Entry-Level Fiction Workshops

In-Person Workshops

July 1st to July 5th in the Irish Writers Centre
10am to 4pm Monday to Friday
Sheila Armstrong and Olivia Fitzsimons

Online Workshops

July 1st to July 5th via Zoom
2pm – 5pm Monday to Friday
Maame Blue

July 8th to July 12th via Zoom
4pm – 7pm Monday to Friday
Danielle McLaughlin

Open for applications: Tuesday March 12th to Tuesday April 2nd 2023.

Entry-Level Fiction workshops are aimed at people who have only recently started writing fiction. They will be suitable for anyone who feels they will benefit from being part of a group with other early-stage writers. Over the course of five days, participants will complete writing exercises aimed at generating ideas for new work. They will also study various aspects of writing craft. Complete beginners are very welcome to apply.

To help you decide which workshop to apply for, workshop leaders have written up brief workshop descriptions, which are available to download here.

No more than ten places will be available on the in-person workshop, and no more than eight places will be available on each online workshop. Everyone applying for these workshops will be asked to submit 1 to 2 pages of a short story they have written. (This work will be read by the workshop leaders to help them select participants for their workshop groups. It will not be shared within the workshop groups.)

Before the workshops commence, participants will be provided with links to a selection of short stories that they will be expected to read in advance. During the workshops, participants will be encouraged to share some of the new work they have written.

Workshop Leaders:

Danielle McLaughlin (Entry Level Fiction | Online) is the author of the short-story collection, Dinosaurs on Other Planets, and the novel, The Art of Falling, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Dublin Literary Award. She has been Writer in Residence at University College Cork and Visiting Writer Fellow at the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College, Dublin. She has also designed and delivered workshops in Creative Writing for various organisations and festivals and currently mentors a number of emerging writers.

Maame Blue (Entry Level Fiction | Online) is a Ghanaian-Londoner, creative writing tutor and author of the novel Bad Love, which won the 2021 Betty Trask award, and was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize. Her short stories have been published in Not Quite Right For Us(Flipped Eye Publishing), New Australian Fiction 2020 (Kill Your Darlings), and Joyful, Joyful (Pan Macmillan). Maame is a recipient of the 2022 Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship and was a 2022 POCC Artist-in-Residence. She contributes regularly to Royal Literary Fund publication Writers Mosaic and her writing has appeared in many places including Refinery29, The Independent and iNews. Her second novel The Rest Of You will be published by Amistad (US) and Verve Books (UK) in Autumn 2024.

Olivia Fitzsimons (Entry Level Fiction | In-person) is a writer from Northern Ireland. Her debut novel, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop (2022), was shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien and Butler Literary Awards, and was one of the Irish Examiner Books of the Year for 2022. She is a contributing editor at The Stinging Fly and commissions the This So-Called Writing Life essay series.

Sheila Armstrong (Entry Level Fiction | In-person) is a writer and editor from the north-west of Ireland. She is the author of two books, How To Gut A Fish (2022), a collection of short stories, and Falling Animals (2023), a novel. She has over ten years of in-house and freelance editorial experience across genres.

Fees:

In-person Workshops:
The tuition fee for each workshop is €450. 
The concession rate for anyone on low income is €300.

Online Workshops:
The tuition fee for each workshop is €375. 
The concession rate for anyone on low income is €250.

Fees are payable only when a place has been offered and you have accepted the offer. We will ask for a deposit of €100 to be paid by Friday 10th May. Fees must be paid in full by Friday 7th June

Free Places:

Thanks to the support we receive from the Arts Council and to the continued generosity of our patrons, we are in a position to offer one free place in all of our summer school workshops. These are awarded to writers who are either unwaged or on low income. To be considered for a free place, all you need to do is follow the general guidelines below and tick the box on the submission form.

The Stinging Fly is open to submissions from writers of all backgrounds. We are committed to pursuing a proactive approach to diversity and inclusiveness. We strongly encourage writers from underrepresented areas of society to apply for these workshops.

To apply for a place: 

Applications are open from Tuesday March 12th to Tuesday April 2nd 2023.

Send us a short sample of your work. The workshop leaders want to read the first one to two pages of a story you have written.

All applicants must supply a cover note as part of the Submittable application form and answer a few questions.

We will aim to send out offers of places no later than Tuesday 30th April. Participants will be asked to confirm their places as soon as possible.

Follow this link to apply for a place on one of the entry-level fiction workshops.