Over the course of five sessions, this online workshop will explore topics such as developing your ideas, plotting, creating suspense, research, and preparing your work for submission to agents and publishers. Suitable for writers at all levels, it will especially appeal to those with an interest in the mechanics of plotting and whose aim is to ultimately submit their work to agents. The idea is not just to advance existing work but to spend the time stretching writing muscles, considering new approaches, and learning the nuts and bolts (or fingerprints and blood splatter!) of writing crime fiction, before returning to your work-in-progress with fresh eyes, renewed enthusiasm and more creative tools at your disposal.

Instructions for participants will be emailed on purchase. And we’re here to support anyone with any questions.

You will need:

• A good Wifi connection
• Access to a Laptop, Tablet, PC or Mac with a microphone & camera
• Zoom – free to use and free to download here

Cork author Catherine Ryan Howard published her debut novel, Distress Signals, in 2016. It was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and was shortlisted for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA John Creasey/New Blood Dagger. With The Liar’s Girl (2018), Catherine became only the second Irish woman ever to be nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, an accolade previously bestowed upon the likes of Raymond Chandler, Ian Rankin and Stephen King. The Guardian also included it in their list of the best thrillers written by women since 1945. Her novel Rewind (2019) has been optioned for TV by Clerkenwell Films (Misfits, Lovesick, The End of the F**king World) while her latest, The Nothing Man, was published in August 2020, debuted at no.1 in the Irish charts and is shortlisted for Crime Fiction Book of the Year in the Irish Book Awards.