A UCC flexi-option graduate course in creative non-fiction, taught in collaboration with two internationally renowned food businesses: Ballymaloe Cookery School and Café Paradiso Vegetarian Restaurant. This course is not always offered.  Please check on registration.

Writing for Media concentrates on the area where fiction and journalism overlap. Long-form journalism,  blog-posting, serial fiction writing and contributing to online communities will be studied and students get a chance to experiment with some, or all of these forms, and learn how to pitch their work for publication.

A three-hour intensive workshop where students present their own work for peer review. The workshop process enables writers to learn how to be critics of their own and others’ work, and to concentrate on revising and redrafting their fiction.

This seminar class takes on the close formal analysis of  the novel.  It comprises of a close study of  a set text and independent reading of six other novels. The in-depth study enables students to learn how to read like a writer with particular emphasis on recognizing key technique tropes – plot, characterization, narrative register, point of view, drama and dialogue.

[Autumn Semester 2018 – Visiting Frank O’Connor Fellow, Carys Davis]

This class, which is part seminar/part workshop, examines the short story form in detail. Students read and analyse short story texts and apply what they’ve learnt in a series of craft writing exercises and in original fiction pieces that form part of the final portfolio for the course.

[Spring Semester 2018 – Thomas Morris]

This is a special guest workshop offered by the School of English Writer-in-Residence.  The theme and genre of the workshop will vary, depending on the specialty of the writer-in-residence.  This year, short story writer and consulting editor of The Stinging Fly, Thomas Morris, will be leading the workshop.

The core of Poetry 1 is a weekly, three hour workshop which includes focused reading of one aspect of poetic craft (eg. form, imagery, sound, language), as well as a reading and workshopping of one poem that each student has written over the previous week.  The aim of the workshop is to write poems that are of a publishable standard and to allow students to mine the inevitable and imaginative wellspring of material that will comprise their poems.

There will be an opportunity to read widely and to also discuss elements of technique and theory. Students receive regular one-to-one tutorials and extensive feedback on their poetry.

This course is a pre-requisite for Mythology and Contemporary Poetry.

Memoir, biography and autobiography constitute some of the most dynamic and exciting forms of life writing and this module introduces students to advanced level study of theories and practice around the writing of biography and memoir, by locating key examples in literature and culture from writers such as Wilde, Proust, McGahern, Sage, O’Faolain and others. It allows students to explore the creative practices around their own use of memoir and memory recall, within the genres of poetry, fiction and other forms of writing and, week by week, draws on a variety of techniques to open out this vital element within the imagination.

This core module promotes an awareness of the business and commercial aspects of writing and introduces students to the practical aspects of working as a professional writer. The module also encourages students to gain experience of working in creative or cultural organisations, and draws on speakers from the world of publishing, the arts and literary organisations.