26 June, 2025

The Irish Writers Centre Roadshow at The West Cork Literary Festival

Throughout 2025, the Irish Writers Centre is touring the island, bringing an exciting programme of literary events from creative writing workshops, showcases, panel discussions, masterclasses and information sessions to the four provinces, serving an all-island literary community with tuition, peer support and networking opportunities for writers at every stage of their journey.

In July, our Roadshow is heading to Bantry for the West Cork Literary Festival, running from 11 – 18 July 2025, with an international lineup of renowned and emerging writers. The festival has been a firm fixture in Ireland’s literary scene for over 25 years and now even features a festival swim! You can see the festival brochure here.

We are delighted to offer five events this year comprising of two discussions, a spoken word showcase, a zine workshop and a creative writing seminar. Below are details of those events and links to where you can buy your tickets and, at the end of the blog, you can find the bios for each of our festival stars.

An Island of Many Nations

We kick off our Irish Writers Centre offering on Sunday 13th July at 12pm, in The Maritime Hotel, with the panel discussion An Island of Many Nations. London born scholar, poet, and critic, Catherine Gander, with be in conversation with Indian born author of Paddy Irish and The Inheritance, Cauvery Madhavan, and Dublin born author of Glorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon. Cauvery recently joined us as part of our video series, Dublin, One City Many Stories and on a panel at the Limerick Creative Writing Festival exploring the same topic; our roots and how they seep into our writing. This discussion is a celebration of the diversity in the Irish literary scene today, a recognition of the many different nations, identities and languages on this one tiny island.

Buy your tickets here.

Zine Workshop

On Monday 14th July at 1pm, Cork-based visual artist Annie Mar, of Scottish-Catalan heritage, will host a two-hour Zine Workshop in the Workshop Bantry.  A zine is a small, independent publication individually created and Annie will guide participants in making these bespoke zines with the aid of writing, drawing and collage, comprising of supplied materials and any stationary, stickers or magazines the participants wish to bring with them to include in the process.

Buy your ticket here

Creative Writing Seminar

On Tuesday 15 July at 3pm, award-winning writer and teacher from the University of Limerick, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, will give a 90 minute Creative Writing Seminar in The Maritime Hotel. After a short introduction to the Irish Writers Centre and its offerings, Sarah will explore the secret doorways to your novel’s plot and structure. Sarah will help participants think of fresh ways to create plots and different approaches to structuring stories. There will be a Q&A at the end of the seminar.

Buy your tickets here.

Spoken Word Showcase

On Tuesday 15 July at 5pm in Bantry Library, we are hosting a Spoken Word Showcase featuring some of Cork’s most exciting spoken word artists. Jim Crickard’s work explores culture, sexuality and identity, Shaunna Lee Lynch is a former Irish Poetry Slam Champion, Raphael Olympio is a rapper and spoken word artist whose words and music are deeply rooted in storytelling, reflecting his personal journey and Kemi George Simpson was the 2024 Munster Poetry Slam Champion.

This is a free event with full details here.

 Out on the Page

Our final offering at the West Cork Literary Festival is Out on the Page, a panel discussion on Wednesday 16th July at 3pm in The Maritime Hotel. Featuring Chloe Michelle Howarth whose debut novel Sunburn was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2024, poet, lecturer and teacher at University College Cork, Liz Quirke and poet and founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry, Mark Ward. This discussion will be chaired by Head of Programming at the Irish Writers Centre, poet, podcaster and editor, Damien B. Donnelly. 10 years after the marriage equality act in Ireland was passed, we look at LGBTQIA visibility in literature and the importance of seeing ourselves reflected in the books we read.

Buy your tickets here.

Thank you so much to all the team at the West Cork Literary Festival for inviting us to take part.

We look forward to seeing and meeting you all at the festival. Following Cork, we will be in Wexford for Write by the Sea in September, at the Dublin Book Festival in November and, as part of our Writers in the Regions series, Danielle McLaughlin will take part in the Waterford Writers Weekend in October, offering a masterclass. For full details on all our offerings, from roadshows to our Academy courses and mentoring,  keep an eye on our website. And don’t forget you can become a member of the Centre and take advantage of a wide range of benefits from reductions on courses, bookshop discounts and member-only events.

Read about the Irish Writers Centre’s stars of the West Cork Literary Festival below

1st row: Jim, Sarah, Catherine, Chloe, Ferdia, Shaunna 2nd row: Cauvery, Annie, Raphael, Liz, Kemi, Mark

Jim Crickard is a poet based in Cork, his work explores culture, sexuality and identity and likes to explore important social topics with a sense of humour. He has won the Cúirt Spoken Word Slam and has placed 2nd in the All-Ireland Poetry Slam Finals (2019). He has been invited to perform at a number of great venues including The Abbey Theatre, Glór Ennis, Poetry Ireland/ Dublin Fringe, Electric Picnic, First Fortnight, and has read his work live on RTÉ Arena. His chapbook: ‘Southern Syllables,’ co-authored with Molly Twomey, was published in 2020 by Ó Bhéal. A lover of languages, he has recently begun writing poetry fused with French and Irish.

Damien B. Donnelly has worked at the Irish Writers Centre since June 2024 having spent 25 years working abroad in the fashion industry. He’s the author of two poetry pamphlets and two full collections, the last of which was Back From Away, published by Turas Press in May 2024. He’s the host and producer of Eat the Storms, the poetry podcast and editor-in-chief of The Storms journal. His work appears in various international journals and anthologies.

Sarah Moore Fitzgerald is an award winning teacher and writer based at the University of Limerick where she’s part of the creative writing teaching team and director of UL’s creative writing Winter School. The author of seven novels for children and young adults including The Apple Tart of Hope, All The Money in The World and The Shark and The Scar, she’s been nominated for many literary awards, including the Waterstone’s Prize, The Irish Book Awards, The Calderdale Prize and Scotland’s Red Prize for children’s fiction. In 2022 she won The London Magazine’s Award for with a piece entitled ‘Matamoros. July 1846’, and last year, her prose poem ‘For Eileen Gray’ was published in ‘Splonk’, and her poem, ‘A Hard Rain’ was commended at the Frances Browne International Literary Festival. She’s a founding member of Limerick’s writing co-operative, ‘Writepace’ and has been leader of a community project called ‘Walls of Limerick’ which offers mentoring and professional development to writers from disadvantaged, marginalised or under-represented groups. An expert in the psychology of creativity, Sarah shares insights and principles on this theme to support writers in the development of their work and has facilitated several programmes for writers at the Irish Writers Centre.

Catherine Gander is a scholar, poet, and critic. She is the author and editor of several academic and creative publications, including Matches (Verve Poetry Press, 2024) and the forthcoming Beyond Ourselves: Contemporary Poets on Muriel Rukeyser (West Virginia UP). Catherine led the Irish Research Council-funded mentorship project ‘Diversifying Irish Poetry’, for which she partnered with Poetry Ireland to make meaningful and lasting change to Ireland’s reviewing culture and broader literary landscape. Born in London, Catherine lived in many cities and countries before finding her home in Ireland. She is associate professor in the Department of English at Maynooth University, where she also co-served as the institution’s first Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Chloe Michelle Howarth was born in July 1996. She grew up in the West Cork countryside, which has served as an inspiration for her writing. She attended university at IADT in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, where she studied English, Media and Cultural Studies. Chloe currently lives in Brighton. Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the 2024 Polari First Book Prize, the 2024 Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards and the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and longlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards.

Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. Glorious Exploits is his first novel. A Sunday Times bestseller, it was adapted for BBC Radio 4 and was the winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2024 and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norwich with his wife and son.

Shaunna Lee Lynch is spoken-word poet, writer, and performer from Cork, Ireland.  She has performed her poems at arts events around Ireland and abroad, including: Cork Midsummer Festival (Art Gifts), First Fortnight, Cork City Culture Night, Electric Picnic, among many others. From 2019-2022, Shaunna was the Irish Poetry Slam Champion, and went on to represent Ireland at the European Poetry Slam Championship in Rome 2022, and the World Poetry Slam Championship in Rio De Janeiro 2023. A collection of Shaunna’s poetry was published in the chapbook ‘paper incantations’ as part of Ó Bhéal’s ‘spoken worlds’ series, supported by Cork City Council. Shaunna has a degree in Drama from Ireland’s Conservatoire of Music and Drama (TU Dublin), and also writes for theatre; her play Wishful Thinking ran as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival 2019. Shaunna’s work regularly explores eco-anxiety, gender, mental health, and mysticism, through the lens of their own lived experiences.

Born in India, Cauvery Madhavan moved to Ireland 38 years ago and has been in love with the country ever since. Her books Paddy Indian and The Uncoupling were published to critical acclaim. Her novel The Tainted was chosen by Laureate Sebastian Barry for his Laureate Picks 2020. It was one of An Post Irish Book Awards’ Top Summer Reads. The book was chosen by The Times for their list of top 40 Historical Fiction novels and won the runner-up prize for the SAHR Prize for Military Fiction. Cauvery was a proud Ambassador for the Play It Forward Fellowship and served as a judge for the Irish Novel Fair 2022. She has written for The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, Evening Herald and Sunday Tribune. A very keen golfer and cook, she has three children and lives with her husband in County Kildare and spends much of the year in Glengarriff, West Cork. Her latest novel The Inheritance was published by HopeRoad in September 2024.

Annie Mar is a Cork-based visual artist with a focus on animation, painting and drawing. As a person of Scottish-Catalan heritage who grew up in Ireland, her work explores themes of identity, personal narrative and belonging through a keen connection to the Irish landscape and the creatures we share our lands with. Her arts practice is supported by a BA in History of Art and Philosophy (UCC) and diplomas in Textiles (Crawford Art College) and Illustration (Cork College of FET). Annie is a producer at Cork Zine Fest, annually creating space for the Irish DIY community in Cork City.

Raphael Olympio is a Cork-based artist who explores various genres to showcase his versatility. Primarily a rapper and spoken word artist, he adapts his style to suit the message he wants to convey. His music and poetry are deeply rooted in storytelling, reflecting his personal journey, challenges, and the experiences of his community. In addition to his artistic pursuits, he is an Occupational Therapist. Through his work, he is committed to fostering creative expression and empowerment. 

Liz Quirke is a poet and lecturer and has published The Road, Slowly (2018) and How We Arrive in Winter (2021) with Salmon Poetry. She is working on her third collection of poetry which will be published in 2026 and numerous prose projects. She was awarded a PhD by University of Galway and teaches creative writing at University College Cork.

Kemi George Simpson’s work can be found in The Four Faced Liar, Swerve, Good Day Cork and Cork Council’s Poetry in the Park Collection. She is the 2024 Munster Poetry Slam Champion, who has performed poetry for Ó Bhéal’s Winter Warmer Festival, Cork Africa Day, Africans Connect, Swerve Lit Lounge, Sling Slang at Maureen’s, Ireland Reads and DeBarras Spoken Word.

Mark Ward is the author of the collection Nightlight (Salmon Poetry, 2023) as well as five chapbooks, the most recent of which are the interactive sonnet Faultlines (voidspace, 2024) and I Was a Teenage Exorcist (Chaps Poetry, 2024). A three-time Arts Council of Ireland awardee, his work has been featured widely at home and abroad, including in the landmark anthology Queering the Green: Post-2000 Queer Irish Poetry (ed. Paul Maddern, Lifeboat Press), and in March 2025, his poem ‘Romantic Landscape’ was displayed in Cork as part of their Poetry in the Park series. He is the founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry, now in its ninth year. Forthcoming books include Masters, an ekphrastic chapbook responding to dead queer male painters’ work, from The Emma Press in October 2025 and a second full-length collection, Real Estate, which will be published by Salmon Poetry in May 2026.

About the Irish Writers Centre

Founded in 1991, the Irish Writers Centre is Ireland’s leading resource and development organisation for writers. Its vision is to support the life of the writer, recognising the impact writers have in illuminating society with their ideas and words.

Through its Creative Writing Academy, the Centre delivers a year-round programme of over 150 creative writing courses, masterclasses and seminars, both online and in person. It also runs a National Mentoring Programme and administers a range of development opportunities for writers, including residencies, competitions and bursaries.

Operating on an all-island basis, the Irish Writers Centre is a membership organisation and a registered charity.

To become a member of the Irish Writers Centre, click here.