This site is a road map to the world of creative writing at UCC. The School of English offers creative writing at undergraduate, Masters and PhD level. See what we do – check out our blog written by students, see the major names in literature who visit our campus, and explore the numerous courses we offer that redefine and broaden what it is to be a 21st century creative writer.
News and Events
Rose Keating wins 2019 Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship
Congratulations to Rose Keating, recipient of the 2019 Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing. Rose is a Third Year BA International (English) student and we send her our best wishes
Leanne O’Sullivan wins first Farmgate Market Cafe National Poetry Award
We are delighted that the inaugural winner of the Farmgate Cafe National Poetry Award is A Quarter of an Hour by our own Leanne O’Sullivan, published by Bloodaxe Books.
The award is for the best original collection published in the previous calendar year by a poet living in Ireland. Over forty titles were in contention.
The award includes a €2000 cash prize and is sponsored by the Farmgate Cafe in the English Market, Cork, and is an initiative of the Munster Literature Centre.
O’Sullivan said: “I’m honoured to be the inaugural recipient of the Farmgate Market Cafe National Poetry Award, particularly for this book which means so much to me. I’m grateful to the judges for choosing that book and to Kay and Rebecca of the Farmgate for all the support they have shown poetry down through the years.”
Prize judge Maurice Riordan said of the winning title, “Leanne O’Sullivan is possessed of a haunting lyric voice which, in A Quarter of an Hour, draws us into an area of surface tension where personal crisis – a husband stricken and then recovering from a deadly illness – interacts with our experience of the non-human. Dawn, the poem that gives the book its particular title and focus, captures in its evocation of the dawning world the ‘here to not here’ of becoming; and as readers we are given access throughout to that dimension between the mundane and the mythic that normally eludes articulation, but here finds expression in limpid, precise poems. At once tender, exploratory and grace-filled, this finely orchestrated collection attests to the wholeness of natural life and, resonant with folkloric wisdom, it re-awakens the spirit to a fresh sense of the mystery and precariousness of our world. It is an astonishing achievement.”
Beau Williams Poetry Book Launch Monday 25th March
Beau Williams, a student in the current MA in Creative Writing, will be celebrating the Irish launch of his poetry collection, next Monday, 25th March at 7pm in the School of English, with guest speaker Matthew Gedden ! All well
Sandra Beasley, 2019 John Montague International Poetry Fellow Reading
Photo credit Milly West
CORK INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL
MARCH 19TH TO 23RD 2019
Full programme www.corkpoetryfest.net
Ireland’s biggest annual poetry festival kicks off next week, featuring workshops, award presentations, discussions, book launches and readings by over forty poets from America, Asia, Europe, Britain and Ireland.
Two poets based in UCC will participate:
Dr. Mary Noonan of UCC, will read on Wednesday 20th March at 10pm in Cork Arts Theatre (admission €5). Her first collection of poems – The Fado House (Dedalus Press, 2012) – was shortlisted for both the Seamus Heaney Prize for a First Collection 2013 and The Strong/Shine Award 2013. A limited edition pamphlet, Father (Bonnefant Press) was published in 2015. She is the current poetry editor of the online literary journal Southword. Her second collection of poetry, Stone Girl, was published by Dedalus Press in February 2019.
Also from UCC – Dr. Martín Veiga will read on Thursday 21st March at 2.30pm in Cork City Library (admission free) is a lecturer in the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, University College Cork, where he is also the director of the Irish Centre for Galician Studies. He has published five award-winning poetry collections in Galician, most recently Diario de Crosses Green (2016), which Keith Payne has translated into English as Diary of Crosses Green (2018). In 2017 he received the Premio Pedrón de Honra for his trajectory in the international promotion of Galician culture.
Sandra Beasley (USA), recipient of the 2019 John Montague International Poetry fellowship, through the support of UCC, also participates. Sandra Beasley is the author of several collections, and her awards include the Barnard Women Poets Prize and the National endowment for the Arts fellowship. She reads on Wednesday 20th March at 8.30pm at Cork Arts Theatre (admission €5).
Other highlights from this year’s Cork International Poetry Festival:
Former US poet laureate Billy Collins (USA), who read for President Barack Obama, headlines a bill which also includes Paul Durcan (IRL) celebrating his 75th year, senior American poet Marie Howe, iconoclast Kim Adonizzio (USA) and some of Ireland and Britain’s leading poets.