08 March, 2024
Opportunities and Competitions March 2024
Photo credit: In 2024 we are spotlighting all the amazing independent bookshops and booksellers in Ireland simply because we love them and we think you should too! Tá Seachtain na Gaeilge ar siúl anois so this month we are celebrating Dublin’s very own Irish language bookshop, An Siopa Leabhair! Scroll down to look around this delightful city centre bookshop and find out a little bit more about them. And, of course, be sure to drop in for a cúpla focail or even just a look around the next time you’re in Baile Átha Cliath!
Each month we update our Competitions, Submissions & Opportunities webpage, along with our Bursaries & Funding, to ensure that we are connecting our writers with the best upcoming opportunities. Here are a few deadlines we want to highlight this March.
Submissions:
Faerie Press Anthology
Deadline: 30th March 2024
One for a slightly younger cohort of our audience here. Started in 2023 by a small group of LGBTQIA+ young people, Faerie Press are the first organisation of their kind in Northern Ireland. They produce inclusive children’s literature, particularly representing queer stories.
Submissions are now open for their debut anthology collection, centred around the theme of the “Inner Child”. They are looking for participants who are currently residing on the island of Ireland and aged 16-25. They are accepting submissions in the form of poetry, short stories and comic strips. Those who are selected will be published in their first anthology, which will launch at Belfast Pride 2024.
Banshee
Deadline: 31st March 2024
Submissions for issue 18 (autumn/winter 2024) of Banshee are open from 1-31 March 2024. With a masthead including some of the most exciting names in Irish writing, Banshee are going from strength to strength both as a literary journal and as an independent press.
They offer a small fee to all contributors as well as a wide readership. They are a great place to be published so this opportunity is really one that’s not to be missed!
Poetry Ireland Review 143 (Editor: Mícheál McCann)
Deadline: ongoing (for issue 143, the editor starts reading submissions from 6 March 2024)
Poetry Ireland Review is published three times annually. They welcome unsolicited submissions of poems, and proposals for articles and interviews, from Ireland and abroad, in Irish or English. Submissions are ongoing, but we’re highlighting this call now as editor Mícheál McCann has just started (form Wednesday 6 March) reading submissions for their issue. So get your poems, essays and interviews in now!
Inside An Siopa Leabhair’s bookstore
Workshop opportunities:
Stinging Fly Summer School 2024
Deadline: 2nd April 2024
Stinging Fly Summer School will be open for applications from Tuesday 12 March 2024. Taking place in June and July, the in-person workshops (at the Irish Writers Centre) will have no more than 10 participants. The online workshops will have no more than 6 participants in the fiction and non-fiction workshop groups. This opportunity is for fiction writers, creative non-fiction writers and poets. Although there is a fee to take the summer school, free places are available for unwaged/low income applicants.
IWC ambassador Éilís Ní Dhuibhne in An Siopa Leabhar to sign copies of her memoir ‘Fáinne Geal an Lae’
(Foilsithe ag Cló Iar Chonnacht, 2023)
Bursaries:
Patricia Leggett Scholarship for the 2024 MFA in Playwriting at The Lir Academy
Deadline: 5th April 2024
This bursary is open to writers resident on the island of Ireland to support them to complete the one-year MFA in Playwriting at The Lir Academy, commencing later this autumn. The value of the support is up to €12,000. In order to apply for the scholarship, applicants must be: qualified to degree level, resident in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Applicants can submit a 45-minute-long complete play to info@thelir.ie by Friday 5 April, 2024.
Arts Council of Ireland Agility Awards
Deadline: 25th April 2025
The Agility Award aims to support individual professional freelance artists and arts workers at any stage in their careers. You can apply for up to €5000 worth of support. You must register with the Arts Council’s online services at least five days before you apply so even if you are planning on submitting close to the deadline make sure you register as early as possible! The Arts Council are running a series of online clinics to help answer any questions you might have about making your application. You can find out more info about these clinics on their website! Applications opened on the 5 March 2024 and close on 25 April 2024.
Competitions:
Write By the Sea Writing Competition
Deadline: 21st June 2024
Part of the Write By the Sea literature festival, this great competition has been running for years!
There are four competition categories:
1. Fiction Short Story (maximum 2,500 words)
2. Flash Fiction (maximum 700 words)
3. Poetry (maximum 40 lines)
4. Memoir/Personal Essay (maximum 1,000 words)
The winner of each category will receive a cash prize of €500 and a free weekend pass to Write By The Sea festival 2024. All four winning pieces will be published on the Write By The Sea website. The runners-up in each category will receive €300 and third place will receive €200.
Entrants can submit as many entries as they wish at €10 per entry, or enter 3 pieces, in the same or different genres, for €25.
Irish Writers Centre Opportunities:
Irish Writers Centre/Belfast Book Festival Young Writer Delegates 2024
Deadline: 3rd April 2024
The Irish Writers Centre are inviting ambitious young writers aged 18-26 to apply for this extraordinary opportunity to attend and contribute to the Belfast Book Festival 2024 as Irish Writers Centre/Belfast Book Festival Young Writer Delegates. The Young Writer Delegates will spend five days (four nights) at Belfast Book Festival 2024 from Thursday 06 June, 2024 to Monday 10 June, 2024. The programme will include mentoring from local writer-mentor Deirdre Cartmill, the opportunity to attend festival events, the chance to take charge of the Young Writer Delegates official Instagram page as well as a public performance at the Young Writer Delegate showcase.
An Siopa Leabhar store front, March 2024
About/Faoi An Siopa Leabhar:
Díolann An Siopa Leabhar idir leabhair agus earraí eile Gaeilge (is é sin cártaí, priontaí, cluichí agus eile) agus tá siopa ar líne acu. Tá an siopa lonnaithe in Uimhir 6 Sráid Fhearchair, díreach in aice le Faiche Stiabhna.
An Siopa Leabhar is a specialist bookshop for Irish-language books and other products (like cards, prints and games) and they online store. Picturebooks in Irish, and board books for toddlers as Gaeilge available. Based at 6 Harcourt Street, just off Stephen’s Green in Dublin city centre.
Please get in touch with Administrative Assistant Tom Jordan at tom@irishwriterscentre.ie if your organisation has a competition, submission, bursary or funding opportunity for writers that you would like us to include in our monthly round-up blog post.
