Writing News

I'm thrilled to be one of eight writers selected to participate in a 6-month workshop with the brilliant Danielle McLaughlin, hosted by The Stinging Fly. Her outstanding short story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets was a huge influence on me when I started to write a few years ago, so I was slightly overawed to meet her and renowned publisher Declan Meade at the kickoff meeting today. The seven other writers all seem brilliant too. No pressure, gulp.

 

The selection process involved answering a questionaire about my motivation and goals, and also of course submitting a recent piece of fiction. I submitted my story Deconstruction that won the Cûirt prize judged by Wendy Erskine, and coincidentally it was when reading an interview with Wendy that I first became aware of the Stinging Fly workshops. Wendy wrote:

 

‘Quite simply, I know that without The Stinging Fly I would never have had a single thing published. I attended the six month workshop in 2015–2016 and it was a transformative experience. That sounds a little excessive, but it was. It changed quite profoundly the way I think about what I read, and it made me an infinitely better writer.’

 

I'll be submitting my first piece to the workshop (4000 - 6000 words) by October 1st, so I'd better post this article now and get back to writing.