Start Your Newsletter with Aoife Barry

Course Summary

Want to start writing your own newsletter/blog but don’t know where to start? Want to figure out your own niche and make your writing stand out? This course is for newcomers to newsletters/blogs, exploring how to figure out your niche, construct a newsletter that will be appealing to readers, how to attract new readers, and the basics of how to edit your own work.

Course Outline

This course will begin with the essentials of finding your niche, and learning the basic fundamentals of writing a compelling piece.

You will examine your intention as a writer, what your aims are for your newsletter/blog, what your niche is and the ideal platforms for your newsletter/blog.

You will draft one newsletter entry during the course and during the class we will discuss this piece and tips about layout and presentation. We will then explore some basic fundamentals of self-editing and why editing is so important.

The six-week course will include reflection exercises, writing, sharing your writing, reading and discussing examples of newsletters/blogs.

Through thinking, reading and writing, you will learn more about how to make your own writing stand out online and will leave feeling confident about starting your own newsletter/blog.

The final week will include a Q&A session with Aoife, who writes the Sweet Oblivion newsletter and is an experienced journalist and writer.

Course Outcomes

After completing this course, you will have clarity about your niche as a newsletter/blog writer. You will be confident about publishing your first newsletter piece.

Crucially, you’ll understand the basic rules of writing, constructing and editing a newsletter/blogpost that tells your story or narrative in a compelling way – and how to break those rules when you want to!

Aoife Barry is a freelance journalist and author of Social Capital: Life Online in the Shadow of Ireland’s Tech Boom (HarperCollins Ireland, 2023), which was nominated for an Irish Book Award. She writes the culture newsletter Sweet Oblivion on Substack. She spent 12 years working for the news website TheJournal.ie as a reporter and assistant news editor, and has written for online audiences via blogs and websites since the early 2000s. She is arts columnist with the Sunday Times’ Culture Magazine and has bylines in the Sunday Times, Irish Times, Irish Independent, Business Post, Examiner, RTÉ.ie, Tatler and others, and appears regularly on RTÉ Radio, including a monthly slot on Today with Claire Byrne. She has received an Arts Council Agility Award and was selected for the Irish Writers Centre’s Evolution programme in 2023.

Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.