Brazil, making up my own stories. My best friends were the journals I kept. When the time came to choose a profession, I wanted to be a pen for hire. So I became a journalist, a job that I embraced for a couple of decades, along with my work in Public Relations. I travelled to Ireland in 2010, and what was intended as a one-year sabbatical became a seven year stay, and counting. I was determined, but paid a price. I couldn’t get a writing-related job as my English wasn’t fluent enough. Alarmingly, the more my English improved, the more my Portuguese went downhill. So there I was, scared that I would end up with... Read Moreread more.

In Memoriam – Elizabeth O’Carroll

September 14, 2017 3:11 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

We were very saddened to hear of the sudden passing of one of our beloved IWC members Elizabeth O’Carroll, a founder member of the Bealtaine writers’ group.  The group originated in a series of workshops offered by the Irish Writers Centre and Age and Opportunity as part of the Bealtaine Festival celebrating creativity in older people in May 1999.  She taught creative writing and was also published in various publications, including two Bealtaine Writers Poetry Anthologies. A former teacher, born in County Armagh, she is the mother of six and grandmother of eleven, and was an avid and engaged gardener, painter and poet. Kindness was one of her strong attributes and she was always so generous with her time and energy; she was interested in others and loved being with them. The entire IWC team will miss her coming in... Read Moreread more.

Novel Fair – It Could Be You!

September 11, 2017 11:28 am Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

I’m not a great one for entering competitions or indeed for any kind of prizes that involve having to add extra work to my day in the hope of … maybe…perhaps… or with a little luck, who knows? However, in 2013 something caught my eye in the multitude of emails and writerly information that passes in front of most aspiring writers eyes on a weekly basis. It was a post, on some thread, off out in the ether, talking about the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair. I’m still not sure what made me follow that post up. But, I must have clicked through and read more and eventually come to the IWC page. I do remember looking at the novel I’d just finished and thinking, well, why not? You see, I’d been writing, scribbling away, quietly for years. Eventually, I worked... Read Moreread more.

Irish Writers Centre Summer 2017 Survey

June 15, 2017 4:22 pm Published by IWC_admin Leave your thoughts

We have launched our summer survey to help us learn more about the IWC community and how to improve our services around the country. The survey takes less than five minutes and puts you in the running to win a free course of your choice! Fill out the survey here >>>read more.