Writer’s Roundtable for Irish Book Week

A facilitated panel discussion and Q&A with experienced, award-winning local writers, all of whom also work to educate and support and encourage other writers. Hear about their writing processes, routes to publication, and how they overcome the obstacles to creativity that we so often put in our own way. The closing Q&A session will give you an opportunity to ask practical questions to help with your own writing journey.

Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Sarah is a writer, teacher and researcher. Her fiction for children and young adults has won / been shortlisted for several literary prizes including The Calderdale Prize, Scotland’s Red Book Award, The Waterstones’ Prize for Children’s Literature and The Irish Book Awards. Her creative work has been adapted for the stage and translated into over twenty languages. Sarah is a recent winner of the London Magazine’s annual award for short fiction with her story entitled Matamoros, July 1846 set during the Mexican-American War. She’s recently been shortlisted for the Frances Browne Poetry Prize 2024. She’s a member of the University of Limerick’s creative writing team, a lifelong literacy advocate and she works actively with communities to promote and support creative writing. Her academic research includes a focus on the writing process and how creative and academic writers go about the complex, often challenging task of putting their work on paper.

Grainne O’Brien

Gráinne is a writer and bookseller based in Limerick, Ireland where she lives with her husband and two cats. She is the founder of Rontu Literary Service, a service dedicated to supporting writers of fiction for children as they seek publication of their manuscripts, and one of the founders of Silver Apples Magazine, an online literary magazine entering its tenth year. She completed an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick in 2018 and received an Irish Arts Council Agility Award in 2021 and 2022. She was named a Bookshop Hero by The Bookseller Magazine in 2022. She writes for children and adults and loves weaving traditional stories into the modern world. The O’Brien Press published her first book, A Limerick Fairytale. Her verse novel, Solo, is due out in Spring 2025, published by Little Island Press.

Madge O’Callaghan

Madge is an author and poet based in Kilbane, East Clare. She holds an MA (Hons.) in Creative Writing from DCU and has a background working in the field of youth mental health, using creative approaches to address social justice issues.

In 2016, she achieved Gold at the World Festival of Radio in New York for her radio documentary, “My Uncle Jack.” Her play “MASKS” was featured in First Fortnight (Mental Health Arts Programme) 2015.

Madge is an affiliate of Amherst Writers and Artists and facilitates writing workshops that create a safe space for people who just want to write, regardless of their level of education. In 2023, she curated an anthology of poetry and prose by members of the Shannon Amherst Writer’s Group, titled “Write, So…”, which was launched at the Sean Lemass Library by author Donal Ryan.

Currently, Madge is working with primary school children on “Broadford Myths and Legends’, due to be launched in September 2024.

This event is part of Sound Out 2024, a celebration of spoken word, story and song in Kilrush, Co. Clare.