Writing Short Stories with Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

Course Summary:

These introductory workshops will give you guidelines on how to shape your raw material into a story. So, what will you actually do? You will read some great short stories by established writers, selected by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne. These short stories will be available online, or sent to you by email.

Course Outline:

In class, you will be shown techniques for putting together short stories of various kinds – they are not all the same, you know! You’ll look at the modernist epiphany type short story (think, Joyce, John McGahern, Claire Keegan) a twist in the tale short story (think O Henry) and an experimental short story (e.g. Donald Barthelme, June Caldwell).

Course Outcomes:

You will write your own examples of each kind, or whichever kind you want to write – most people will want to write an epiphany type story, or perhaps an experimental kind. Twist in the Tail is a little bit outdated, and also rather hard!

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a well-known writer of fiction, drama and memoir. She has published over thirty books, won many literary awards, including the PEN Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature, a Hennessy Hall of Fame Award, several Bisto Awards for Children’s Literature, and many others. Her memoir, Twelve Thousand Days (Blackstaff 2018) was shortlisted for the Michel Déon Award (RIA) for non-fiction in 2020. She is an experienced teacher of Creative Writing, and has taught at University College Dublin, Trinity College, Boston College, and the Irish Writers Centre.

She has just edited a collection of 21 memoir essays by Irish writers born in the mid-20th century: Look! It’s a Woman Writer! (Arlen House, 2021)