Residential Fiction Workshop at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre, Wales | August 18th to 22nd 2025 with Mia Gallagher and Yan Ge
“We want to create a safe space where the participating writers will be invited to learn where they may be holding themselves back so that they can start to find their own unique way forward.”
—Mia Gallagher
“We’ll be aiming to provide an intense and creatively intimate experience, one that we hope will help generate powerful new energies the participants can take away and channel into their writing projects.”
—Yan Ge
In partnership with Literature Wales, we are delighted to announce details of our first residential fiction-writing workshop.
Held at Tŷ Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales, this intensive fiction workshop will provide participants with an immersive workshop experience in the beautiful surroundings of North-West Wales. The workshop will take place from Monday 18th to Friday 22nd August 2025.
The workshop will have up to 12 participants.
Applications for the workshop are now open and will be accepted until 5pm (Irish time) on May 29th 2025.
All fiction writers over 18 years of age are welcome to apply.
Workshop places will be offered based on work submitted. All submissions will be read by the workshop leaders.
The application form includes a cover note. Use this space to give us as much information as you can about your current writing project(s) and to tell us how you hope to benefit from participating in the workshop. We will also ask you to outline any specific areas you believe you need help with.
The principal aim of the workshop is to enable people to develop their writing practice through intensive engagement with a group of similarly motivated individuals. The workshop is designed to benefit writers who have been writing for some time who are looking for an opportunity to hone their craft in a supportive yet rigorous environment.
Participating writers will be asked to submit and share one piece of writing ahead of time.
You can expect to receive detailed feedback on your work from the workshop leaders and from your fellow participants. The close attention your work is given during the workshop will allow you to return to your work with fresh eyes. The workshop will also be an opportunity for you to review and develop your way of working and your general writing practice.
We recommend that you submit material that you have already worked on for some time. It should be work that is beyond the first-draft stage, but which you know you still need help with.
Workshop Leaders
Mia Gallagher is the author of the novels HellFire (Penguin Ireland, 2006) and Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (New Island, 2016), the short-story collection Shift (New Island, 2018), and the bilingual Dubliners (2022, co-authored with artist Mario Sughi). Mia is a contributing editor of The Stinging Fly, and in 2018 was elected as a member of Aosdána. She has been mentoring fiction writers and facilitating workshops in creative writing since 2007. She lives in Dublin.
Yan Ge was born in Sichuan, China in 1984. She is a fiction writer in both Chinese and English, and is the author of fourteen books in Chinese, including six novels. She has received numerous awards and was named by People’s Literature magazine as one of twenty future literature masters in China. Her work has been translated into eleven languages, including English, French and German. The latest English translation of her novel, Strange Beasts of China, was one of the New York Times Notable Books of 2021. Her English language debut short-story collection Elsewhere was published by Faber in the UK and Scribner in the USA in summer 2023. She has taught and given creative writing classes at the Arvon Foundation, the National Centre for Writing, Moniack Mhor, the University of East Anglia and Trinity College Dublin, among other institutions. Yan lives in Norwich with her husband and son.
Fees
The workshop fee covers tuition and accommodation with meals during the time you spend at Tŷ Newydd. You can find more information about the centre and its facilities, including meal and accommodation arrangements, here.
The standard is £650 (or £525 concession). Larger bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms will be available for a supplementary fee of £100 (or £75 concession). (The euro equivalent will be calculated when we are sending out offers of places.)
The concession rate is available for anyone who is unwaged or on low income.
A deposit of £150/€200 (non-refundable) will be payable once a workshop place has been offered and accepted. The balance will be payable by August 1st 2025. (Where necessary an alternative payment schedule can be agreed.)
Free Place Available
Thanks to the support we receive from the Arts Council and to the continued generosity of our friends and patrons, we are in a position to offer one free place on the workshop. It will be awarded to a writer who is either unwaged or on low income. You can tell us why you want to be considered for a free place in the cover note that is included on the Submittable application form. A travel stipend of up to €150 will be provided to cover the cost of travel.
Travel
Participants are expected to arrive in Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre by 3pm on Monday August 18th and will depart the centre by 10am on Friday morning, August 22nd.
The workshop fee does not cover travel costs getting to and from Tŷ Newydd.
You can find more information on accessing Tŷ Newydd here.
Where possible we encourage participants to travel by land or sea, and to be mindful of the environmental impact of their journey.
How to apply:
Apply by filling out the application form on Submittable here.
Allow yourself time to complete the questions on the form. We recommend making your application well in advance of the 5pm deadline on May 29th.
You must include a work sample from a work-in-progress – the first 5 pages, up to 2000 words.
If you are offered a place on the workshop, we will ask you to submit material for the workshop (a complete story or a novel extract up to 6000 words) by Monday July 28th.
Any questions?
Please contact Eoin: admin [at] stingingfly [dot] org