Writing the Unspeakable: War and Conflict with Priscilla Morris

Course Summary:

This six-week course will explore how to write powerful conflict and war fiction from the civilian point of view. It’s ideal for those writing war stories, fiction with a conflict backdrop, or where a particular scene or chapter is set during a period of conflict. Intended for readers and writers of war and conflict literature, this course will help you develop a deeper understanding of how war and conflict fiction works.

Course Outline:

The first part of each class will involve discussion of the weekly topic and a relevant fiction extract. The second part will focus on developing your writing, through writing tasks and workshops. 

 Depending on participant interest, weekly topics may include: 

• What makes for good war and conflict fiction  
• Place and the upturning of the normal 
• Capturing life in a conflict zone 
• Siege fiction 
• The civilian point of view 
• Through a woman’s eyes 
• Bombs, shelling, gunfire: crafting action scenes 
• Writing the unspeakable 
• Character and questions of representation 
• Beginnings and endings 
• Research, plotting and timelines 
• PTSD, dealing with loss and trauma, starting again 

Every week you’ll be given a short war or conflict fiction extract to read before the next class. You’ll also work on a piece of war or conflict writing to be workshopped (constructively critiqued) by your peers and tutor during the course. 

Extracts may come from: Milkman by Anna Burns, Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine, The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen, The Sunken Road by Ciaran McMenamin, Half of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Aperiogan by Colum McCann, The Siege by Helen Dunmore, The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, As If I Am Not There by Slavenka Drakulić, The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna.

Course Outcomes:

You will take away a deeper understanding of what makes and how to write good conflict and war fiction from the civilian point of view. You will write a chapter or short story of war/conflict fiction, on which you will receive detailed tutor and peer feedback.

Priscilla Morris is a British author of Bosnian-Cornish parentage who lives in County Monaghan. Her debut novel Black Butterflies was shortlisted in 2023 for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and the Nota Bene Prize. Inspired by maternal family history, it tells of an artist’s experience of the siege of Sarajevo. Priscilla has taught creative writing at UCD and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. You can read more at priscillamorris.org.

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