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
Graduation Day for Creative Writing in UCC !
Congratulations to our graduation students in Creative Writing ! Below some of the MA class of 2019 with Maeve Bancroft, who graduates today with her doctorate in Creative Writing.
A great day and well done to all, wonderful achievements !
OUTing the Past Festival comes to Cork
Next Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February sees the 2020 'OUTing the Past: LGBTQ+ History Festival' coming to Cork City Hall.
On Saturday, Director of Creative Writing Eibhear Walshe will be interviewed about his memoir Cissie's Abattoir and his novel, The Trumpet Shall Sound, as part of a panel called 'Activism, Imagination and Protest: Creativity through Necessity.'
Hilary Mantel to read at UCC
Hilary Mantel will be reading from The Mirror and the Light - Photograph: Irish Times
Two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel is coming to UCC. Mantel's reading will take place on Tuesday, May 19, in the Aula Maxima. The reading comes shortly after the publication in March of the much anticipated third volume in her Cromwell trilogy - The Mirror and the Light.
The reading has been made possible by the generous donation of a UCC alumna, whose love of reading prompted her endowment. The donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, will also sponsor a number of other high-profile readings on campus next semester, including espionage maestro John Le Carré, whose 25th novel Agent Running in the Field, appeared last year. (Date to be confirmed.)
Scotland's "laureate-in-waiting" Ali Smith (winner of the Costa Novel of the Year, the Bailey's and Goldsmiths Prizes) will read on September 22, following the August publication of Summer, the final novel in her acclaimed seasonal quartet series.
Finally on October 20, the 2004 Booker Prize winner (for The Line of Beauty) British novelist, journalist and translator, Alan Hollinghurst will round off the year's readings.
All of our reading events are free and open to the public, although some of these events may be ticketed.
Poetry with an international flavour
Paula Bohince, Billy Ramsell (top right) and Martin Veiga will read together on February 24.
Our next Department of English Reading Series event is a poetry special, showcasing three writers, Paula Bohince, Martin Veiga and Billy Ramsell who have strong connections with UCC, but whose work is international in flavour. The reading takes place at the Creative Zone, Boole Library, UCC @ 6.30pm, Monday, February 24.
Paula Bohince is UCC’s International John Montague Fellow in Poetry for 2020. From Pennsylvania, she is the author of three poetry collections, all from Sarabande: Swallows and Waves (January 2016), The Children (2012), and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods (2008). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Granta, POETRY, The TLS, The Irish Times, Australian Book Review among others.
She has received the “Discovery”/The Nation Award, the Grolier Poetry Prize, the George Bogin Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and Second Prize in the UK National Poetry Competition for her poem, “Among Barmaids.” She has taught at New York University, the New School and The Poetry School.
Martin Veiga is the author of five poetry collections in Galician, entitled Tempo van de porcelana (1990), As últimas ruínas (1994, Espiral Maior Poetry Prize), Ollos de ámbar (2005, Esquío Poetry Prize), Fundaxes (2006, Fiz Vergara Vilariño Poetry Prize) and Diario de Crosses Green (2016). He is a Cork-based Galician poet and academic. He is a lecturer in Hispanic Studies at UCC and the director of the Irish Centre for Galician Studies. In 2017 he was awarded the Pedrón de Honra Prize for his promotion of Galician culture abroad. His poems have been published and translated widely.
Billy Ramsell was born in Cork and educated at the North Monastery and UCC. Complicated Pleasures, his debut collection, was published by the Dedalus Press, Dublin, in 2007. He has been shortlisted for a Strong Award and a Hennessy Award. He lives in Cork, where he co-runs an educational publishing company. He was awarded the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary in 2013. His second collection is The Architect’s Dream of Winter (Dedalus , 2013). His translations from the Irish language have appeared in Poetry, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Fusion, Transcript, The Penny Dreadful and Poetry International, and in Leabhar na hAthgabhála / Poems of Repossession from Bloodaxe Books.