Short stories, poems, plays, creative facilitation
I’m hosting a session in Westport’s Rolling Sun Book Festival on Sunday, 22 October, entitled So You Want To Write?
I’ll be joined by West Mayo Writers Group who’ll read from and talk about their writing.
It’s in the Clew Bay Hotel at 11.30am and admission is free.
The festival starts on Thursday, 19 October.
Check out the full programme here.
What’s these days called ‘some personal news’ – I was delighted to have been chosen for a Mayo County Council Arts Service Artist Bursary Award for 2023.
This bursary allowed me to avail of some mentoring from the Irish Writers Centre. The mentor I chose – Mary-Jane Holmes – proved to be a real gem as she got to the heart of some of the things that most challenge me as a writer.
Publishing my debut collection of short stories – Second Chance & Other Stories (Mayo Books Press) – last year brought many benefits, not least of which was observations, feedbacks, comparisons, challenges and so forth.
I have been working for some time on what I call ‘expanding the scope’ of my writing – adding a second voice or thread to give a story an additional layer without compromising the brevity and clarity that I believe to be essential elements of the short story / novella medium.
Mary-Jane’s mentoring is helping greatly with this, as does the continued support of my existing, much-put-upon support / therapy / keep-a-man-half-right group of readers. I have also started a Creative Writing Masters (part-time, two years) at Univeristy of Limerick, where Donal Ryan and Fí Scarlett are tutors – more on this anon.