03 April, 2025
Opportunities for Writers: April 2025
Check out the current opportunities available for writers. See a list below of April/May deadlines for submissions, competitions, bursaries, residencies and other opportunities. For the full list of opportunities, check out: Competitions, submissions and other opportunities and Bursaries and funding
Irish Writers Centre Opportunity
Deadline: 16th April 2025
Young Writer Delegates at Belfast Book Festival 2025
We invite ambitious writers aged 18-26 to apply for this extraordinary opportunity to attend and contribute to Belfast Book Festival 2025 as Irish Writers Centre Young Writer Delegates. This opportunity is open to writers aged 18-26 living in Belfast or in its surrounding areas.
More Information here:
Submissions
Deadline: 30th April 2025
Faerie Press: Anthology for Teens and Young Adults
Writing submissions for Faerie Press are now open! Following the success of our first book ‘Hide and Seek: An Anthology of the Inner Child”, we’re ecstatic to be bringing another opportunity for young creatives to step into the publishing industry. Faeire is Ireland’s first LGBTQ+ children’s publishing house.
Accepted forms: Poetry and short stories under the theme of ‘dreams’.
Submissions are open for young people aged 16-25 residing on the Island of Ireland or the United Kingdom.
Prize: your work published within our first book, launching in late 2025.
More Information here:
Deadline: 30 April 2025
Quare Éire: An Anthology of Neo-mythmaking
Quare Éire is a digital anthology of neo-mythmaking, which invites artists and authors to “queer” Mother Ireland, a pervasive cultural symbol in the Irish imaginary, in the form of poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction, and artwork. Submissions are currently open.
David Halperin argues that “Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normative, the legitimate, the dominant”. Consequently, I do not simply mean that this figure can be represented as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community – though that is a possibility – I mean instead that authors can re-imagine, distort, or completely de-mythologise this figure in an effort to disturb and dismantle the status quo. This call for submissions invites authors and artists’ responses to the concept of a queer Mother Ireland. Responses can be as abstract or as literal as creatives want.
Contributor payment: None.
More Information here:
Deadline: 30 April 2025
The Wild Umbrella
The Wild Umbrella is an ambitious new literary journal, eager to publish compelling prose and poetry from Ireland and around the world. They are currently seeking submissions of fiction, non-fiction and poetry for inclusion in their second online issue.
Accepted forms: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry.
Contributors will receive €10 per poem and €25 per fiction story or non-fiction essay.
More Information here:
Deadline: 15 May 2025
The Stinging Fly: Climate Crisis Focus in Issue 53
Climate-themed fiction and poetry will be welcomed through the the Stinging Fly’s Submittable portal from May 1 to May 15 2025. The link to the submission form will be made available on their main submission page during this two-week period.
Accepted forms: poetry and fiction
Contributor payment rate: Fiction and nonfiction: €45 per magazine page, but with a minimum/maximum payment of €325/€1200. Flash Fiction/shorter essays (1 – 2 pages): €150Poetry: €45 per magazine page, but with a minimum payment of €70 per poem.
More Information here:
Competitions
Deadline: 6 April 2025
The Prompt (RTÉ/Zoë Comyns)
The Prompt is a brand new radio series, presented and produced by Zoë Comyns, featuring eight of Ireland’s foremost writers (including Wendy Erskine, Mike McCormack, and Caoilinn Hughes) each of whom has set a writing prompt to which the listeners at home can respond.
Listeners/writers are encouraged to write short essays, pieces of fiction or poetry (no more than 750 words) inspired by the creative prompt. Poetry can be shorter. In each episode the guest writer and Zoë will discuss the final selection of submissions, writing techniques and the writing life. It’s open to all writers: emerging and established.
Accepted forms: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry.
Prize: €300
Entry fee: None.
More Information here:
Deadline: 11th April 2025
THE TODAY SHOW / MERCIER PRESS – PUBLISHING COMPETITION
The competition is only open to writers who have never published a full length novel and who have never had a publishing contract for a full length novel and who don’t have a literary agent. At the time of entry entrants must be 18 years or older and resident in the island of Ireland. Proof of age, identity, residency and eligibility may be requested. RTE’s decision as to the eligibility of individual entrants and entries will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Accepted forms: Novel
The ‘prize’ is mentorship by Mercier Press to get the chosen manuscript into a publication state.
Entry fee: no entry fee
More Information here:
Deadline; 13 April 2025
2025 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize
The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize is now open with a first prize of €2000, a stay at the Civitella Ranieri residency, and manuscript consultations. The goal of the prize is to give as much visibility and support to new writers, experimental writers, writers doing something daring. This year’s judges: Mariana Enríquez, Henry Hoke, and Ottessa Moshfegh
Shortlist selection: Early July 2025
Winner announced: Late July 2025.
Entry fee: €20 for the first entry, €10 for every further entry.
More Information here:
Deadline: 22 April 2025
Women’s Prize for Playwriting
The Women’s Prize for Playwriting was founded in 2019 to champion and produce plays by female and non-binary writers, campaigning for a fairer and more equitable industry.
The Women’s Prize for Playwriting is open to writers who are: female or non-binary, aged sixteen or older. Resident in the UK, Republic of Ireland or in a British Overseas Territory, or have a British Forces Post Office address.
Accepted forms: Play (last an hour or more in playing time). Any cast size.
Prize: The production of the play in a high-profile theatre and £12,000 fee.
Entry fee: None.
More Information here:
womensprizeforplaywriting.co.uk
Other Opportunities
Deadline: 4th May 2025
Writer in Residence, Department of English, Kildare County Council Library & Arts Services, Maynooth University
Applications are invited by writers of established reputation for one position co-funded by Maynooth University and Kildare Library and Arts Services, which celebrates a decade-long partnership with this residency. The residency will run from 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2026, with duties expected to average approximately six hours per week contact time with students and the wider public. Writers-in-Residence at Maynooth University have included Catherine Prasifka, Fíona Scarlett, Paul Lynch, Christodoulos Makris, Eoin McNamee, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Sue Rainsford, Susan Tomaselli, and Joanna Walsh.
More Information here:
Bursaries
The Arts Council Agility Award 2025
The Agility Award supports individual professional artists and arts practitioners who have not been previously funded as an individual by the Arts Council. It focuses on enabling artists to develop their practice, develop their work and develop their skills. Maximum award is €5,000.
Applications are open until 24 April 2025.
Arts Council Bursary Award Round 2
The Bursary Award supports individual artists to develop their artistic practice. It focuses on providing artists with the time and resources they need to think, research, reflect, and deeply engage with their artistic practice. Applications open on Tuesday 20 May 2025.
Maximum award: €20,000
Applications close con Thursday 19 June 2025 at 5.30pm.
The Irish Writers Centre is the leading support and development organisation for writers in Ireland. Each year, we runs up to 20 free and exciting programmes to support writers’ development. Carrying out it’s work on an all-island basis, the Irish Writers Centre offers a range of support schemes, residency opportunities, mentoring, and other development programmes. View more opportunities for writers here.
Join our mailing list to receive bi-monthly updates straight to your inbox. We will keep you informed of what’s on at the Centre, including the current opportunities we have for writers, our events, the latest creative writing courses, resources for writers at all stages, and other news you’ll want to know.
Please get in touch with Communications Officer Jo Morton at communications@irishwriterscentre.ie if your organisation has a competition, submission, residency, bursary or funding opportunity for writers that you would like us to include in our monthly round-up blog post.
