Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing Program

An exciting update about the upcoming June 2014 residency at Trinity College Dublin:

Mentors will be Carlo Gebler for creative nonfiction; Evelyn Conlon and Sean Hardie for fiction; Mary O'Donnell for poetry.

Guest workshops will be led by Hugo Hamilton, cnf, author of the classic THE SPECKLED PEOPLE; Claire Keegan, fiction, Davy Byrnes Award, 2010; Mark Roper, winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award, 2014

Speakers will include the following:

ANNE ENRIGHT (Man Booker Prize, 2007)

SELINA GUINNESS author of The Crocodile By the Door: The Story of a House, a Farm and a Family (nominated for the Costa Book Award)

JAMES HEANEY, Ph.D. will lead the Bloomsday tour

CHRIS MORASH, Ph.D. Inaugural Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, Trinity College Dublin

SINEAD MORRISEY named T.S. Eliot Prize, 2014

MARK ROPER winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award, 2014

DONAL RYAN author of The Spinning Heart (longlisted for the Booker Prize, 2013)

SPECIAL EVENTS will include the Welcome and Farewell Dinners; Bloomsday in Dublin; an archeological tour of Wicklow

OTHER WRITERS/SPEAKERS and SPECIAL EVENTS WILL BE ANNOUNCED WITHIN A SHORT TIME.

Here is the wonderful interview of Edna O'Brien by PG writer Marylynne Pitz. Thanks to her and the Post-Gazette for helping to spread the word about our event. We can't wait to welcome Ms. O'Brien to Pittsburgh!

Irish writer, Edna O'Brien, comes to town As a child, Edna O'Brien wrote "jottings" about the people and pastoral landscape of Western Ireland, a place where three dogs, horses and cattle dotted the lawn in front of her family's County Clare home. As a young woman during the late 1940s, she was living in Dublin, bicycling to work in a chemi...

We are very proud to announce that our own James Heaney has placed in the top ten winners in the prestigious Fish Short Story Contest for "Whenever I Close My Eyes." Ten/10 has been a great year for Carlow winners. Heartiest congratulations to James!

She’s been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the 20th century.

On Saturday, April 5, internationally renowned and award-winning Irish author Edna O'Brien will be on campus for a special event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing Program.

Learn more and reserve your spot for “An Evening with Edna O’Brien: A Life of Writing” today: http://bit.ly/1gHL7bW.

Claire Vaye Watkins: The Short Form Interview 'Regionalism was more on my mind than gender—I didn’t want a book that held up stock conceits about Nevada as being hostile, barren, hard. ' — Claire Vaye Watkins answers questions and recommends stories.