Causeway u3a
Creative writing
Creative writing
This group started in 2019 and has been providing support, guidance and encouragement for aspiring writers since its commencement. It has been so successful that there are now two groups, known collectively as North Coast Writers
Since January 2019 the groups have gone from strength to strength, both meeting in person when possible and also weekly using social media and video conferencing in innovative ways as well as providing Teaching Courses in Creative Writing for other U3A Writing Groups along the North Coast. Beginning The group produced an anthology, the first of which is ‘ Irish Hares and Seahorses’, published in May 2022.
Group numbers are limited due to the time required for presenting and critiquing work.
Creative Writing North Coast Writers group provides support, guidance, and encouragement for aspiring writers. At present the group is full as numbers are limited due to the time required for presenting and critiquing work (but this may change in the future).
Creative Writing - ‘Pen and paper’ writers group
Thursdays: 10:30 am-12:30 pm. weekly
Start date: TBC
Mode of delivery
ZOOM and email
Online until further notice
Creative Writing ‘Pen and Paper’ writers Group provides support, guidance and encouragement for aspiring writers. At present the group is full as numbers are limited due to the time required for presenting and critiquing work (but this may change in the future). If you are interested , please contact the group leader. Contact: Brenda McAteer, creativewriting@causewayu3a.co.uk
"It’s like Walking a Tightrope"
By Mary Farrell
Published September, 2021
Mary Farrell was the Facilitator of U3A Creative Writing Group. She is an Auditor for the First- and Third-Year Creative Writing Courses at UU University in Coleraine and a member of the Judging Panel for the weekly Reedsy Prompts Competitions. With both Poetry and Prose published in a variety of magazines and anthologies, she has read her own work at Open Mic Sessions, on the Tenx9 stage and on BBC Radio Ulster.
"It’s like Walking a Tightrope" is her first Collection, containing a selection from the pieces she has written while facilitating the U3A Creative Writing Groups. Some pieces have restricted word counts -less than 1000, less than 100 and in one case less than 50. Some were written to be read on the printed page, others to be heard as performance pieces. A few were written especially for literary competitions. It has indeed been a ‘tightrope walk’ to find the right phrases and leave out others, to balance wordcounts and to move forward with consistency. She intends to continue to practise however, hoping to improve her acrobatic skills.
Her second Collection of assorted pieces, ‘Out of the Chrysalis’, will be published in July 2022, and her first Collection of short stories, The Kingdom, will be published in October 2022. All three books are published by Impspired Press, and are available through Amazon.
"Smokes and Birds"
This is the title of a forthcoming collection of short stories by Jim Simpson, a member of Causeway u3a’s creative writing group.
Jim is also a member of North Coast Writers, and a past runner up in the prestigious McManus Short Story Competition. He was a finalist in The Irish Novel Fair of 2019 and has had his work read on RTE and Radio Ulster. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at The Heaney Centre of Queen’s University Belfast in 2019.
Jim will publish the collection - his debut - in October of this year. “It was marvellous to finally get the manuscript away to Dingle Publishing, at the end of March,” he says. “It’s been an exciting and demanding challenge which has been greatly assisted by my fellow writers at Agherton, and for the last fifteen months, on zoom. Thanks are especially owing to Mary, Robin and Geraldine. The collection will include original commissioned art work from talented Derry artist Bridget Murray.
The book will be available to buy locally.
"Psithurism"
Psithurism is the title of a poem written by Causeway u3a creative writer, Robin Holmes' this poem. It was published in the Bangor Literary Journal in April 2021. He and Brendan Mullan
created this video of Robin reading his poem
in the woods at Downhill in May 2021.