Speak Up! Performance Skills for Writers with Siobhan Mac Mahon
Info
Date: May 9, 2026
Time: 10.30 am – 4.30 pm
Duration: 1 day
Level: Advanced | Intermediate | Beginner |
Cost: €120 (€108 Members)
In Person:
This course will take place in-person on Saturday 9 May at the Irish Writers Centre.
Course Summary
A lively and enabling workshop promoting confidence in writers to read/perform their own work in public
There will be a one hour break for lunch.
Course Outline
The morning will be spent doing drama warm-ups and vocal exercises, giving you the skills and confidence to do justice to your words at a reading.
We will explore: Voice, body-language, ‘stage’ presence, microphone skills, eye contact and engagement with the audience.
The afternoon will be spent practicing your skills with your own piece/pieces of writing, culminating in a short reading/performance of your piece.
Bring along a piece/s of your own writing (Poetry, prose, memoir etc.) and come prepared to move!
Course Outcomes
You will leave feeling invigorated and inspired, with the skills and confidence to read your work in public and really bring it alive for your audience.
Siobhan Mac Mahon (MA Creative Writing UCD) is an award-winning poet who has been writing and performing her poetry for over twenty five years. She is an experienced and skilled facilitator, who has many years of creating and delivering writing and performance workshops in a wide range of communities and settings. Siobhan has collaborated extensively with other artists to create Spoken Word projects, combining poetry with music, dance and with film. She was the winner of WOMAD Festival poetry slam, The Ilkley Literature Open Mic. and the Sheffield, Off the Shelf Literature Festival Open Mic. She has been poet in residence for The International Permaculture Conference, London and for the Brigid of Faughart Festival, Dundalk.
Siobhán has run Speak Up! workshops with many writer’s groups in the UK and in Ireland. Siobhan has also worked freelance, as a writer, with community groups, with schools, with writer’s groups and with many arts organisations (Artworks Creative Communities, Kala Sangham, Artforms, Fabric, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Thomas Danby College, East Leeds FM radio, Creative Partnerships) Siobhan’s experience and training enables her to put participants at ease so that they can achieve their best potential. Much of the focus of her work has been delivering creative writing workshops to vulnerable groups.
