Professional Development

Feel frustrated with your story? It’s not because you don’t know what you want: it’s because your characters don’t. This workshop, with author and poet Tim MacGabhann, features exercises for getting to know your characters’ desires, and setting them in motion, therefore animating your short story or novel-in-progress. The way that this macro level of […]

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Join award-winning poet David McLoghlin for a unique generative course in how to navigate feelings and sentimentality in our poetry. The key in poetry is to infuse work with the right balance of sentiment so that it does not veer into sentimentality. Often, we either have too much feeling in our rough drafts, or not […]

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Calling all children’s writers and illustrators! If you would like to talk about your own work for young audiences with fellow children’s writers and illustrators, swap experiences and ideas, or simply have a social coffee with other Irish based creatives, we’d love you to join us! The aim of Discover Irish Children’s Books is to […]

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Introductions | Céadlínte is a Poetry Ireland showcase of 15 of the most exciting new poets writing in English and Irish on the island of Ireland today. The poets were selected by Victoria Kennefick and Aifric MacAodha. We’ll have a musical guest along on the night. Introductions | Is sárthaispeántas d’Eigse Eireann é “Céadlínte” de […]

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Twenty years of Irish publishing. Twenty years of imprints, magazines, and independent presses reshaping what gets written, printed, and read. To mark two decades of the Dublin Book Festival, we’re bringing together a panel of professionals who’ve helped build that story, and asking them what comes next. Join Dr. Jonathan C. Creasy (UCD Mary Lavin […]

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Three writers, Sara Baume, Gustav Parker Hibbett, and Ralf Webb – who write across forms of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art writing, and beyond – discuss their writing practices with Tolka, a Dublin-based literary magazine that publishes ‘formally promiscuous’ non-fiction. These writers will explore how easy or difficult it is to jump between different mediums, their […]

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Programmed by Children’s Books Ireland with the support of Foras na Gaeilge, this Literary Producer Event will feature a panel of six professional children’s book authors and illustrators in conversation with former Laureate na nÓg, Patricia Forde. Panelists Richie Conroy, Sadhbh Devlin, Neil Sharpson, Tristan Rosenstock, Andrew Whitson and Máire Zepf are artists who represent […]

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Join poet Nell Regan for this engaging workshop – bring a picture of a place you love (a landscape or cityscape), a pen and a willingness to play. We’ll look at a myriad ways to approach the same thing/view, aiming for a freshness of language and perspective. Suitable for all.  Followed by an optional letterpress […]

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Chairs: Melissa Campana (Children’s Books Ireland) and Sarah Webb (Children’s Author). Speakers:  Ivan O’Brien (MD, The O’Brien Press), Matthew Parkinson-Bennett (Publisher, Little Island Books), Venetia Gosling, (Children’s Publisher, Gill Books) and Caitríona Nic Sheáin (Publisher, An tSnáthaid Mhór).        The world of Irish and international children’s books has seen a lot of changes over the last […]

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Introductions | Céadlínte is a Poetry Ireland showcase of 15 of the most exciting new poets writing in English and Irish on the island of Ireland today. The poets were selected by Victoria Kennefick and Aifric MacAodha. We’ll have a musical guest along on the night. Introductions | Is sárthaispeántas d’Eigse Eireann é “Céadlínte” de […]

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For a writer, failure can mean the waste of years’ worth of work. Three contributors to The Dublin Review – Rory Gleeson, Kevin Power and Cathy Sweeney – join Aingeala Flannery to talk about the writer’s life in a culture that fetishises failure – but only if it has been followed by success.   Rory […]

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Raising Voices is a programme run by Children’s Books Ireland, Dublin Book Festival, Publishing Ireland, Illustrators Ireland, West Cork Literary Festival and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. It aims to develop and support aspiring artists, making work for children and young adults, whose voices have been underrepresented in literature; breaking down barriers to publication, progression and […]

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