Settle back, have a drink and meet writers, Jane Gormley from the Republic of Ireland and Martin Barker from the south coast of England who won our latest ‘Wild Atlantic Writing Awards’ (WAWA) on the theme of ‘Power.’ Both writers win 500 euro in cash or a 1,000 euro discount to any of our week-long international writing retreats in France, Ireland or the UK. Jane Gomley Jane, born in Dublin, grew up in Wicklow and now lives on a farm in Allenwood, Kildare that has been in he

I’ve made my career out of asking questions. After almost half a century in journalism, questioning people has become such an ingrained habit that my wife tells me I’m a collector of lives (which sounds like I'm a serial killer...which I'm not, for clarification). In contrast, you’d be surprised how many people don’t ask questions of other people, whether it’s because of shyness, lack of interest, or that their focus is inwards and they only like to talk about themselves. Yet

After announcing last week, the results of our ‘Wild Atlantic Writing Awards’ (WAWA) creative nonfiction competition on the theme of ‘power,’ we’re delighted now to announce the finalists and winner of the flash fiction category. As we did with the creative nonfiction category, we also asked a member of our judging panel to sum up the flash fiction entries as a whole and the overall nature of stories submitted. We hope this provides a comprehensive overview of the entries and

Stories in our latest ‘Wild Atlantic Writing Awards’ (WAWA) on the theme of ‘power’ proved to be both wide-ranging in terms of characters, plot and location, as well as highly engaging as reading entertainment. We at ‘Ireland Writing Retreat’ want to thank each and every person who submitted a story. It takes both discipline and emotional and intellectual energy to complete any story, and bravery to show it to someone else for judgement. In this respect, you are all winners