Author Archives for IWC_admin

IWC Ambassador Anne Enright shortlisted for International Dublin Literary Award

April 11, 2017 1:58 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

The Green Road, by Irish Writers Centre ambassador Anne Enright has been shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. The award is the the world’s most valuable prize for a single work of fiction published in English.  The winner will be selected by the five member international judging panel, chaired by Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan, and announced by Lord Mayor, Brendan Carr, Patron of the Award, on Wednesday 21 June. The IWC is delighted to congratulate Anne on this achievement and proud to have her as an ambassador for the centre! See the full shortlist below and read more about the awards here. International Dublin Literary Award shortlist 1. A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa (Angolan) Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn. 2. Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto (Mozambican) Translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw.... Read Moreread more.


Women Across Borders

April 5, 2017 9:22 am Published by Leave your thoughts

On Saturday 11 March, the Irish Writers Centre marked the occasion of International Women’s Day with WomenXBorders, an all-island cross-border event that brought women from all corners of the country together to take part in a readathon and panel events at 19 Parnell Square. Of this group, over half travelled from Northern Ireland with Women Aloud NI, honouring their name by reading aloud from their works on the train between Belfast and Dublin. They arrived laden with gifts for the centre: writers who had published books in print arranged a selection in the reception area. 19 Parnell Square came to life with the energy and enthusiasm of women keen to connect and network, to hear and learn about each other’s writing lives. The main event kicked off in the Kiely room with welcoming words from IWC director Valerie Bistany, IWC chairperson Liz Mc... Read Moreread more.


5 NORTHERN IRELAND BOOKS BY WOMEN TO BE PROUD OF

March 8, 2017 10:21 am Published by Leave your thoughts

Looking at ‘Five Northern Ireland books to be proud of’ – last week the Mid-Ulster Mail drew up a list of five books by male writers for World Book Day – we thought we could balance the books on the day that’s in it. 5 NORTHERN IRELAND BOOKS BY WOMEN TO BE PROUD OF 1. HETTY GRAY – NOBODY’S BAIRN by Rosa Mulholland, a popular children’s classic, published in 1884. Belfast-born Rosa Mulholland (also known as Lady Gilbert, 1841 – 1921) was an Irish poet, playwright and author of novels for adults and children. Charles Dickens is credited with helping to launch her literary career by publishing one of her novels in the periodical All the Year Round. The book focuses on the childhood and progression into adulthood of ‘Hetty Gray’, a child who has been found after a shipwreck, and who is... Read Moreread more.


Announcing the Jack Harte Bursary recipient for 2017

December 13, 2016 12:39 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

Last week we were delighted to award Henrietta McKervey the Jack Harte Bursary at a celebratory evening with IWC members and friends, on Thursday 8 December at the Irish Writers Centre. This is the third year of the Bursary which is presented in association with Annaghmakerrig at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and offers writers a two-week fully resourced residency in spring 2017. The award was named in Jack Harte’s honour as the unsung hero of the literary scene; he has been instrumental in the establishment of the Irish Writers’ Union and, later, the Irish Writers Centre. Liz Nugent was the first recipient of the award in 2015 and Sarah Moore Fitzgerald was the 2016 recipient. Henrietta McKervey is a fiction writer and design and advertising copywriter. She has published two novels: What Becomes of Us (Hachette, 2015) and The Heart of Everything... Read Moreread more.


Beyond words

November 28, 2016 3:31 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

Recently we were thrilled to launch our 25th anniversary anthology, Beyond the Centre: Writers in their own words, at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast on 16 November. We were even more delighted when Carlo Gébler agreed to help us launch the anthology, little did we know that his speech would be a tribute not only to the Centre — but to the writers who comprise such a vital part of it. Read on for Carlo’s full speech. “In 1978 the New Review, literary magazine, English, held a symposium on the state of fiction: 56 writers supplied replies to a questionnaire.   The respondents varied in age from mid-twenties to mid-sixties and they gave very different but very detailed replies. Peter Vansittart (1920 – 2008), 1st published novel 1942, 688 copies sold, described himself as, ‘fairly hopeful’ about being a writer. Auberon Waugh, son... Read Moreread more.


Eejit

November 24, 2016 2:33 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

Last year after the publication of my short story ‘SOMAT’ in The Long Gaze Back, I was asked to contribute to various events and public readings. I decided in advance to say a big resounding YES to anything I was asked to write/do, as an important part (for me) of being a writer is taking on the challenge of reading in public. I took part in a lot of fun events, the Barrytown Trilogy Readings in Dun Laoghaire when Colm Keegan was Writer-in-Residence, The Bogman’s Canon Fiction Disco, Staccato, National Concert Hall, among others.  What I learnt was that writing for public readings demands a different type of narrative, one that is less complex than, say, a short story for the page, where the reader is deliberately left thinking about what is inferred— particularly with endings — instead these pieces... Read Moreread more.


Irish Writers Centre launches Northern Ireland Programme

November 16, 2016 3:32 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

Image: Pictured at the programme launch are: Valerie Bistany, Irish Writers Centre, Damian Smyth, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and writers Jack Harte and Martin Devlin. The Irish Writers Centre (IWC), with support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s National Lottery funding, is extending its programming into Northern Ireland with a series of specialized courses and residentials in Belfast, Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone. The prestigious Dublin-based institution is also offering 20 free professional memberships to local writers.  The IWC, which supports and promotes writers at all stages of their development, announced the details at a special event, hosted at the Crescent Arts Centre, on Wednesday evening. The information session was attended by writers from across Northern Ireland and provided an in-depth look at the services and resources that the Centre can offer emerging and professional writers, such as workshops,... Read Moreread more.


The Novel Fair Reject’s Tale

October 17, 2016 2:48 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

As the Novel Fair deadline approaches (21 October 2016), we went back through our winners’ stories and were reminded of the old adage, ‘if at first you don’t succeed…’ This week we hear from Aidan J. Herron and how he went from Novel Fair longlistee to sitting across from publishers and agents just two years later…  There was no going back once I dropped my entry into the postbox. I was committed. Writing for educational purposes, familiar territory to me, was one thing. Entering an open competition like the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2013 was quite another. I had never submitted my work to anybody for comment before nor was I part of a writers’ group so I had no idea of what others would think of it. But I believed in my story. And I also had some... Read Moreread more.


Interview with Lisa Harding

October 28, 2016 1:08 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

Lisa Harding is a writer I truly admire. She nails *voice* like no-one else I know both in her short stories and in her newly-penned novels. This month (October) she signed with New Island Books for a controversial novel about trafficked teenagers (published next Spring) and she’s also Writer in Residence with Pavee Point in association with the Irish Writers Centre. I meet with Lisa fortnightly at our writer’s group in Brooks Hotel on Drury Street, so am familiar with her work and also with her struggle to stay earning while pursuing a life as a writer. I wanted to ask her some relevant questions that may be of use to other writers starting out on a similar track. Let’s start with where things are at for you at the moment and that includes being on the radio recently to... Read Moreread more.


The Devilry of a Writer’s Workshop

October 12, 2016 2:18 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

June Caldwell, our Online Writer-in-Residence this autumn, gives a fly-on-the-wall account of what it’s like to take part in writing workshops – and why she keeps going back for more… People sometimes ask why I still bother with writing workshops. You get the: ‘But you’ve been published in journals, you’re on all these shortlists, you seem to know what you’re doing?’ Knowing it’s all a bit excruciating, obsessional, frustrating, maddening…that dealing with loneliness is a big part of being a writer. Not being sure if any of it is any good anyway: mollycoddling your own unmovable masochism. Yet there is something really peculiar that happens your own writing when you’re surrounded by people pushing the boundaries with theirs. It’s contagious and corrupting; reading the crushed muffle of someone else’s secrets, their desires, their strange reveries, their intuitions, their truth. How others in the room perceive those words differently on the page/screen, how the tutor feels it could or should work better. What... Read Moreread more.


On the fair treatment of writers…

October 11, 2016 3:13 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

In light of recent social media attention, the Irish Writers Centre would like to reaffirm that, as a resource and development organisation for writers at all stages of their career, it seeks to support, promote and inform writers through its programmes. While we support writers on broad issues of advocacy (such as fee rates), we would generally advise writers to approach the Irish Writers’ Union (whose specific remit it is) to advocate on their behalf. Therefore we fully endorse the statement made by Ruth Hegarty of Publishing Ireland in The Irish Times (11 October 2016), where she says: ‘We would encourage any writer who is experiencing difficulties with their respective publishers to approach the Irish Writers’ Union for help.’ ‘All authors are entitled to royalty schedules and payments if in their contract.’ We believe that it is in the interests of... Read Moreread more.


Novel Fair: Walking on Eggshells

October 6, 2016 7:36 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

The deadline for Novel Fair 2017 is a mere two weeks away. With that in mind Catriona Lally reflects on her experiences of the Fair and how her novel Eggshells developed as a result of this. It was at a launch at the Irish Writers Centre and I just happened to see a poster for the Novel Fair. I looked it up and thought that it would be a brilliant deadline; a novel can be the kind of thing that just sits on your computer for years. I really need some kind of structure and deadline to get anything done, so aiming for October and then for February to have it finished was fantastic.  Mid-October is the deadline to submit the novel and you then have three months to complete it so that you’re ready for the Fair in February.... Read Moreread more.


Announcing our inaugural Online Writer-in-Residence

October 4, 2016 2:39 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

We’re delighted that June Caldwell will be our inaugural Online Writer-in-Residence. Stay tuned for updates from her in the coming months. In the meantime she was in the Centre recently so we took the opportunity to chat with her about the moral elements of writing for Humans of No. 19.  ‘For years I thought I chose the wrong path because I was never happy with journalism, I hated it. Now I look back and I think that was really great grounding for my writing. To me creative writing is a moral form, it’s a way to look at the connection between human behaviour, events and how we perceive things. That’s what is so interesting about creative writing compared to journalism; you’re limited by what you can do in journalism, you’re only writing the facts but with creative writing you can take... Read Moreread more.


Humans of No. 19 – June Caldwell

September 15, 2016 10:11 am Published by Leave your thoughts

June Caldwell was in the Centre this week so we took the opportunity to chat with her about the moral elements of writing. #humansofno19 #writersofinstagram #irishwriterscentre June is our inaugural Online Writer-in-Residence so stay tuned for more from her. And, we’re thrilled to announce the exciting news that June has just signed with New Island for a short story collection, due 2017. Whoop!   ‘For years I thought I chose the wrong path because I was never happy with journalism, I hated it. Now I look back and I think that was really great grounding for my writing. To me creative writing is a moral form, it’s a way to look at the connection between human behaviour, events and how we perceive things. That’s what is so interesting about creative writing compared to journalism; you’re limited by what you can do... Read Moreread more.