Now Accepting Submissions: A New Irish Writers Centre Anthology

The Irish Writers Centre invites submissions from eligible writers, affiliated with the organisation, for potential inclusion in a special anthology to mark our 35th anniversary. We are grateful to Dublin UNESCO City of Literature for providing funding to support this publication.

About the Anthology

The Irish Writers Centre is producing an anthology to celebrate 35 years of the Centre and the writers who have shaped this now iconic literary institution. It will feature work by 35 writers, including short stories, poetry and essays.

The 35 contributors will be selected by open call from the growing community of writers affiliated with the Irish Writers Centre. We hope that this will ensure a fully inclusive and transparent process and will generate a diverse range of entries, in line with our mission of supporting writers at every stage of their journey, from beginner to established.

The successful submissions will be selected by a panel of internal and external judges.

The anthology will be launched at a special event in the Irish Writers Centre in late 2026, where selected contributors will have the opportunity to read their contribution.

Who is it for?

This opportunity is available to writers aged 18 or over who are resident on the island of Ireland, and fit one or more of the following criteria:

• Evolution Programme participants
• Facilitators/ mentors
• Foundation Programme participants
• Invited speakers at Irish Writers Centre events around Ireland
• Irish Writers Centre ambassadors
• Irish Writers Centre members
• National Mentoring Programme mentees
• Novel Fair/ International Debut Novel Competition Winners
• Words of Colour participants
• Writers involved in the creation of the FísDánta video series
• Writers involved in the Dublin, One City, Many Stories video series
• Young Writer Delegates/ New Voices North awardees

This selection is to ensure that we provide a platform to the writers who have been the lifeblood of the Centre for the last three and a half decades.

How to apply (Guidelines)

• We are accepting submissions of flash fiction/ short stories, essays, and poems. For prose, please send one piece, not longer than 1500 words. For poetry, please send no more than one poem, with a maximum of 60 lines.
• Submissions will be judged anonymously so please ensure your name does not appear anywhere in the piece you submit.
• Work must be previously unpublished.
• We will consider work written in both English and Irish.
• Simultaneous submissions are not permitted.
• We will accept one submission per writer. Submissions in multiple categories are not permitted. Writers who submit more than one piece will be disqualified from consideration.
• Work will be published as sent with no opportunity for revisions with the exception of typographical errors. Please ensure that you send us the final version of your piece.
• Submissions must be entirely your own work. The use of generative AI tools to create or develop any part of an entry is not permitted and will lead to disqualification.
• The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into about the outcome of submissions. We are unable to provide feedback on individual submissions.
• In line with our payment policy, selected contributors will receive €250 and a complimentary copy of the anthology.

Applications are now open via Google form. You will need a Google account to make a submission; if you do not already have one it’s free to sign up.

The deadline for submissions is 5pm on Monday 6th July. Late submissions will not be accepted.