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
Lecture by Eibhear Walshe
Director of Creative Writing, Dr Eibhear Walshe, gave a lecture at Wellesley College, Boston, last week on the subject "Writing Myself - From Biography to Memoir to Fiction."
Dr Walshe spoke about his writing in these different genres, discussing the link between the forms and the value of life writing as a source and inspiration for creating fiction.
Roll up, roll up!
UCC's creative writing students and faculty will be all over the Cork International Short Story Festival which begins next week. Here's a chance to see what we really do in our spare time!
Our 2017 International Frank O'Connor Fellow, Marie-Helene Bertino will be giving masterclasses and reading at the festival (Thursday, Sept 14th, 10pm, Firkin Crane) while adjunct professor Conal Creedon and associate creative writing director Mary Morrissy will be reading at an event celebrating UCC's Quarryman journal - so ably sustained by our English Society, and in particular, Alison Driscoll, whom we're delighted to have in our incoming MA class this year.
PhD student Fiona Whyte will be reading at the Long Story Short Journal event ( Thursday, Sept 14th, 4.30pm, Central Library) while her colleague Laura McKenna will be participating in the Banshee Journal reading ( Friday, Sept 15th, 2.30pm, Central Library).
Recent MA graduate Tadhg Coakley (and now signed-up author!) will read his winning story in the From the Well anthology (Wednesday, Sept 13th, 4pm, Central Library) and Madeleine D'Arcy, from our inaugural MA course, will read with Danielle McLaughlin (Wednesday, Sept 13, 7.30pm, Nano Nagle Place) followed by a special Fiction at the Friary event which she and Danielle host throughout the year in Cork. Not to be missed!
Finally, our new writer-in-residence Thomas Morris will be participating in the "Short Story: State of the Art" panel discussion (Saturday, Sept 16th, 4.30pm, Firkin Crane) with Nuala O'Connor, Danielle O'Laughlin and Rob Doyle.
Full programme here:http://www.corkshortstory.net/programme2017.html
Book deal for MA graduate
MA graduate Tadhg Coakley - https://tadhgcoakley.com/about - has landed a book deal with Mercier Press for his "novel in stories" collection, The All-Ireland. The interlinked narratives set in 2014 tell the story of a fictional All-Ireland hurling final between Clare and Cork. (No spoilers - we won't say who won!)
Tadhg submitted part of the book for his thesis last year for which he received a first class honours and earlier this year The All-Ireland was shortlisted for the inaugural Mercier Fiction Prize.
Tadhg has been previously published in Quarryman and Silver Apples and in the 2017 From the Well anthology. The All Ireland is due to hit the shelves next year with three other fiction titles from Mercier. https://www.mercierpress.ie/news/press-release---mercier-press-announces-decision-to-publish-fiction-/.
Congratulations to him from all on the MACW.
The show goes on!
Photographed at their graduate show "Thar Cailc: Unconfined" at the Dlight Studios in Dublin on Thursday night (August 24), are Uversity students (front from left) Emma Austin, Laura Cummins, Ana Vallejos Cotter, (back from left), Shelly Harder, Daniel McNamara and Luisa Geisler.
Emma, Ana and Luisa took several modules on the MA in Creative Writing at UCC to complete their Uversity Masters programme. Uversity facilitates international students to combine creative courses at a number of Irish universities in the same academic year that go towards a Masters in Creative Practice. Last year, UCC hosted two students, Sam Lai and Julian Munoz, under the Uversity programme.
The 2017 Uversity graduate show, a showcase of student work undertaken during the academic year, is a mixture of installations, performance and live readings and can be viewed on the Uversity site - https://www.facebook.com/Uversity.org/