We are delighted to announce this year’s Novel Writing workshop at the 2019 West Cork Literary Festival. Online booking for this workshop is now open.

We can also announce the details of the 2019 J G Farrell Award.

Please note that the complete Festival programme will be available in late March/early April.
You can find out more about our WCLF workshops here.

Best Wishes,
The West Cork Literary Festival team

Monday 15 – Friday 19 July 2019
9.30am – 12.30pm
Coláiste Pobail Bheanntraí

This workshop is for those who are working on a novel. How do you stay motivated? What should you do to keep a reader interested in your characters? How can you create great dialogue, convincing settings, and a strong plot? How do you move through writer’s block? And how do you revise your novel until it is ready to be sent out to agents and publishers?

Over the course of five morning masterclasses we will look at these topics and work through exercises. You will also have a chance to discuss your work-in-progress with Anjali Joseph and come away with a plan for what to do next.

Find out more about Anjali Joseph here.

For more details and to book, click here.

We can also announce that novelist and tutor of the Novel Writing workshop at the 2019 West Cork Literary Festival, Anjali Joseph will be judging this year’s JG Farrell Award.

The J G Farrell Fiction Award is for the best opening chapter of a novel-in-progress by a writer resident in Munster. The prize includes a place on the Novel Writing with Anjali Joseph workshop and accommodation in Bantry.

August 2019 marks the fortieth anniversary of J G Farrell’s untimely passing. He was born in Liverpool and died at the age of 44, when he was swept into the sea while fishing from rocks near his home in Kilcrohane, West Cork. His book Troubles won the Faber Prize in 1971, and in 2010 it won the Lost Man Booker Prize. The Siege of Kirshnapur, Farrell’s novel about the Indian Mutiny of 1957, carried off the Booker Prize in 1973. In 2008, The Siege of Krishnapur was shortlisted for the Best of Booker public vote.

Applicants must submit the first chapter of their novel ( max 3,000 words) via email and also two printed copies ( double-spaced and printed on one side of the page only) by Friday 17 May 2019.  Place your name and address on a separate sheet with the printed copies. Please send these to JG Farrell Award, West Cork Literary Festival, 13 Glengarriff Road, Bantry, Co Cork and email a copy to sara@westcorkmusic.ie with JG Farrell Award in the subject line. Entries will only be considered if submitted in both hard copy and by email. Late entries will not be accepted and entries will not be returned.

West Cork Literary Festival would like to thank Richard Farrell for his continued sponsorship of this award, now in its tenth year.