Climate Writing Session with Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Alice Kinsella and Channel Literary Magazine

Please join us for the next Irish Writers Centre Climate Writing Session. This event is part of a series of online webinars made possible by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature. There is no fee for attending these sessions, they are a gift to all writers to take away and use in their work with the goal of exploring climate action through fiction and creative non-fiction.

The host for the evening is author Kerri ní Dochartaigh, who will be joined by author and poet, Alice Kinsella, and a representative from Channel, a literary magazine born out of the climate crisis. 

What do we do in these sessions?

Each session lasts one and a half hours and can consist of the following:

• Interview Guest Author – literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, speculative fiction, essay, etc
• Interview Guest NGO, politician, policy maker, or scientist involved in conservation, climate justice, ecology, politics, industry, law, agriculture, finance etc
• Guest publishers and editors
• Discussions

Who is it for?

• Anyone with an interest in averting further climate change through poetry and prose
• Anyone interested in writing fiction (all genres), non-fiction, poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction
• You do NOT have to change the genre you write in, you can simply embed some positive climate solutions into your writing
• You can be at any stage of your writing career, from beginner to published
• Those with a background in climate change, or newcomers who want to know more
• Booklovers

Host and Guests

• Kerri ní Dochartaigh
• Alice Kinsella
• Channel 

Biographies below. 

Kerri ní Dochartaigh is a mother, writer and grower. Her work currently explores ideas of emergency, interconnectedness and ecologies of care. Her first book, Thin Places, was published by Canongate in Spring 2021, for which she was awarded the Butler Literary Award 2022, highly commended for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021, and shortlisted for the Ireland Francophonie Ambassador’s Literary Award in 2024. Cacophony of Bone was published by Canongate in May 2023 and was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2023.  She mentors and teaches worldwide. She lives in the west of Ireland with her family.

Alice Kinsella is a writer from Mayo. She is the author of Sexy Fruit (Broken Sleep Books, 2018), and Milk: on motherhood and madness (Picador, 2023). She edited Empty House: poetry and prose on the climate crisis (Doire Press, 2021). She is an Arts Council Next Generation Artist. Her debut full-length poetry collection, The Ethics of Cats, will be published in 2025.

Channel is a literary magazine born out of the climate crisis, publishing poetry and prose with an environmentalist perspective. We believe that humanity’s disengagement from the natural world is one of the great losses of our time, and in the onslaught of climate change we see that disengagement reaching its inevitable conclusion. If Ireland’s history of myths and stories woven from the landscape shows anything, though, it’s that the literary arts have a part to play in rebuilding our relationship with nature.

Our goal at Channel is to provide a space for literary work that fosters re-connection with the natural world. We publish work from Ireland and abroad that displays and celebrates the relationships between plant and animal life, landscape and humanity.

Find out more on their website here.

Quotes from past attendees:

“I learned a tremendous amount about what can work and what not to do when writing about this topic. This was a very enjoyable, instructive evening. A few hours very well spent.”

“Its a great monthly way for me to stay thinking and writing about these topics. Kerri and Lynn before her are excellent hosts.”

“This was a brilliant time drawing my heart to engage people young or old with stories with positive solutions. Really encourage to use both climate change knowledge in a practical way. Loved every minute of good wholesome advice.”