Waterford Libraries are delighted to work in partnership with the Munster Literature Centre and with funding from Creative Waterford, Dún Garbhán le Gaeilge and the Irish Writers Centre 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 November 2025 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.

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

View the Writers at Waterford Libraries Writing Courses 2025 Brochure.

Writing Courses 2025:

August :

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.

Level: Beginners/Emerging
Dates: 5th , 12th, 19th, 26th August (Tuesdays)
Time: 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Location: ONLINE

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Closing Date for Course Application: 30th July 2025

How To Plan A Murder – A One Day Crime Novel Course with William Ryan

This one-day crime novel 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: All Levels
Date: 30th August
Time: Full Day
Location: ONLINE

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Closing Date for Course Application: 15th August 2025

September:

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 Grell 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: All Levels
Dates: 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th September (Saturdays)
Time: 11:00am – 1:00pm
Location: Central Library

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Closing Date for Course Application: 20th August 2025

Dilemma and Delusion: How to Write a Short Story with Niamh Mulvey

This course will show you how to write a powerful short story. We will discuss transformations, delusions, predicaments and dilemmas. We will also read and discuss stories by Chekhov, Yiyun Li, Maeve Brennan and others. At the end of the four weeks, you will have written, at the very least, the first draft of a short story.

Level: All Levels
Dates: 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th September (Saturdays)
Time: 2:30pm – 4:30pm
Location: Central Library

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Closing Date for Course Application: 20th August 2025

Character Building with Aingeala Flannery

How well do you know the character you are writing about? In this four-week course you will get under your character’s skin and your writing will go to unexpected places. Designed for emerging writers who want to write complex, engaging and real characters. This course involves sharing your work with others and group feedback.

Level: Emerging
Dates: 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th September (Tuesdays)
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Tramore Library

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Closing Date for Course Application: 21st August 2025

September / October: 

Poetry for Beginners with Conor O’Callaghan

A four-week generative poetry workshop for beginners. In each session we will discuss a handful of poems by contemporary poets such as Vona Groarke, Tom French and Amy Clampitt, and use those poems as models for set weekly exercises. In each session, also, students’ poems written to those exercises will be read and discussed. Exercises will be fun, and all feedback will be gentle and constructive. This is a course designed specifically for people who have always
wanted to write poetry and are now ready to try.

Level: Beginners / Emerging
Dates: 18th & 26th September, 2nd & 9th October (Thursdays)
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: ONLINE

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Closing Date for Course Application: 21st August 2025

October: 

Travel Writing: Engaging and Wooing your Readers with Manchán Magan 

PLEASE NOTE: This Event is Now Cancelled.

November: 

Filíocht ó Bhéal / Spoken Word Poetry (Irish) le Ciara Ní É

Is file í Ciara Ní É, a bhunaigh an oíche filíochta REIC. Ceardlann dhátheangach é seo atá dírithe ar dhaoine fásta atá ag tús a n-aistear scríbhneoireachta. Labhróidh Ciara faoin bpróiseas scríbhneoireachta, an cur i láthair agus an crógacht.

Poet Ciara Ní É runs the bilingual spoken word event REIC. This bilingual workshop is for adults and suitable for beginners. Ciara will discuss the writing process, performance and courage.

Leibhéal: Tosaitheoirí
Dáta: 6 Samhain
Ám: Lá Amhain
Suíomh: Leabharlann Dhún Garbhán

Level: Beginners
Date: 6 November
Time: All Day
Location: Dungarvan Library

Apply Online for a place on this course or fill out an application form in your local library.

Dáta deiridh le haghaidh iarratas: 23 Deireadh Fómhair 2025
Closing Date for Course Application: 23rd October 2025

Writing Course Tutors: 

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.

Peter Murphy
Peter Murphy is a writer and performer from Wexford, Ireland. He is the author of two acclaimed novels, John the Revelator and Shall We Gather at the River (Faber) and numerous short stories, including the audio-drama The Hands of Franky Machine. His journalism and non-fiction have appeared in Rolling Stone, the Guardian, the Irish Times, Hot Press, Stinging Fly and Winter Papers, for whom he also serves as contributing editor. He performs and records with his band under the name Cursed Murphy, and has released two albums to date, Cursed Murphy Versus the Resistance (2020) and Republic of the Weird (2022), the latter voted spoken word album of the year by Hot Press. This coming autumn will release a poetry album and book project entitled Ghost Voltage, in collaboration with violinist Colm Mac Con Iomaire, the band Basciville, and artist Mirona Mara. He has just completed his first non-fiction project, We Are Dead Stars, about the connection between punk rock and dystopian fiction.

Niamh Mulvey
Niamh Mulvey is a novelist and short story writer. Her short story collection Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth was published in 2022 and nominated for the John McGahern Prize. Her novel, The Amendments, was published in 2024 and nominated for an Irish Book Award.

Aingeala Flannery
Aingeala Flannery is the author of The Amusements, which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2023 and the John McGahern Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The Irish Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Paper Visual Art, and The Winter Papers, and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. Aingeala has taught Creative Writing at University College Dublin, Dublin City University, the University of Galway, and The Irish Writers Centre.

Conor O’Callaghan
Conor O’Callaghan is originally from Dundalk. He has published five collections of poems, all with Gallery Press, most recently The Sun King (2013) and Live Streaming (2017). He has also published two critically acclaimed novels and a football memoir. He lives half the year in Sheffield in England, and the other half in the mountains of northern Portugal.

Manchán Magan
Manchán Magan has written books on his travels in Africa, India and South America. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times, and presents the Almanac of Ireland podcast for RTÉ. He has made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ, & Travel Channel. His books include Thirty-Two Words For Field, Listen to the Land Speak, Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Words For Nature, and Wolf-Men and Water Hounds. With Antic-Ham, he’s collaborated on two art books for Redfox Press.

Ciara Ní É
Is file, taibheoir, craoltóir agus scannánóir í Ciara Ní É. Bhunaigh sí REIC, chomhbhunaigh sí AerachAiteachGaelach, ainmníodh í mar dhuine de 100 Women Changing Ireland (Irish Examiner). Tá a cuid filíochta léite aici ar fud na tíre agus thar lear.

Ciara Ní É is a bilingual poet, performer, broadcaster and filmmaker.
Founder of REIC and co-founder of AerachAiteachGaelach, she was named as one of the Irish Examiner’s 100 Women Changing Ireland in 2022. She’s toured internationally, written and directed her first film, and presented award-nominated documentaries.

Application forms are also available at Library Desks.

• All courses are free of charge but places must be booked in advance.
• All courses are open to people over 18 years old who are current members of Waterford Libraries and resident in the Waterford City and County administrative area.
• Course places are limited.
• Please note that due to the demand for these courses participants will be granted a place on one course only.
• Proof of library membership and residence may be requested.

Places are limited and due to the demand for these courses early application advised.