Winners of the Writing Spirit Award 2009

The winners for the Writing Spirit Award were announced and the Irish Writers' Centre's Maire Robinson came in third for her short story The Weight of Words. Congratulations Maire!

Brian K won the top prize for his work Perpetuity and Gerry Boland was a close second for The Fox.

Writing4all, the organiser of the competition, said: "The high standard of the Top Ten shortlisted stories made the final selection very difficult."

The website quoted their esteemed judge Nadine O'Regan, who is also the Sunday Business Post's Books and Arts Editor. She said: "It was a very tough task to choose the top three, even after I had read and reread them several times. The ten (shortlisted) stories showed spark, ambition and great observational powers. I hope all ten writers persevere in their work; they have a lot of talent."

O'Regan went on to explain the reasons for selecting the top three: "For me, the outright winner was Perpetuity. The story was beautifully structured and paced, with simple, understated, yet specific language and compelling characters that were well individuated.

In second position, I placed The Fox. The author has a clear talent for etching characters with wonderfully strong, individual voices.

In third place comes The Weight of Words. I was moved by this story and I felt that the author gave a very truthful, poignant depiction of how a family can be affected by disease."

Writing4all reminds writers that a new competition has started. The 2nd Annual Writing Spirit Award for Short Fiction and Poetry is currently accepting submissions. Have a look at the Writers' Centre's website for more details.

Apprenticeships in Fiction 2010

Apprenticeships in Fiction 2010
A one-year professional development programme for first-time novelists
Deadline: 31st May 2010

Adventures in Fiction is proud to present five subsidized placements for first-time novelists of commercial and literary fiction, including one for crime, one for fantasy and one for fiction for children and young people (9+/teenage). The placements, which have an individual value of over £2,750 will take the form of an apprenticeships with a professional writer working in a similar genre. The five apprentices will be selected from open competition by a panel of experts including Hannah Westland from leading literary agency Rogers, Coleridge, White.
In its first three years, the scheme has already resulted in three publications and referred eight writers to literary agents. Six writers have secured funding, two from Arts Council England, to support placements.
Apprenticeships in Fiction aims to encourage diversity, excellence and originality.

For further information go to http://www.adventuresinfiction.co.uk/apprenticeships

The Girl in the Wardrobe

Jennifer Farrell has written a memoir entitled The Girl in the Wardrobe which was published last month by Original Writing. It won the inaugural Memoir prize at Listowel Writers' Week where Nuala O'Faolain was the judge.

For more information about Jennifer and to buy the book, visit her website: www.jennifer-farrell.com.

New Online Literary Magazine

wordlegs is a new online literary magazine, founded by Elizabeth Reapy and Cathal Sherlock.

"wordlegs was thought up to offer literature to a younger Irish audience by younger writers...The main objective of wordlegs is to bring an audience of young Irish people back to literature by using the medium they are most comfortable with."

The first issue is now available online and features a short story by IWC's own Andrew McEneff. wordlegs are now accepting submissions for their summer issue. They accept short stories, poetry, flash fiction, creative non-fiction and one-act plays. See the website for further details:

www.wordlegs.com

2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition

2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition sponsored by Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

In 2010 Over The Edge is continuing its exciting annual creative writing competition. The competition is open to both poets and fiction writers. The total prize money is €1,000. The best fiction entry will win €300. The best poetry entry will win €300. One of these will then be chosen as the overall winner and will receive an additional €400, giving the overall winner total prize money of €700 and the title Over The Edge New Writer of The Year 2010. The 2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year will be a Featured Reader at a reading to be scheduled in Galway City Library in Winter 2010/11. Salmon Poetry will read without prejudice a manuscript submitted to them by the winner in the poetry category. 

Entries should be sent to Over The Edge, New Writer of the Year competition, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland with an accompanying SAE. Entries will be judged anonymously, so do not put your name on your poem(s) or story. Put your contact details on a separate sheet.

Criteria: fiction of up to three thousand words, three poems of up to forty lines, or one poem of up to one hundred lines. Multiple entries are acceptable but each must be accompanied by a fee. The fee for one entry is €10. The fee for multiple entries is €7.50 per entry e.g. two entries will cost €15, three entries €22.50 and so on. Fee payable by cheque or money order to Over The Edge. To take part you must be at least sixteen years old by September 1st 2010 and not have a book published or accepted for publication in that genre. Chapbooks excepted. Entries must not have been previously published or be currently entered in any other competition.

The closing date is Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010. A longlist will be announced in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010. A shortlist will be announced at the Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 26th. The winners will be announced at the Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 30th, 2010.

This year’s competition judge is James Martyn. James is from Galway where he is a member of The Talking Stick Writing Workshop. James writes both fiction and poetry. He has had work broadcast on both RTE and BBC and won the Listowel Writers Week Originals Short Story Competition. His work has appeared in The Cúirt Journal, West 47, Books Ireland, Crannóg, TheSunday Tribune, The Stinging Fly and The Shop. He was shortlisted for a Hennessy Award in 2006. He was shortlisted for the Francis McManus award in both 2007 and 2008 and for The William Trevor International Short Story Competition in 2007. His first collection of poetry, Shedding Skin, has just been published by Arlen House.

 

For further details contact Over The Edge on 087-6431748, e-mail over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com or seehttp://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

 

Free Workshop Space

The Irish Writers' Centre is sponsoring one student or unemployed person with a free place on the weekend course "Introduction to Writing with Catherine Phil MacCarthy". 

Interested parties should send a brief email to info@writerscentre.ie before 5pm today and tell us why you would like to do this course.  The recipient of the scholarship will be contacted this evening.

This scholarship is worth €140

Succour Submissions

Succour are calling for submissions and they have an innovative idea as to how and when these should be written. If you would like to take part in this writng venture and are looking for a quiet space in which to write, the IWC will be providing a room from 10.30 - 4.30 on Saturday February 6th for anyone who would like to drop by. Find full details below:


Submission Details

For Succour 11, our Spring/Summer 2010 issue, we would like to invite submissions which pertain not to a theme, as has hitherto been the case, but which adhere to a pair of conditions.

Condition 1: All submissions should be written on Saturday February 6th, 2010.
Condition 2: What you write should not be an attempt to execute an idea – for a story, for a poem, etc – that has previously occurred to you. Rather, we would prefer you to write whatever happens to come into your head at that particular time.

The idea for this issue was inspired by 20 Lines a Day by Harry Mathews, in which the author sets out to follow a rule Stendhal once set himself, to write ‘Twenty lines a day, genius or not’. Mathews undertakes this project in an attempt to overcome ‘the anxiety of the blank page’; it becomes part of his writing practice, his way of starting off, getting in the zone, before going on to whatever his main writing project may be. We would like submissions to February 6th, 2010 to be written in the same spirit.

We will be accepting submissions to February 6th, 2010 from Saturday February 6th 2010 until Monday February 8th 2010 – thereby allowing a couple of days for typing up etc.
Maximum word count: 400

Send all work to:
submissions@succour.org