Writing Clinics - Fifteen Minutes With You

If you are writing, or want to write, and you need some expert advice our pop-up 15 minute writing clinic is for you.

• Aingeala Flannery - Prose
• Stephen James Smith - Poetry
• Muireann Ní Chíobháin - Writing for children
• Ferdia McAnna - Screenwriting
• Darren Murphy - Writing for the stage

Spaces are strictly limited to 3 clinics per practitioner, so book early!

This event is a partnership between Dublin Book Festival and Dublin City University as part of The Artist and The City, a day-long public symposium focussing on Dublin’s Northside.

Aingeala Flannery is the 2024 Writer in Residence at Dublin City University. Her critically acclaimed novel The Amusements won both the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year at Listowel Writers’ Week 2023 and the John McGahern Prize. Aingeala was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2020 and 2021. She is a former Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair winner. In 2019, her short story Visiting Hours won the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, while her personal essays have been published by Paper Visual Art (PVA) and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. Aingeala is deputy publisher of The Dublin Review and the producer/presenter of The Dublin Review Podcast. She holds an MA in Journalism from DCU and an MFA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin.

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Stephen James Smith, born in Dublin, is an Irish poet, writer, performer, playwright, and educator. Their short poetry films have captivated millions, earning them the opportunity to perform alongside notable names like Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Patti Smith, Shane MacGowan, Bono (U2), Imelda May, and Glen Hansard. With close to 1,000 gigs worldwide over the past 20 years in locations from Ballydehob to Bangkok, and significant performances at venues like Glastonbury, the Radio City Music Hall, New York, the Nuyorican Poetry Café, the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), and the Barbican and Palladium (London). Stephen has demonstrated a commanding presence on the stage. As a recording artist, Stephen’s work has been lauded both nationally and internationally, leading to Stephen being dubbed “Dublin’s unofficial poet laureate." Acknowledging that success is a blend of luck, hard work, and subjectivity, Stephen invites you to form your own opinions about their work.

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Muireann Ní Chíobháin is the Irish language Writer-in-Residence at DCU. She has written five Irish-language books for children, which have been published by FutaFata: Scúnc agus Smúirín, three books in the Eoinín series, and Gealach agus Grian. Muireann has also developed and written many television programmes for young people which can be seen on TG4, RTÉjr, Amazon Prime and Apple TV and was a commissioning editor and executive producer of children’s animation and drama for the launch of Irish language children’s television channel Cúla 4. The clinics she is providing are for people interested in writing for children in English or Irish.

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Ferdia Mac Anna has worked as a television producer/director, journalist, magazine editor, filmmaker, creative writing facilitator and lecturer. At present, he lectures in screenwriting at DCU. He produced the Bafta-winning children’s drama series, ‘Custer’s Last Stand-Up’ (bbc 2000-2002) and ‘Seacht’ (2007, tg4). His feature film ‘Dannyboy’ won best film at Birmingham Film Festival.For some years he toured ireland as lead singer and songwriter with first Rocky de Valera and The Gravediggers (1977-79/2005-2008) and Rocky de Valera and The Rhythm Kings (1980-83). Now and then, he still rock and rolls. He has written three novels , ‘The Last of the High Kings’ (made into a movie starring Gabriel Byrne, Jared Leto and Christina Ricci), ‘The Ship Inspector’ and ‘Cartoon City’ plus two memoirs, ‘Baldhead’(Raven Arts) and ‘The Rocky Years’ (Hodder Headline, 2006). He has written one poem.

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Darren Murphy is a playwright, essayist, and academic, and has been produced in the West End, Off-Broadway, Dublin, Belfast, Derry, and Edinburgh. Plays include: X’ntigone (MAC, Belfast, and The Peacock, Dublin); Bunny’s Vendetta (UK City of Culture, Derry); Irish Blood, English Heart (Trafalgar Studios, West End); and Tabloid Caligula, (Arcola, London, and the Off-Broadway Festival at E59E, New York). He was associate playwright at the Abbey Theatre in 2018 and is currently under commission to the Lime Tree in Limerick. He was appointed a Ciaran Carson Writing in the City Fellow 2022-23, for the Seamus Heaney Centre, Belfast, and has taught playwriting at QUB for the Irish Writers Centre, the Abbey Theatre, and at Griffith College for CAPA. He is currently Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at DCU. The Playwright & the Pugilist, an essay, was published by The Tangerine. His plays are published by Methuen and Oberon.

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Host or Publisher Dublin City University