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

A software developer from Kent, a pharmacist from Cork and a publisher from New Jersey all featured as finalists in the ‘Wild Atlantic Writing Awards’ (WAWA) competition on the theme of ‘Endings.’ Meanwhile, our latest writing competition on the theme of ‘Power’ has just closed and stories have been sent to the judges, so make sure you become a Friend of the retreat (it’s free) to be the first to learn who the winners and finalists are. But right now we’d like to put the spo

With our next creative writing retreat less than three weeks away, excitement is mounting and preparations well underway in Donegal for...