Young Writer Delegates Programme 2025 at Belfast Book Festival

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.

In keeping with the Irish Writers Centre’s 2022-2026 Strategy, the Young Writer Delegates Programme seeks to create new opportunities, grant access and develop networks that connect writers to each other. This programme directly correlates with the objectives of Strategy Goal 2, which is to enhance opportunities for people across all communities to explore and participate in creative writing, as well as Strategy Goal 3, which is to cultivate an engaged community of writers and strategic alliances that support our ambitions.

What to Expect

JASMIN AWOODUN READING AT THE YOUNG WRITER DELEGATES 2024 AT PUBLIC SHOWCASE

Now in its eighth year, the Irish Writers Centre Young Writer Delegates Programme was created to give writers aged 18-26 an opportunity to immerse themselves in and contribute to a literature festival, soak up the atmosphere and experience the Irish literary landscape first-hand.

The four Young Writer Delegates will spend five days (four nights) at Belfast Book Festival from Thursday 4 June, 2025 to Sunday 8 June, 2025.

What does the Young Writer Delegates Programme include?

1. Mentoring: Delegates will be supported by local writer-mentor Chris Wright for the duration of the festival. During a workshop, Chris will help the delegates to develop a new or in-progress piece of writing. Chris will also support the delegates through their public showcase at the festival.
2. Festival events: Delegates will be granted free access to as many festival events as they’d like to attend (depending on individual event availability), excluding workshops.
3. Public showcase: Delegates will read the piece of work they have developed at a public showcase as part of the festival programme. The festival provides a small honorarium for this event which will be paid to the delegates at the beginning of the festival.
4. Social media: Each delegate will be in charge of the official Young Writer Delegates Instagram for one day to highlight festival events they are attending and their experiences as a Young Writer Delegate.
5. Review: Post-festival, each delegate will write a piece in response to their experience of the festival, which will be published on the Irish Writers Centre website. This can be a creative piece, a review of an event or even an interview with a writer.
6. Feedback: In exchange for being awarded the programme, the IWC will ask for feedback and evaluation to continue to improve the programme for future delegates!

Each year, four writers are selected for this programme. Please note that applicants must be living in Belfast or its surrounding areas with the means to travel to and from the festival for the duration of the programme to be eligible.

Eligibility

This programme is open to writers aged 18-26 living in Belfast or in its surrounding areas with a strong interest in writing, reading and an ambition to connect and contribute to the Irish literary scene. It is not essential for applicants to have been published to be eligible.

Terms

• Applicants must reside in Belfast or its surrounding areas, and be able to travel to and from the festival for the duration of the programme.
• Please note that if you have availed of the Young Writer Delegates Programme in the last three years, in any iteration, you are ineligible.
• We encourage young writers from backgrounds typically underrepresented in Irish literature to apply. We particularly invite applications from Black, POC (person of colour), Traveller, Roma, LGBTQIA+, disabled and working class writers, and those who consider themselves to be within the target groups described in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Policy & Action Plan on our website.

How to Apply

Please apply to take part in this programme via Google Form. A copy of your application will be sent to you upon receipt of your submission. If you do not receive a copy, please email projects@irishwriterscentre.ie or call our office at 01 872 1302.

In the form, you will be asked to upload:

• A Curriculum Vitae (max. two A4 pages); please ensure that you include your Eircode / postcode, your email and contact number in your CV.
• Two samples of work (max. 500 words each).

Please note, due to the volume of applicants we are not in a position to give individual feedback to applicants, unless they have been interviewed, depending on the scheme. This policy extends across all of our calls in the interests of equity and transparency, and because, as a small team, we don’t have the capacity to give individual responses.

Criteria for Selection

Participants will be chosen on the basis of one or more combinations of the following:

• Eligibility – Participants must be between the ages of 18-26 and resident on the island of the Ireland to apply. Applicants are ineligible if they have availed of the Young Writer Delegates Programme in the last three years (of any iteration/festival).
• Intent – The questions on the form expressing the applicant’s aspirations for taking part will help us inform our decision. Be sure to tell us about your ideas on how your presence as a delegate will contribute to the festival.
• Samples – Your writing samples will inform part of the decision-making process.
• Geography – We are seeking applications from writers living in Belfast or its surrounding areas with the means to travel to and from the festival every day for the duration of the programme.

About Chris Wright

Chris Wright is a Northern Irish writer. He has been longlisted for the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year, shortlisted for the Brick Lane Short Story Prize and The Masters Review Reprint Prize, and was runner-up in the Mairtín Crawford Award. His work has appeared in dozens of anthologies and literary publications. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Queen’s University, Belfast, serves as a judge for the Jigsaw Youth Writing Prize, and is a reader for The Stinging Fly.

What I really liked about the programme was how it put you in social artistic situations. It gave me a wider sense of what people are doing, which I’m grateful for.

Finn Dunne Leavy, Belfast Book Festival 2025

“The Young Writer Delegates programme was a fantastic experience of the Cúirt festival that allowed me to go behind the scenes and soak up as much as possible. I met fantastic people and had a full festival of inspiring experiences. I would wholeheartedly recommend the initiative to anyone interested in it. ”

Mars Duignan, Cúirt 2024 

“Being a Young Writer Delegate was an opportunity that enriched my writing practice in a way that nothing else has. Immersed in a diverse group of other Delegates and the likeminded community of Cúirt at large, inspiration was never far from reach. With the assistance of a kind and knowledgeable mentor as well as each other, my cohort and I crafted pieces for our showcase alongside attending many of the festival’s events. Between talking with some of Ireland’s greatest writers, being mentored, and finding a new group of writerly friends, being a Delegate at Cúirt was a formative experience that will have an immense impact on my work for as long as I write it.”

– Matthew O’Rourke, Cúirt 2023

“The YWD programme with Cúirt and the IWC allowed me to be part of a network of young writers. We continue to share work regularly and meet up all around Ireland, to discuss writing and creative endeavours and catch up, a kind of writer support group. This has been invaluable in my journey as a writer. I was able to attend numerous talks and literary events with writers I have long admired. I have found Cúirt and the IWC to be a close-knit and friendly community, from Manuela Moser to the IWC team, and our YWD mentor Alan McMonagle,  who made me feel like I belonged and deserved to be at Cúirt.”

– Lucy Bleeker, Cúirt 2023

Application Deadline

Wednesday 16 April, 2025 at 11:59pm.

Please note that incomplete or late applications will not be considered.