Writers' Weekend
A course in short story writing
Saturday 30th - Sunday 31st July 2011
…..Till Homer’s ghost came
whispering to my mind
He said: I made the Iliad from such a local row.
Gods make their own importance’.
From Epic
Patrick Kavanagh (1904 - 1967)
Workshop Director: John MacKenna
 Introduction
The Patrick Kavanagh Centre is the venue for this weekend of creative writing workshops in which acclaimed poet and author, John MacKenna will direct participants.
The Centre which is dedicated to Patrick Kavanagh, one of Ireland’s best loved poets, is located in the picturesque and tranquil village of Inniskeen which nestles among the Monaghan drumlins. Over the centuries, this ancient landscape has been an inspiration for legends and a home to poets and proved to be such a rich source of inspiration for Patrick Kavanagh, prompting him to ‘dabble in verse’.
The locale hasn’t changed since Kavanagh’s time, providing the perfect backdrop for this weekend of literary activity.
Course
This course is suitable for complete beginners but also for those who have written or published some creative work.
In One Frozen Moment - Over the three sessions we'll look at the idea of one frozen moment as the basis for a short-story. Landscape, character, dialogue and narrative will be examined but the emphasis will be on doing. Over the three sessions on Saturday and Sunday, participants will find a moment on which a story might pivot and work backwards and forwards from there to complete the first draft of a piece of short fiction.
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Saturday, 30th July 2011
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Sunday, 31st July 2011
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10.00am
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Workshop 1
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11.00am
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Workshop 3
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12.30pm
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Lunch
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12.30pm
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Lunch
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2pm-5pm
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Workshop 2
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1.30pm
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Depart Inniskeen
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John MacKenna - Biographical Note
John MacKenna is the author of sixteen books, including the memoir "Things You Should Know" and the biography of Ernest Shackleton "Shackleton - an Irishman in Antarctica." His current novel is "The Space Between Us." His new collection of poems will be published in May (Salmon Poetry) and his latest collection of short-stories, "We Sang Once Like Other Men" is due in 2012. He is currently working on a new novel. He is a winner of the Irish Times First Fiction Award; the Hennessy Award and the Cecil Day Lewis Award. He is also a winner of a Jacobs Radio Award for his documentary on Leonard Cohen.
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Booking Form & Information
Download the Writer's Weekend information flyer & booking form here >>
(File opens in PDF format)
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