New Voices: A Celebration of Emerging Talents in Literature

For this in-person event at our home on 19 Parnell Square, in association with the Embassy of Barbados in Dublin & the Central Bank of Barbados, we are delighted to welcome this year’s winner of the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award, Barbadian writer Brian Franklin, last year’s winner of the RTE Frank McManus Short Story, Lynda McCarty, and Ciara Broderick, whose debut novel Catfish, will be published in Jan 2027 by 4th Estate, won our International Debut Novel Competition in 2025.

Each of our featured guests will read their work and throughout the evening we will invite the audience to participate by way of an open mic; the Irish Writers Centre New Voices showcase!

There is a Google form here for those who wish to sign up for the New Voices showcase. 10 performers will be selected to perform on the night.

Guest bios:
Ciara Broderick is a writer from East Co. Galway. Her short fiction has appeared in several journals, and she was both the UCL/EUNIC European Writer-in-Residence and the Pat Conroy Literary Festival Writer-in-Residence in 2025. Her debut novel Catfish was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and a winner of the Irish Writers Centre International Debut Novel Competition. It is due for release with Harper Collins in Spring 2027 and has sold in seven languages.

Lynda McCarthy is an award-winning journalist from Cork. In 2025, she won the RTÉ Short Story Competition for her story, Witness. Her writing has been described as “subtle, sensitive and quietly powerful”. She lives in Waterford with her family.

Born and raised in Barbados, Brian Franklin has been passionate about telling tall tales since before he could hold a pencil. He’s honed his skills through various workshops (for example: Callaloo, Bocas, National Cultural Foundation (NCF), Frank Collymore Literary Endowment (FCLE)) and through acting on the feedback from his writing groups. He loves fiction that explores the space between current events and the near future and those that pull on myth to tell inspiring human stories. His short fiction can be found at Peepal Tree Press, Masters Review and Arts Etc. His unpublished novel, STEAL THE FISH FROM THE DEVIL’S COU-COU, won the Central Bank of Barbados’ 28th Annual Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award in Barbados in January 2026. He is seeking to have it published. Currently, Brian is working on a historical fiction that centres an overlooked Barbarian hero, and on a young adult science fiction set in the aftermath of a worldwide climate-related disaster.