Eight-Week Starter Kit with Jean O’Brien

Course Summary

A beginner or refresher course for anyone who wants to write and is unsure of what genre they want to follow. Most people have a story they want to tell and this course will help you tell it. Perhaps you have already begun to write a little or have been thinking about it.  Poetry, the short story, flash fiction and memoir will be explored and you can test your hand at any of these in a friendly and encouraging atmosphere.

Course Outline

Participants will focus on discovering what genre of writing might best suit them and the story they may have to tell.  During the course, work by known and established writers will be explored and there will be group discussion on the themes, styles and storylines arising from such. 

Participants are expected to produce work, both in-class and as coursework. 

This in-class writing and coursework is very useful for constructive feedback and in self-editing.

Course Outcomes

The participants should have a much clearer idea of where they want to take their work from here on, with loads of advice on the ‘how’ and ‘where’ and ‘why’ of writing and with suggestions for sending work out for possible publication.

Jean O’Brien has facilitated many creative writing workshops in places as diverse as prisons, schools, community groups and festivals and at post graduate level. An award winning writer she received a Kavanagh Fellowship in 2017/18. She was the Writer in Residence in the Centre Culturel d’ Irelandais in Paris last November. She has six books to her name, her latest Stars Burn Regardless was published by Salmon Publishing in Spring 2022. She holds an M.Phil in creative writing from Trinity College, Dublin. Ireland.

www.jeanobrien.ie