03 September, 2024
Opportunities and Competitions September 2024
Book bench at front of store
Photo description: In 2024 we are spotlighting all the amazing independent bookshops and booksellers on the island of Ireland simply because we love them and we think you should too! n 2016 Books at One opened its first community book shop in Louisburgh, Co Mayo. Nestled between Ireland’s holy mountain, Croagh Patrick, and Connaught’s highest mountain, Mweelrea. Books at One is a collective of locally managed community bookshops located in Mayo, Dublin and Galway.
Each month we update our Competitions, Submissions & Opportunities webpage, along with our Bursaries & Funding webpage, to ensure we are connecting our writers with the best upcoming opportunities. Here are some of the highlights coming this month.
Bursaries
Culture Moves Europe Individual Mobility Award webinar
Deadline:
(Rolling monthly deadlines from August to 30th Nov 2024)
Webinar will take place on Thursday 11am 5 September 2024. Culture Moves Europe offers mobility grants to individual artists and cultural professionals willing to implement a project abroad. ,This call targets artists and cultural professionals working in the following sectors: music, literature, architecture, cultural heritage, design and fashion design, visual arts, and performing arts. Rolling monthly deadlines from August to 30th Nov 2024. The webinar on 5th September will feature successful Irish case studies for individual artists funded by Culture Moves Europe.
Kilkenny County Council Public Arts Programme 2024
Deadline: 5 September 2024
We are seeking up to five artist-led projects which should seek to challenge, engage and innovate, through meaningful dialogue, research and engagement with communities. Kilkenny County Council will be accepting proposals from any recognised art form, from individuals or teams, who seek to devise and complete new work, developed in a collaborative setting. We are seeking compelling, ambitious proposals from artists; which meet, challenge and expand our ideas of public art. There are a total of five commissions available under the programme.
Cruinniú na nÓg Commission 2025
Deadline: 23 September 2024
To celebrate Cruinniú nan Óg 2025 Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has partnered with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Children and Young People’s Services Committee, the My Project and Springboard Family Support Services to offer an artist’s a commission to create new work for Cruinniú na nÓg 2025. This commission is open to applications from professional artists who create art for and with children from seven to ten years. This opportunity is funded by Creative Ireland and supported by the partners. €23,000 is the value of the commission.
Galway Cultural Company – 3 Artist Residences as part of The Air We Share – Spoken Word
Deadline: 30 September 2024
The Air We Share is an initiative that engages with the increasingly important issue of air quality and pollution through artistic interventions, citizen science and community action, led by Galway City Council, Galway Arts Centre, University of Galway’s Centre for Creative Technology and Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies and Physics, Galway Culture Company, Creative Climate Action, and Westside Resource Centre. This is an open call for three significant artist in residence opportunities valued at €38,000 each, 9 month residencies open to artists/collectives of all disciplines including visual arts, socially-engaged practices, film, dance, theatre, music, spoken word, and digital arts.
Submissions:
The Shore
Deadline: 5 September 2024
The Shore is an online poetry publication seeking cutting, strange, and daring work from new and established poets alike. We want poems that explore the worlds of things and ideas, that recognize the liminality, the shifting of everything around us and our ability to name a thing whole. We want poems that press and push and ache and recede. Send us your best. We publish 4 times a year, once each season.
Atrium
Deadline: 15 September 2024
Atrium is OPEN for poetry submissions from 1st September to 9pm on Sunday 15th September. We welcome submissions from anywhere and anyone, as long as the work is your own to send and in English. Our aim is to publish as diverse and vibrant selection of poems as possible. Please send up to three poems in a Word document, formatted in 12 point Times New Roman, single spaced, each poem starting on a new page. Poems should be no more than 50 lines in length (not including line breaks). We have no set themes. We want poetry that excites us; poetry to provoke an unexpected tear, a woozy feeling in the stomach, a giggle on a rush hour bus. Poetry that tickles, unsettles, warms, surprises, grips.
Competitions:
Westival International Poetry Competition 2024
Deadline: 15 September 2024
Literature has been a core strand of the festival since its inception in 1976, so we are thrilled this year to announce the launch of the Westival International Poetry Competition 2024! This prestigious competition invites poets from around the globe to showcase their talent and creativity. Entries must be in English only. There is no set theme for this year’s competition. All entries must be submitted online via this Google Form
The Guardian and 4th Estate 4th Write Short Story Prize
Deadline: 22 September 2024
The Guardian and 4th Estate 4thWrite Short Story Prize is a competition open to Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers living in the UK or Ireland who are 18 and above. Short stories across any genre are welcome. The winner will receive £1,000, a one-day publishing workshop at 4th Estate and publication of their story on the Guardian website.
Novel Fair 2025
Deadline: 30 September 2024
The Irish Writers Centre annual Novel Fair competition is now open for submissions. Described by The Irish Times as ‘A Dragons’ Den for writers,’ Novel Fair awards twelve unpublished (and unsigned) novelists the opportunity to pitch their novels to leading publishers and literary agents. This annual competition has been a career-changing opportunity for writers across the island of Ireland and worldwide. Since its inception in 2011, 36 Novel Fair winners have found a home for their debuts. To apply, submit a 10,000-word manuscript sample of their novel along with a 300-word synopsis.
Ireland Own 2024 Writing Competitions
Deadline: 30 September 2024
Ireland’s Own is pleased to announce details of their 2024 Writing Competitions. Entrants are invited to compete for €2,450 in gift-card prizes. There is the Open Short Story section (2,000 words maximum), the Beginners’ Short Story section is restricted to those who have never had a short story published before and the Memories Section, for entrants to tell of some special moment or event in not more than 800 words. It could be about school, holidays, falling in love, getting married, emigrating, a special person you have known, etc.
National Poetry Competition 2024
Deadline: 31 October 2024
The competition, run by The Poetry Society since 1978, is one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for a single unpublished poem. This year’s judging panel includes Stephen Sexton, Romalyn Ante, and John McAuliffe. Open to all poets worldwide aged 18+. Prizes: £5,000, £2,000, £1,000, commended £500. Deadline: midnight, 31st October 2024.
Entry fees: The first poem submitted £8, subsequent poems in the same submission cost £5 each. Poetry Society members (including those joining at time of submission) get one additional poem free. The National Poetry Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for an unpublished poem of up to 40 lines, open to all poets worldwide aged 18 or over
Opportunities:
Willowbrook Creative Writing Retreat 2024
Deadline: 6 September 2024
A weekend of writing workshops and activities facilitated by Orfhlaith Foyle (short story, poet, dramatist) , Emma Langford (singer/songwriter) and Colm Keegan (poet, spoken word artist). This is the fourth creative writing retreat involving readings / performances by the facilitators, a full day of workshops, an open mic session, all your meals provided, and a novel activity to close out the weekend. Full weekend including glamping accommodation, meals & workshops €240. Full weekend including meals & workshops, but no accommodation €160 (includes a camping pitch if you’d like to take a tent/van/caravan)
Books at One, shopfront, Louisburgh, Co Mayo
Books at One, Louisburgh, Co. Mayo
We are a social enterprise, a not-for-profit organisation. Our mission is to share our love of books and reading to build creative, inclusive and resilient communities. We sell both new and used books (from Booker nominated to Irish authors, to wildlife and Art books and a whole children’s room full). We have book clubs, a conversational Irish group, teach Ukrainians English (and welcome them to our community). We host many types of events, children’s storytime, poetry reading, book readings, film screenings and Art gallery opening nights. We also have an Art Gallery, showcasing both local artists and bringing artists work to our locality from other areas. And we have a digital hub, enabling people to work remotely and possibly stay in our area for longer periods. We work closely with our local community to provide as many types of cultural engagement as we possibly can. And we love what we do. As Umberto Eco said “books are medicine”. We agree.
Find out all you need to know about Books at One on their website or visit them at Bridge Street, Clooncarrabaun, Louisburgh, Co. Mayo, F28 YW28.
