Think you might have a book in you? The Irish Writers' Centre can help to make your dreams come true, writes Fiona McCann.
'THE MOST important institution in Ireland" is how Carlo Gebler describes the Irish Writers' Centre, though he admits to a certain bias. "I'm in literature - that's my bag." It may be Gebler's bag, as the centre's current chairman, but he's clearly not the only one toting it, with Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney calling it "part of the literary culture", and Dermot Bolger declaring it "a fantastic resource".
It's an institution that is clearly cherished by those for whom it is primarily intended, Ireland's myriad and multifarious writers, yet the few remaining in this country who have yet to call themselves such may still be unaware of what goes on behind the doors of Number 19 Parnell Street, the three-storey Georgian house that shares a wall with the Dublin Writers' Museum.
"It's a stunning building and it isn't as well known as it should be," admitted Roddy Doyle at a recent reading in the centre's elegant first floor drawing room. Yet since its establishment in 1991 as the administrative centre for the Irish Writers' Union, the Society of Irish Playwrights, the Irish Children's Book Trust and the Translators' Association of Ireland, the Irish Writers' Centre has been expanding its remit in an attempt to address this, and now styles itself as a centre of learning and for all things writing-related.
Much of the credit for its appearance onto the public radar goes to its director Cathal McCabe, who relinquished his position as director of literature with the British Council in Warsaw in 2003 to take the helm at the Irish Writers Centre. Since his arrival, the building's interior has been entirely re-imagined, with the ground floor offices relocated to the top of the building, making way for a resource centre containing an expanding library and a wealth of reference books, magazines and periodicals for writers.
"The Irish Writers' Centre is a development agency for writers and writing in Ireland," says McCabe. "We have provided a platform and created opportunities for a plethora of writers writing in both Irish and English and we see our role as continuing to nurture an emerging generation of Irish writers." To nudge them towards emergence, the centre runs a year-round programme of writing courses covering all manner of literary genres touching on matters theoretical and practical, including the less romantic artistry of publication and publicisation. Teachers are often high-profile writers, among them Gerald Dawe, Claire Keegan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Ciaran Carson.
For poet Orlagh O'Farrell, who attended a masterclass at the centre given by poet Derek Mahon, it is a tribute to the centre that its students are given the opportunity to learn with such luminaries. "It was regarded as a great coup to be able to bring in somebody of his stature," she says of her Mahon masterclass.
The Writers' Centre courses have attracted writers at every stage in their career, including established authors like the late Nuala O'Faolain, who in her second memoir Almost There, the Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman, describes sitting "in a plastic chair under the elegant stucco ceiling of what, in the 18th century, would have been a reception room, gazing morosely at the teacher's wonderful shoes on her shapely legs, a reluctant enrollee in a six-session writing course."
It helps that so many past attendees of the centre's classes have subsequently secured the Holy Grail of the struggling writer, namely book deals, with several going on to win literary awards, including last year's Hennessy XO New Irish Writer Valerie Sirr, and Eileen Keane, recently awarded at the Listowel Writers' Week.
For McCabe, however, the Irish Writers' Centre is much more than a creative writing school. "It's a hub," he says, "a centre whereby people can get inspired, and also learn to write, and to engage with writers and writing."
Those looking to engage with other writers can do so through the regular readings at the centre, which take place under the stucco ceiling described by O'Faolain, in an imposing 18th century reception room with wide windows opening out on the square. In such an elegant and intimate setting, readings are reminiscent of 18th century literary salons. The Frank X. Buckley collection of contemporary Irish paintings on the walls introduce a modern influence to the surroundings. "Every lecture can have a dull moment so it's nice to have something to look at," explains Buckley, of his decision to display his extensive collection in the centre.
Bolger's involvement in the centre has recently extended to his curating the Hourglass Readings, a series of informal, one-hour readings by such writers as Roddy Doyle, Jennifer Johnston, Joseph O'Connor and Colm Toibin, which are currently taking place every second Tuesday evening. A second series of Hourglass Readings will begin in the autumn, with Patrick McCabe, Anne Enright and Colum McCann among those on the programme, alongside the regular lunchtime poetry readings and Irish language in-conversation series which are ongoing.
As well as bringing writers in contact with their readers, such events, along with the numerous book launches hosted at the centre, also play a role in pulling writers out of their imaginations and away from their computers or notepads, and into contact with other writers. Given the solitary nature of their profession, this contact can be of considerable importance to writers.
"It is very helpful to have a sense of being a part of a wider community of writers," admits writer Conor Kostick, who is also currently teaching the Finishing Your Next Novel course at the centre. "That's really positive and that is provided here more than any other physical structure in Ireland, I would say."
The writers centre also boasts two small rooms with views over the north Dublin rooftops for the use of their writers-in-residence, and has facilitated several publications, the first of which was a limited edition by Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney entitled The Door Stands Open: In Memoriam Czeslaw Milosz.
There are further plans to bring out an annual anthology of writing. "It's in the pipeline," says McCabe. "All we have to do is find the money to pay for the pipeline." Money to fund all this literary activity comes predominantly from the Arts Council (a €200,000 grant this year, which is 40 per cent of its operating budget. The rest was made up with money from Foras Na Gaeilge, Dublin City Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and money from the centre's courses and fundraising initiatives like the Heaney limited edition.
The Hourglass Readings continue in July, with Joseph O'Connor, Claire Kilroy and Glenn Patterson. www.writerscentre.ie
