Manuscript Feedback
SOLD OUT
Two one-hour appointments each day
3 – 5 pm 15th – 18th May
Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street | Cost €120
Limited to 8 individual appointments
Is a poetry collection gathering dust in your top drawer? Are you unsure about your latest batch of poems – line endings, poem titles, clichés, clunky rhythms? Or perhaps you’re seeking new directions, or advice about the poetry publishing world?
James will scrutinise your work, write comments on your manuscript, and present sympathetic, insightful and honest feedback to you face to face in a highly focused one-hour session. This is a rare opportunity to receive critical comments in person from an experienced practitioner of the poetic craft.
The cost per session/makeover is €120 for a maximum of 20 poems on a maximum of 20 pages (one-and-half line spacing, 12pt type), which includes time spent on them before the sessions. Advance booking is essential – only eight one-hour sessions are available, two per afternoon (3 - 4 pm and 4 - 5 pm Wednesday to Saturday). Manuscripts must be sent to James by 2nd April.
James Harpur has published eight books of poetry and has won many prizes and awards, including the Michael Hartnett Prize, the Vincent Buckley Prize and the UK National Poetry Competition. His The White Silhouette was an Irish Times Book of the Year, and his debut novel, The Pathless Country, won the JG Farrell Award and was shortlisted for the John McGahern Prize. He was the 2023 Oscar Wilde Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and gives talks and seminars on creative writing.The masterclasses are €75 each. Each participant will have the opportunity to have one of their poems (of up to forty lines) discussed in a very small class where each person’s work will receive much individual attention. They will submit their poem in advance.
Workshops
The cost is €200 for all four masterclasses or €75 individually. If you sign up for an individual masterclass, you will be put on a waiting list as priority will be given to those who sign up for all four. Priority will be given to those who have at least two poem publication credits. Each participant will have the opportunity to have one of their poems (of up to forty lines) discussed in a very small class where each person’s work will receive much individual attention. They will submit their poem in advance.
Victoria Kennefick MasterclassSOLD OUT
9.30am to 12.30pm, Wednesday 15th May
Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street | Cost €75 (or €200 for all four masterclasses)
Limited to 8 participants
Victoria Kennefick’s second collection Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) is a Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2024. Her debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize and the Butler Literary Prize. She was UCD/Arts Council of Ireland Writer-in-Residence 2023 and Poet-in-Residence at Yeats Society Sligo 2022-23. She is currently Cork County Council Writer-in-Residence 2024.
Sarah Holland-Batt MasterclassSOLD OUT
9.30am to 12.30pm, Thursday 16th May
Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street | Cost €75 (or €200 for all four masterclasses)
Limited to 8 participants
Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning Australian poet, editor and critic, and the author of three books of poems—most recently The Jaguar—and a book of essays, Fishing for Lightning, a collection of her columns on contemporary Australian poetry written for The Australian newspaper. Her books have received many of Australia’s major honours for poetry, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Stella Prize, The Australian Book of the Year, and the Margaret and Colin Roderick Award. Her Selected Poems is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books in 2024. She presently is Professor of Poetry at the Queensland University of Technology.
André Naffis-Sahely MasterclassSOLD OUT
9.30am to 12.30pm, Friday 17th May
Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street | Cost €75 (or €200 for all four masterclasses)
Limited to 8 participants
André Naffis-Sahely is the author of two collections of poetry, The Promised Land: Poems from Itinerant Life (Penguin UK, 2017) and High Desert (Bloodaxe Books, 2022), as well as the editor of The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature (Pushkin Press, 2020). He also co-edited Mick Imlah: Selected Prose (Peter Lang, 2015) and The Palm Beach Effect: Reflections on Michael Hofmann (CB Editions, 2013). He has translated over twenty titles of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, including works by Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Abdellatif Laâbi, Ribka Sibhatu and Tahar Ben Jelloun. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis and the editor of Poetry London.
Tom Sleigh MasterclassSOLD OUT
9.30am to 12.30pm, Saturday 18th May
Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street | Cost €75 (or €200 for all four masterclasses)
Limited to 8 participants
Tom Sleigh’s many books include the 2023 Paterson Poetry Prize winner, The King’s Touch, House of Fact, House of Ruin, Station Zed, and Army Cats, all from Graywolf Press. His most recent book of essays is The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In an Age of Refugees. His awards include a Guggenheim, two NEA grants, Kingsley Tufts Award, Shelley Memorial Award, and both the Updike Award and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His poems appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Threepenny, Poetry, and other magazines. A Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, he lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Booking
Payment will be accepted by cheque/postal order (made payable to the Munster Literature Centre), by credit card via PayPal (link provided on registration), or cash (payable in person at The Munster Literature Centre, Frank O'Connor House, 84 Douglas Street, Cork). To book your place please email info(at)munsterlit(dot)ie or phone +353(0)21 4322396.
Additional Information
If you have limited mobility, please let us know in advance so we can arrange to make the experience as pleasant as possible for you. Every effort will be made to make sure that the programme proceeds as advertised but the Munster Literature Centre accepts no responsibility for changes made due to circumstances beyond our control—refunds will be given only if a workshop is cancelled. As workshops sell out, notification of such will be posted on this page.