Waterford Libraries are delighted to work in partnership with the Irish Writers Centre and with funding from Creative Waterford and Dún Garbhán le Gaeilge to provide a series of creative writing courses for adults. All courses are free of charge, but places must be booked in advance.

The programme runs from August to mid-December and gives participants an opportunity to attend courses in both Irish and English with experienced, well-established writers in their fields. The workshops are either online or take place in library locations during the evenings or on Saturdays.

The closing date for all workshop applications is Friday 2nd August.

Courses are free of charge and open to people over 18 years resident in the City or County of Waterford.

Application forms are also available at Library Desks.

Writing Workshops 2024:

Beginners/Emerging Fiction with William Ryan
This course provides the nuts and bolts of prose fiction, along with individual feedback on offer. There will be takeaway exercises to apply to your own writing outside of the group and also weekly writing deadlines in place (i.e. if your work is to be looked at by the course tutor and included in discussion at the beginning of the next session).

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Date: 7th August
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Duration: 4 weeks
Location: Online

Fiscean le Colm Ó Ceallacháin
Cúrsa é seo d’ardscríbhneoirí ar mian leo critic a dhéanamh ar a gcuid scríbhneoireachta i nGaeilge i suíomh ceardlainne. Beidh píosa ficsin suas le 2000 focal ag teastáil ó gach rannpháirtí roimh an gcúrsa. Ar mhaithe le plé ceart a dhéanamh ar gach saothar, ba cheart líon na bhfocal a choimeád faoi bhun 2,000 focal, cé nach bhfuil sé riachtanach. Is cóir na saothair atá le plé(gearrscéal, sliocht as úrscéal nó dráma, cúpla splancscéal nó eile) a sheoladh ar ríomhphost ar a laghad seachtain roimh ré, i dtreo gur féidir na saothair a chur thart ar na rannpháirtithe, iad a bheith léite roimh ré acu, agus níos mó ama a bheith ar fáil le linn na ceardlainne chun tuairimí a mhalartú ina dtaobh. Iarrtar ar na rannpháirtithe cóip dá saothar a dhéanamh do gach éinne a bheidh i láthair chun an obair a éascú ar an lá. Múinfear an cúrsa seo trí mheán na Gaeilge.

Leibhéal: Cúrsa d’ Ardscríbhneoirí
Dáta: 17 Lúnasa
Am: 10:00r.n. – 4:00i.n.
Fad: Lá amhain
Suíomh: Leabharlann Dhún Garbhán

First Draft to First Novel with William Ryan
This one-day workshop is aimed at writers who have either completed their novel or are working on a first draft, as well as beginners who hope to turn a promising idea into something more.
It will focus on plot, central and subsidiary characters, setting, research, flow and opening chapters.

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Date: 14th September
Time: 10:00am – 4:30pm
Duration: 1 day
Location: Online

Short Story for Beginners with Aingeala Flannery
This collaborative workshop offers an introduction to the art of short story writing. It will explore how we can generate ideas from our own environment. How important is the setting? Do we really write what we know? We will discuss elements of the short story such as character, point of view and dialogue. We will explore the structure of a story. When does the action start – how should it finish? By the end of the four weeks each participant will have completed their own short story. Participants will be asked to share their work with the group.

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Date: 14th, 23rd, 30th September & 7th October
Time: 14th Sept in person in Tramore Library 2:00pm – 4:00pm, all other dates online 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Duration: 4 weeks
Location: Hybrid – 14th Sept in person in Tramore Library, all other dates online

Creative Non-Fiction and Arts Reportage with Peter Murphy
This course will be a primer on all practical facets of feature writing, reportage, interviewing techniques, reviewing, podcasting, broadcasting, and the art of the personal essay. The course will provide a brief overview of the last fifty-something years of arts reportage, from the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, through arch critics Greil Marcus and Pauline Kael, the gonzo school of Lester Bangs and Nick Kent, up to Gen X commentators such as Greg Tate, Gina Arnold and Simon Reynolds. It will also draw from Peter’s own archive of interviews with writers, musicians and artists, as well as encouraging practical participation and writing exercises.

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Date: 21st, 28th September & 5th & 12th October
Time: 2:30pm – 4:30pm
Duration: 4 weeks
Location: Central Library

Poetry for Beginners with Molly Twomey
A four-week generative poetry workshop that encourages participants to dive deep into their imaginations and to write with courage. Participants will work with writing prompts and have group discussions about contemporary poetry; and will develop the ability to close-read poetry, looking at aspects such as imagery, metaphor and language. At the end of the four weeks, participants will have exciting drafts of new poems they can develop and refine as well as a group of fellow writers and materials to draw inspiration from.

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Date: 2nd, 9th, 16th & 30th November
Time: 2nd & 30th November in person in Dungarvan Library 11:00am – 1:00pm, all other dates online 11:00am – 1:00pm
Duration: 4 weeks
Location: Hybrid – 2nd & 30th November in person in Dungarvan Library, all other dates online

Filíocht le Joanne McCarthy
Sa chúrsa seo tabharfar deis do rannpháirtithe dul i ngleic le filíocht na Gaeilge. Tógfar am chun filíocht chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge a léamh agus a phlé i suíomh comhoibritheach. Tabharfar am chun scríbhneoireacht a dhéanamh bunaithe ar leideanna cruthaitheacha.
Múinfear an cúrsa seo trí mheán na Gaeilge.

Leibhéal: Cúrsa do Thosaitheoirí
Dáta: 23 Mí na Samhna
Am: 10:00r.n. – 4:00i.n.
Fad: Lá amhain
Suíomh: Leabharlann Dhún Garbhán

Autobiographical Writing with Megan Nolan
This workshop will focus on exploring the aims, ethics and uses of autobiographical writing. Using the question of autobiography in John McGahern’s work as a starting point, it will take into account essays, poetry and fiction, from Simone Weil to W.D. Snodgrass to Karl Ove Knausgaard. It will question the relationship between first person narration and confession, the blurring of fact and fiction, memory and perception, and allow participants to clarify thinking and ask questions about their own autobiographical creative projects.

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Date: 14th December
Time: 10:00am – 4:00pm
Duration: 1 day
Location: Central Library

Workshop Tutors: 

Aingeala Flannery
Aingeala Flannery was born in Waterford. She is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Her work has been published in magazines, journals and broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. In 2023, her novel The Amusements won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week and the John McGahern Prize in association with the University of Liverpool. She is Deputy Publisher of The Dublin Review. Aingeala is the current Arts Council Writer in Residence at Dublin City University.

Joanne McCarthy
File dátheangach í Joanne McCarthy atá ag cur fúithí i bPort Láirge. Is comheagarthóir í ar an iris ‘The Waxed Lemon’ agus tá sí ag léamh filíochta fé láthair in Ionad Seamus Heaney, Béal Feiriste.
Joanne McCarthy writes in Waterford in both English and Irish. She is co-editor of the literary journal ‘The Waxed Lemon’ and she is currently reading poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast

Peter Murphy
Peter Murphy is a novelist, musician, spoken-word performer, journalist, poet, actor and arts facilitator/mentor from Wexford. He has published two novels, John the Revelator and Shall We Gather at the River (Faber & Faber), and his short fiction has appeared in New Irish Short Stories (ed. Joseph O’Connor), Being Various (ed. Lucy Caldwell), and The Art of the Glimpse (ed. Sinead Gleeson) among other anthologies. He records and performs as Cursed Murphy and has released two albums to date, Cursed Murphy Versus the Resistance (2020) and Republic of the Weird (2023).
Peter’s journalism has featured in the Irish Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, the Sunday Business Post, Huffington Post and Hot Press, where he was a contributing editor for fifteen years, writing more than fifty cover stories for the magazine. His interview portfolio includes James Ellroy, FW De Klerk, Neil Gaiman, Patti Smith, Bret Easton Ellis, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Alan Moore, David Simon, Tori Amos, Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Billy Bob Thornton, Willie Nelson, Henry Rollins and more. More recently, his essays and non fiction have appeared in the Stinging Fly and Winter Papers, for whom he currently serves as a contributing editor. He has been awarded literature bursaries by the Arts Council in 2011, 2015, 2020 and 2023, is currently completing his third book, and will begin recording his third album this autumn.

Megan Nolan
Megan Nolan was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland and is currently based in New York. Her essays and reviews have been published by The New York Times, The White Review, The Guardian, and Frieze among others. Her debut novel Acts of Desperation was published by Jonathan Cape and Little, Brown in 2021 and was the recipient of a Betty Trask Award, short-listed for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and long listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel Ordinary Human Failings was published in July 2023 in the U.K. and in the USA in February 2024.

Colm ÓCeallacháin
Tá Colm Ó Ceallacháin i mbun na ceardlainne scríbhneoireachta ‘Peann agus Pár’ i leabharlann Shráid an Chapaill Bhuí i gCorcaigh ó 2018. D’fhoilsigh Leabhar Breac a dhara cnuasach gearrscéalta, Ré na bhFathach, i 2021, leabhar a bhain áit amach ar ghearrliosta Leabhar Gaeilge na Bliana ag an Post Book Awards, 2021. D’fhoilsigh Cois Life a chéad cnuasach, I dtír Mhilis na mBeo, i 2017. Ghnóthaigh a úrscéal Fiche an chéad duais d’úrscéal liteartha ag Oireachtas na Gaeilge, 2023, chomh maith leis an duais do bhuaic-shaothar próis na bliana ag an gcomórtas céanna.
Colm Ó Ceallacháin has been part of the writing workshop ‘Peann agus Pár’ in Grand Parade Library in Cork sinc 2018. His second collection of short stories, Ré na bhFathach, was published in 2021 by Leabhar Breac. This book was then placed on the shortlist for Irish Language Book of the Year at the an Post Book Awards 2021. His first collection was published by Cois Life in 2017, titled I dtír Mhilis na mBeo. His novel Fiche won first prize for a literary novel at Oireachtas na Gaeilge, 2023, as well as the prize for the top prose work of the year at the same competition.

William Ryan
William Ryan is the author of six novels which have been shortlisted for numerous prizes including the Irish Crime Novel of the Year, The Crime Writers Association’s Steel, New Blood and Historical Daggers, the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. His latest novel is The Winter Guest, set in the War of Independence.

Molly Twomey
Molly Twomey grew up in Lismore, County Waterford, and graduated in 2019 with an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork. Her first collection, Raised Among Vultures, was published in 2022 by The Gallery Press. It won the Southward Debut Collection Poetry Award, was shortlisted for Farmgate National Poetry Award and was a book of the year in the Irish Times. Her work has appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Irish Times, Mslexia, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere.

Application forms are also available at Library Desks.

Courses are free of charge and open to people over 18 years resident in the City or County of Waterford.

The closing date for applications for all workshops is Friday 2nd August.
Places are limited and due to the demand for these courses early application advised.