Stinging Fly Fiction Workshops
Are you writing a novel or short-story collection? Do you feel you would benefit from a relationship with a group of others engaged in the same process?
We run intensive week-long workshops each summer and a six-month workshop from October to March each year. Our workshops are led by short-story writer and novelist Sean O’Reilly.
We are currently accepting applications for our 2017-2018 workshop. The application deadline is Monday August 14th 2017. We are accepting submissions via our Submittable page.
– Places offered based on work submitted
– No more than ten places offered
– During the workshops, each writer presents work-in-progress to the group for discussion.
– All work is shared in advance and is closely read by the workshop leader and the other participants.
6-month Fiction Workshop
in association with The Irish Writers Centre
October – March (introductory session is on Monday September 25th 2017)
For the 6-month workshop, participants meet once a week on Monday evenings at the Irish Writers Centre over a six-month period. At each evening workshop, two participants will present their work in progress (a draft of a short story or novel excerpt) to the rest of the group for close scrutiny.
Note that there will be no attempt to impose a rationalised schema of creative writing exercises. The writing up for discussion each week is the raw material; any questions of writing technique or prose style will arise naturally from the work itself. If you are writing a novel or story collection, then you will have ten close readers to respond to every stage of its development.
Over the course of the six months, each writer can look forward to having their work on the table on four occasions. In this way, the group will witness and contribute to the development of all the novels/collections in progress. The ultimate aim is for each participant to complete a strong first draft of his/her novel or collection.
Alongside the weekly workshops, on four Saturdays during the period, there will be a series of specialist talks on issues around the process of writing and the imagination. Previous guest speakers have included Evelyn Conlon, Gavin Corbett, Mia Gallagher, Michael Harding, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Claire Keegan, Lisa McInerney, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Conor O’Callaghan, Keith Ridgway and Peter Sheridan.
Cost of 6-month workshop: €1500 | €1450 for existing IWC members
A €200 deposit will be payable once a place on the workshop has been offered and accepted. The balance will be payable in two instalments in September 2016 and in January 2017. The fee includes free membership of the Irish Writers Centre for one year.
“It’s the best writing course I’ve done, and I’ve done a few, including a Masters. The group worked because of the quality of the criticism and there were no door-size egos. Without doubt everybody’s work improved during the course and the work was good to start with. The one-to-one sessions were instrumental and in-depth. The guest speakers were unholy and brilliant. The course is definitely a leg up (or a kick in the arse) on the finicky road to completing the first novel.”
“What is outstanding about this course is the generosity, both in terms of time and close attention, with which every submission was discussed by Sean and the rest of the group. Sean’s instincts were unerring, his suggestions helpful, and the energy with which he engaged with each participant was remarkable. An atmosphere was soon established in which as much could be learned by critically engaging with the work of every other member as from feedback on one’s own work.”
—feedback from participants on the Stinging Fly 6-month Fiction Workshop
Sean O’Reilly’s published work includes Curfew and Other Stories and the novels Love and Sleep, The Swing of Things and Watermark. Levitation, a new collection of stories, will be published in September 2017. Sean has a wealth of experience facilitating fiction workshops, as Writer-in-Residence with Fingal County Council, Dublin City Council and IADT/Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council amongst others. He currently teaches on the MFA Programme at the American College Dublin and in the Irish Writers Centre.
Summer Fiction Workshops
in association with the Irish Writers Centre
Supported by Words Ireland
Our popular week-long summer fiction workshops return for a third year in 2017 – and this year one of them is being held in Galway. These are intensive daytime workshops during which each writer’s work comes up for in-depth discussion twice. Also included are three sessions on aspects of narrative prose by guest speakers, including the editors of The Stinging Fly.
June 26-30 Galway Arts Centre
July 10-14 Irish Writers Centre
Cost of workshop: €325