Category Archives: News

Calling all School of English Creative Writing Graduates : Call for Submissions

Call for Submission

 

The Same Page is a Cork-based print anthology by UCC Creative Writing Post Graduate alumni

 

We are currently working on publication and have a particular interest in publishing poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction.

 

The submission deadline to be included in the 2021 Anthology is February 19th.

 

The theme for submissions is:

 

“Blue is the colour of distance”

  • Tennessee Williams

 

All interpretations are encouraged. If you would like to submit, please consider the guidelines in full.

 

We look forward to reading your work,

Same Page Team

 

 

Submission Guidelines

What We Publish

We publish new, previously unpublished work by graduates of the UCC Creative Writing MA. Each issue includes a mix of poetry and fiction, alongside works of non-fiction. We also welcome submissions of poetry and prose in translation.

 

How to Submit

  • Submissions should be emailed to the team before February 19th – contact details below
  • Submit all work as an email attachment in a word document (.docx) along with a brief author bio

Please Note

  • No more than one submission in each category can be submitted during any one submission period (Fiction/Non-Fiction/Poetry)
  • Each category submission should be sent in a separate email
  • Submission emails should be titled “Same Page Submission: Category
  • Work must be previously unpublished and ideally should not be under consideration elsewhere. If it is accepted for publication elsewhere please notify us immediately – contact details below
  • For poetry submissions, send up to 3 poems. Poems should be submitted together in one single word document
  • All submissions are read. The editors’ decision may not be correct but it is final. We aim to contact everyone within three months of the closing date
  • Copyright remains in all cases with the author. Some work published may also be included on UCC websites

Payment

Contributors receive a copy of the issue in which their work is featured and can order further copies at a discounted rate.

 

Depending on funding, we hope to pay a nominal fee to contributors to the anthology.

 

Any profits made from the sale of the anthology will be donated to the Sexual Violence Center Cork.

Contact Details

Please send all submissions and queries to

Thesamepageteam@gmail.com

 

 

Writer-in-Residence Announced for 2021 !

The School of English is delighted to announce that the 2021 Writer-in-Residence will be Eimear Ryan.  Eimear Ryan’s debut novel, Holding Her Breath, will be published by Penguin Sandycove in June 2021. Her writing has appeared in Winter Papers, Granta, The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, The Long Gaze Back (New Island) and Town & Country (Faber). She is a co-founder of Banshee Press, an independent publisher that produces a literary journal, Banshee, and a select list of books.

The Writer-in-Residence role is jointly funded by the Arts Council and UCC.

Fiction at the Friary and on Campus – UCC Podcasts

Fiction at the Friary comes to UCC !

Great news ! Danielle McLaughlin and Madeleine D’Arcy , both closely connected with the School of English Creative Writing, announce the launch of these exciting podcasts, with many familiar UCC writers featured !

https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/fiction-at-the-friary-and-on-campus/id1544269888

This is a series of nine programmes featuring authors reading and being interviewed on location in UCC, as well as invited guest authors and open mic readers at Fiction at the Friary, a regular fiction event held in Cork City.

The producers are Kieran Hurley (Station Manager of UCC 98.3 FM), JP Quinn (Head of UCC Visitor’s Centre), Danielle McLaughlin (Writer) and Madeleine D’Arcy (Writer).

Music is by Nick Kelly, Irish singer/songwriter and film director.

Many thanks from the producers to Kate Barry for her support of this project.

UCC features in the best books of 2020: As chosen by Irish authors in The Irish Times

 

Congratulations to Laura Mc Kenna ! Her novel, Words to Shape My Name, will be published by New Island in 2021 and this forthcoming novel is one of the recommendations made by Joseph O’Connor in The Irish Times, where he wrote praising her ‘powerful historical fiction debut.’

 

Also recommended was Director of Creative Writing, Eibhear Walshe, for his novel, The Last Day at Bowen’s Court .

 

 

 

Congratulations ! The latest Quarryman has arrived !

Congratulations to the Creative Writing students in UCC. The latest edition of The Quarryman has arrived, with a wealth of contributions from under-graduate and post-graduate writers in UCC.

Well done to all involved, especially to the English Literature Society for producing such innovative  and exciting work in these very difficult times !

Fish Publishing Lockdown contest!

Congratulations to MA graduates Breda Joyce and  Irene Halpin Long who were both shortlisted in the Fish Publishing Lockdown contest. A total of 131 poems were published as part of the shortlist of 1,400 entries and all proceeds collected by Fish via submission fees went to Oxfam.

Well done to you both!

 

 

 

Our students make Cork Words

Congratulations to our MA in Creative Writing students who feature prominently in this brand new  anthology of Cork writers and writing,  edited by Liam Ronayne,  and published by Cork City Library.

Betty O’Mahony, Cathy Ryan, Daniel Johnson, Debra Fotheringham, Elaine Desmond, Margaret O’Driscoll  and Nejla Gaylen, all currently completing their MAs, appear alongside well-know names including Alannah Hopkin, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, Billy O’Callaghan, Billy Ramsell, Cethan Leahy, Danielle McLaughlin, Doireann Ní Ghriofa, Gerry Murphy, James Harpur, John FitzGerald, Kathy D’Arcy, Madeleine D’Arcy Lane, Mary Leland, Mary Noonan, Matthew Geden, Patrick Cotter, Paul Casey and William Wall.

The volume is intended to be the first of regular editions to highlight Cork as a writers’ city, and to draw attention to its four significant literary festivals (Cork International Poetry Festival, Cork World Book Festival, Cork International Short Story Festival and the Winter Warmer Festival) as well as the key hubs, O’Bhéal and Fiction at the Friary as well as other literary venues.

Poetry translation winner announced

Coyau / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

The winner of our “Creative Corona” poetry translation competition is Martina Ní Mheachair for her English version of  Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhaigh’s poem, “einín/francach”.   She is a UCC alumna and is currently a research fellow at the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig University in Scotland.

The competition attracted 40 entries and Ailbhe,  who adjudicated the competition, was very impressed by the high standard of the translations. “It was a pleasure to read the various interpretations of “einín/francach,” she said.  

But what impressed her about “bird/rat”, the winning entry, was its handling of competing elements. “A translator of poetry has to wrestle with content, tone and form, all the while  wavering between faithfulness and flair. While many of the entries were strong on fidelity or ingenuity, the winning translation balanced these elements with commendable elegance.”

Dr Ní Mheachair will win E100 and a copy of Ailbhe’s latest volume, a bilingual collection entitled, The Coast Road, from Gallery Press. 

Two runner-up places were also awarded to Laura Ryan and Joanne McCarthy, who will each receive copies of Ailbhe’s book.

The competition was run in conjunction with “Creative Corona” an online platform that ran throughout April on this site – http://creativewritingucc.com/www/creative-corona-day-1/  –  with selected writings from students, graduates and writers associated with the MA in Creative Writing at UCC.  

Here is the  winning entry: 

bird / rat

starting in the bush is that a bird – or a rat

a staycation or internment being stuck in the flat

will the sea continue to ebb and to flow

will we ever see the summer’s glow

had you best cover your face to show compassion

is it true that face masks are now the fashion

do you listen to buds as they bloom

are you obsessed with the latest from the newsroom

have you brought with you your ration book

will you share with me what you cook

your next-door neighbours, are you able to say

if they’re flouting regulations night and day

avoid the old, beware your nephew and niece,

careful now of this fragile peace

dancing at home to blinding lights

numbers of patients reaching new heights

have you Insta‘d your sourdough with a grin

and  practised yoga for a personal win

does the anxiety manifest as a weight in your chest

are you ready for the disaster with which we’ll contest

was Chicken Licken right after all

or is the sky not going to fall

– o creature, o man, will you be my downfall?

Martina  Mheachair

 

éinín / francach

 

an éinín atá ag bíogadh sa sceach – nó francach

an staycation é seo nó tamall sa charcair

an leanfaidh an mhuir ag tuilleadh is ag trá

an gcífear go brách an samhradh bán

an fearr do ghnúis a chumhdach feasta

an bhfuil masc aghaidhe anois sa bhfaisean

an éisteann tú le bachlóga ag péacadh

bhfuilir gafa le bratbhuamáil an nuachta

ar thug tú leat do leabhar ciondála

an roinnfeá liom sciar den cháca

an dream béal dorais, ar thugais faoi deara

iad ag sárú rialacha oíche is maidin

seachain seanóirí agus seachain aosánaigh

fainic anois an tsíocháin bhradach

sáil agus barraicín timpeall an tí

bardaí an ospidéil ag cur thar maoil

bhfuil pictiúr den sourdough in airde ar Insta

is do chleachtas ióga ina údar gaisce

an luíonn an imní mar ualach ar d’ucht

bhfuilir ullamh don tubaiste atá le teacht

an raibh an ceart ag cearc an phrompa

nó an bhfanfaidh an spéir in airde tamall eile

– agus an baol dom thú a chréatúir, a dhuine?

Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh

 

 

 

 

Writers who have what it takes

We may have been in lockdown, but there’s still plenty of publishing news from our students and graduates to report. Here’s  a round-up of their achievements. 

Tadhg Coakley’s first crime novel, Whatever it Takes, comes out in June with Mercier Press.  Because of COVID-19 it will only be available as an ebook initially, but once restrictions are lifted you’ll see it in the bookshops.  Featuring a tough and sometimes unorthrodox detective, name of  Collins, and his drug warlord, arch-enemy, Molloy, Whatever it Takes, is set firmly in Cork and promises to be the first in a series.  Tadhg graduated from the MA in 2016, and this is his second novel.

Molly Twomey, graduate of last year’s MA, was chosen as one of 12 poets whose work featured in Isolation Poem Postcards by Dedalus Press. “As Light” appeared in April as did another poem of hers, “Fionnuala”, in Poetry Ireland Review.   

Poet and fiction writer Alison Driscoll, another MA alumna, was named as the Molly Keane 2020 Writer in Residence just before the lockdown, while Sophie Stein, who graduated in 2017, has  won a fully funded place on an MFA at Indiana State University. 

Alison McCrossan who graduated last year and Debra Fotheringham, a current MA student, both had poetry featured in the Headstuff Poetry network recently. –  https://www.headstuff.org/culture/literature/poetry/poem-of-the-week/.

Alison’s poem “On Being High” appeared on January 20, Debra’s “Utah Lake” and “Steady” featured as poems of the day on April 17.

Some of these students and graduates also contributed to “Creative Corona” on this site – an online platform of writing from the MA for the month of April.   

Warm congratulations to all of them.