FREE LITERARY EVENT - Talks by six brilliant emerging writers

Welcome to the Creative Community Sessions !

Join us for talks by six of the most talented emerging writers in the business! The event will be hosted by author Jennifer McMahon.

This event features the following writers and talks:

Theresa Ryder- speaking about: How a classics degree and a working class background influence my work.

Theresa is a writer and further education teacher with an M.A. in Classics. She is a recipient of the Molly Keane Creative Writing award (2015) and the Bealtaine Emerging Artist Award (2024). Recent literary contributions include: The 32: an Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices, The Same Page Anthology, The Honest Ulsterman, Antigone Journal, The Waxed Lemon, The Irish Times, and Eat the Storms podcast. Her play Ritual Dance was performed in Cork Arts Theatre in 2023. She was awarded a place on the 2022 National Mentoring Programme and the 2024 Northern Soul Roadshow from the Irish Writers Centre. She is currently editing two novels and writing a memoir about her years as assistant to the late author/artist J.P. Donleavy aided by an English literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Barbara Byar - speaking about: Resilience, and bursaries.

Barbara Byar is a working-class, hearing-impaired American writer living in Ireland for over 25 years. Her critically acclaimed, collection of stories: Some Days Are Better Than Ours (Reflex Press) was short-listed for the Saboteur Awards. Her short fiction has been published and prize-listed widely. She was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Irish Short Story of the Year in 2023 and longlisted in 2021. A recipient of an Irish Arts Council Literature Bursary and an Agility Award, she is a previous Novel Fair winner. Barbara is a Fiction Editor at Variant Literature and Editor of MOTEL from Cowboy Jamboree Press. She is currently writing a novel. Her writing can be found at barbarabyar.wordpress.com

Doreen Duffy - speaking about: Running Up That Hill – How I came to writing, followed by some simple steps into the art of writing

Doreen Duffy (MA in Creative Writing) studied at DCU, NUIM UCD and Oxford online. Pushcart Nominated. Publications include, Poetry Ireland Review 129 by Eavan Boland, Washing Windows Volumes Too & Three & Four, Arlen House, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, (Germany), The Storms Journals 1 & 3, The Galway Review, Flash Fiction (USA) and in, Live Encounters (Indonesia), The Incubator Journal, The Woman’s Way and The Irish Times. She won The Jonathan Swift Award and was presented with The Deirdre Purcell Cup at Maria Edgeworth Literary Festival. Shortlisted in Francis MacManus Competition, her story ‘Tattoo’ was broadcast on RTE Radio One.

Susan Condon - speaking about: Character analysis.

Susan Condon is a 2024 Irish Writers Centre National Mentoring Programme winner. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Dublin City University. Awards include first prize in the Jonathan Swift Award. Publications include Washing Windows IV, Boyne Berries, Flash Fiction Magazine (USA), Flash Flood Journal and My Weekly (UK).

Patrick Holloway - speaking about: Making your submission stand out— a guide to submitting your work to literary journals.

Patrick Holloway is a writer of fiction and poetry. His debut novel, The Language of Remembering, will be published in February 2025 by Epoque Press. He is the winner of the Bath Short Story Award, The Allingham Fiction Prize, The Flash 500 Prize and The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize. He was a recipient of The Paul McVeigh Residency and an Arts Council Agility Award. His work appears in The Stinging Fly, Southword, The London Magazine, The Moth, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and Carve, among others. He is an editor of the literary journal, The Four Faced Liar.

Cormac Culkeen - speaking about: The reading and writing of poetry.

Cormac Culkeen writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He lives in Galway and has completed an MA in Writing at the University of Galway. His poetry has been published in Skylight 47, The Wild Word, Causeway, Apricot Press, Bindweed, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Ropes Literary Journal, the Orphic Review, the Honest Ulsterman, and the Galway Review. His debut collection, The Boy with the Radio, was published by Beir Bua Press in 2022. He is a founding editor of Ragaire magazine.

Jennifer McMahon- your host for this event.

Jennifer McMahon is the overall winner of the 2024 All-Ireland Scholarships Creative Writing Award (Public), a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair, has been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year (2023), the Bridport Short Story Prize and many other notable awards, and has been nominated for Best Of The Net 2024. She was a second-place winner of the Oxford Prize (winter 2023). Jennifer's work appears in Crannog, HOWL, The Galway Review, Irish Independent (New Irish Writing), Oxford Prize Anthology (2022 and 2023), Fractured Lit, Heimat Review (issues 2 and 6), Empyrean, Books Ireland Magazine, Loft Books (issues IV and V), the Retreat West 'Swan Song' Anthology, the Cowboy Jamboree 'Motel' Anthology, and in many other places. She is the co-Editor-In-Chief, along with author Laura Cooney, of Frazzled Lit, a new and fresh online literary journal.

Host or Publisher Creative Community Sessions