From Fact to Fiction - A Focus on Beginnings with Niamh Boyce

Course Date:     Sun 30th Nov 2025    - Full day, refreshments provided.

Workshop Title: From Fact to Fiction - A Focus on Beginnings 

Workshop Level: The session would be suitable for writers (new, emerging or well-practised) who have the spark of an idea (related to the item brought to the workshop) It's a day for beginning new work, inspired by a subject or event that has long fascinated you or maybe just grabbed your attention.  

Workshop Summary: Participants are invited to bring an object or piece of text (newspaper article, document, photo...etc) and explore various approaches to weaving stories or poetry or creative nonfiction from, or around, these seeds of inspiration.  
We will write together and explore questions such as starting/entry points, deciding how much fact, and how much fiction, and what form the work wants to take.
It's important to bring something tangible to this workshop, something related to the subject, person, event or time etc that you wish to explore in words. A pebble, a letter, a piece of clothing... nothing is too tiny or insignificant, and nothing is too big.  A tiny perfume bottle inspired Niamh's award-winning poem Kitty, an old newspaper article inspired her novel The Herbalist. 

Biography: 

Niamh Boyce writes poetry, novels and short fiction. She was awarded The Hennessy Award for New Irish Writer of The Year in 2012. In her bestselling novels, she has fictionalised real-life criminal trials. Her bestselling debut THE HERBALIST won Debut of the Year at The Irish Book Awards and was long listed for an IMPAC. It was also an inaugural Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair winner. Her novel HER KIND, was based on the Kilkenny Witchcraft Trial and nominated for the EU Prize for Literature.
An award-winning poet, Niamh Boyce was Hennessy XO New Irish Writer of the Year in 2012. Her unpublished poetry collection was highly commended in The Patrick Kavanagh Award 2013. She was 2024 Writer in Residence in the Centre Cultural in Paris. She lives in the Irish midlands where she is working on a new novel, and a short story collection.

Eight participants (max) accepted on course. 

You can book your place by clicking on the link below.

Course fee €110 including refreshments.