The Write Time Festival 2019

Now in its fourth year, this festival for writers and bookworms, The Write Time Festival is a programme of events celebrating creativity and writing in Fingal spread over the month of September. It is organised by Fingal Libraries who are hosting a range of workshops and writer talks to spark the imagination and inspire creativity in aspiring writers of all ages and to anybody interested in the craft of writing.

This year’s programme features a panel discussion on Yes, We Still Drink Coffee!, a new anthology of essays by and about women human rights defenders around the world. Orla Lehane, curator and editor, and contributors Catherine Dunne, Hilary Fannin and Lia Mills will discuss their experience of working on this project.

There will also be the chance to catch Portmarnock based author Rónán Hession who will read from his debut novel Leonard and Hungry Paul which was described by The Irish Times as a book that will bring you sunshine even if the summer is a washout.

Comic fiction author Karl MacDermott continues his One Man and His Turnip World Reading Tour of Ireland based on his short story collection, Juggling With Turnips.

Children’s author Sadhbh Devlin will discuss her work and give practical tips on how to enjoy Irish language books with your children, even if you only have a ‘cúpla focal’.

As in previous years, the Write Time Festival will be offering a range of free creative writing workshops.  Travel documentary-maker Manchán Magan will help you transform the sights, sounds and soul of a journey into engaging prose in his travel writing workshop. Lia Mills talks about how to go back in time to find a story that matters now in her workshop on writing historical fiction. If you are interested in writing young adult and children’s literature, Conor Kostick will help you create appealing characters and moving dramas. Have you family or local history stories you’d love to write? Yvonne Cullen’s workshop, From History to Story, will help you tell historical stories, big or small. What do you need to do to give your work the best possible chance of getting published? Publishing consultant Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin will explain the blueprint from keyboard to bookshelf in her How to Get Published workshop.

Write Time Festival events to spark the imaginations of young writers include Maeve Devoy’s workshop, The Little Detectives, where she introduces the nuts and bolts of story-telling to children aged 8 – 12 years. Megan Wynne facilitates a fun workshop where children learn how to create interesting characters and show their personalities by what they say and do in a story. Children and teens aged 10 + can learn to write and perform a Rap Song with the Max Lyrical Rap Workshop. Poet Máighréad Medbh offers teenagers a chance to experiment with different ways of producing a poem in her experimental poetry workshop Truth or Dare.

Admission is free to all events, but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please contact the library hosting the event. For the full programme of talks and workshops and to download the the Festival Brochure, please visit the Fingal Libraries website at fingal.ie. You can also follow on Facebook for the very latest information. If you have any queries then please email them to [email protected].