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
Welcome to the MA in Creative Writing Class, 2019-2020
Pictured below the incoming MA in Creative Writing class for 2019-2020 on the first day of term, with Sara Maitland, our current Frank O'Connor Fellow and great to see so many happy faces !
The best of luck to the new class !
The write stuff. . .
As we welcome a new group of students on the MA in Creative Writing (now in its sixth year), here's a roll-call of what our students, recent graduands and graduates have been up to.
Molly Twomey (2018/19) and Dee Collins (2017/18) have fiction in the upcoming Banshee journal. Dee will be reading an extract from "White on Red" at the launch of issue no 9 on Culture Night, September 20, in Waterstones, Patrick Street, Cork. https://twitter.com/bansheelit/status/1108339608264290305
Dee credits the 2018 Arts Council Writer-in-Residence, Thomas Morris, for the success of "White on Red". He provided a breakthrough when she was redrafting the story during her MA. Molly's story, "Massage", a flash fiction piece, was written for this year's fiction workshop led by Mary Morrissy.
It's been a bit of a Banshee takeover as undergraduate Rose Keating, earlier this year named as Marian Keyes Young Writer of the Year, was published in the journal's last issue in the spring.
Meanwhile, watch out for Irene Halpin Long, (2018/19,) a regular contributor to the Echo since completing the Writing for Media module on the MA, who'll be interviewing our current writer-in-residence, Danny Denton, in the Echo this coming Friday.
John Banville appointed as CW professor
John Banville to teach and give readings at UCC this academic year. Photograph: Irish Times
The internationally-renowned writer John Banville will be a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at UCC for the coming academic year. He will join the School of English and Digital Humanities, where he will contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in creative writing and give two public readings.
John Banville’s appointment is supported by an anonymous philanthropic donation to UCC.
Banville is the author of 17 novels including his early scientific trilogy of Kepler, Dr Copernicus and The Newton Letter as well as the Booker short-listed, The Book of Evidence. His novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. His most recent novel is Mrs Osmond, a continuation of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. He has also written a memoir, a collection of short fiction, travel literature, several plays and film scripts. https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/john-banville/
He writes detective fiction under the pen name of Benjamin Black. His work in this genre includes the Quirke series, the first three books of which, Christine Falls, The Silver Swan and Elegy for April, were televised by the BBC, and The Black-Eyed Blonde, a Philip Marlowe novel commissioned by the Raymond Chandler estate.
His many accolades include the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, and the Ordine della Stella d’Italia.
Banville will join the 2019 Frank O'Connor International Fellow, the British novelist and non-fiction writer, Sara Maitland, - https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/sara-maitland/ - and this year's incoming Arts Council/UCC Writer-in-Residence, Danny Denton, - https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-grim-dystopian-ireland-that-is-all-too-believable-1.3360182 - who are also on our creative writing team for 2019/20.
Rose wins Young Writer award
Rose Keating has done the School of English proud. She has just been announced as a winner of the Marian Keyes Young Writer Award Summer 2019, hosted by the Irish Writers' Centre.
Rose is an undergraduate studying at UCC on a Quercus creative writing
scholarship. She has been published in Banshee, Southword, Hot Press and in UCC's literary journal Quarryman. She also writes a column for the Waterford News and
Star.