The MA in Creating Writing is well represented in this year's From the Well competition anthology. Tadhg Coakley - https://tadhgcoakley.com/ - and Nora Shychuk- https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-shychuk-1bb3565b/ - from the 2015/16 MA class, both have stories in Smoke in the Rain, which was launched in Cork last night. From the Well is a short fiction competition sponsored by the Cork County Library and Arts Service and the winning and shortlisted stories are published together in this annual anthology.

The contest was adjudicated by writers Billy O’Callaghan, Claire Kilroy and Eimear Ryan, the editor of the Banshee Journal - http://bansheelit.tumblr.com/.  The outright winner was local writer Anne O'Leary, whose story gives the collection its title. Other featured writers include UCC alumna Catherine Kirwan, whose work has appeared in Quarryman, UCC's literary magazine, and who has just signed her first book contract for a crime novel set in Cork.

In other publishing news, another 2016 graduate, Robert Feeney, has had two short stories from his thesis collection published.  "Among the Blue Trees" is in the current  edition of The Galway Review  - https://thegalwayreview.com/ - and "Outside" will appear in the launch edition of the Shanghai Literary Review - https://www.shanghailiterary.com/.

Luisa Geisler, one of our summer serial writers

Watch out for the Evening Echo next Monday when the first episode of Sue Dukes' summer soap will appear - http://www.eveningecho.ie/ -  Entitled "Personal Services", the 12-episode serial tells the story of a Cork masseuse with a secret whose story is revealed through the parade of clients who come through her door. (There'll be a full page interview with Sue in the Evening Echo on Friday.)

The summer soap is a joint project organised between the MA in Creative Writing and Examiner publications and is in its second year.  Last year, the Echo ran two summer serials from Mark Kelleher and Kelly Warburton.  This year, the second serial by Sue's classmate Luisa Geisler, will appear in the paper and online later in the summer.  Entitled "12 Letters from Home", it charts the relationship between a Brazilian woman and an Irishman living in Cork.

Sue and Luisa are part of the 2016/17 MA year who are currently writing their theses.  Sue will be taking a break from her studies in July to get married - congratulations to her! - while Luisa, from Brazil, is part of the Uversity programme  - http://www.uversity.org/ - which allows international students to take courses in creative practice at a number of Irish universities in the same academic year.

Runner-up Jacqui Corcoran was commissioned to write a story for this year's Holly Bough - https://www.facebook.com/corkhollybough/ -  the Examiner's best-selling annual Christmas magazine.

PhD creative writing student, poet Kathy D'Arcy, tops off a busy year with a new play, Sagarmatha, at the Cork Harbour Festival next week.  Sagarmatha - another name for Mount Everest - narrates the travel diaries of Kathy and Harry Moore - http://www.harrymoore.net/home.html -  who spent time walking together in the Himalayas before the earthquakes of 2015.

For more details see https://www.facebook.com/events/113674305885938/

Sagarmatha is a performed narrative that fuses their separate experiences in a multi-media performance. The show runs for three evenings, June 6, 7, 8, at  L’Atitude 51°, 1 Union Quay, Cork at 7pm.

Tickets (in aid of the Nepalese Relief Fund) are €5 at the door.  No late admissions.

Congratulations to Conor Rowell, one of our 2017 MA graduates, who has just been published in the River River Literary Journal, a New York publication which serves the creative writing community of the lower Hudson Valley and beyond. "Serpents of the Middle East" appears in the spring edition of the journal and was one of the stories Conor presented as part of his thesis. His work has appeared in Synthesis Magazine and UCC's literary journal, Quarryman.   You can read his story here: - http://riverriver.org/river-river-literary-journal/issue-5-spring-2017/serpents-of-the-middle-east/.

Meanwhile, a story by Eileen O'Donoghue, who's at present completing her thesis, has been nominated for the Fabula Press Nivlais Short Story competition - http://www.fabulapress.com/ 2017.  "Scarecrows" - which grew out of a writing prompt - is in the final sixteen and will be published in an anthology of long-listed stories for the 2017 competition.