Fighting Words' Youth Advisory Panel: Guthanna Óga
In August of this year, Fighting Words and Fighting Words NI put out a call for young people aged between 15-18 to apply for our first ever Youth Advisory Panel!
In August of this year, Fighting Words and Fighting Words NI put out a call for young people aged between 15-18 to apply for our first ever Youth Advisory Panel!
Fighting Words NI has welcomed two new members to the Board.
A warm welcome to Paul Connolly and Rick O’Shea!
Fighting Words NI is recruiting for a Volunteer Co-ordinator, to be responsible for co-ordinating all elements of volunteering to support our annual programme.
As a volunteer-centred charity we value the involvement of volunteers supporting our workshops. All of our programmes — from schools workshops, to our after school writing clubs — are facilitated by teams of volunteer writing mentors. We’re always on the look-out for people who are passionate about helping young writers to find their creative spark!
Every year, Fighting Words NI and Fighting Words work together to collect work from young writers from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – and submissions are now open for 2023!
Guidelines:
(please read in full)
One prose submission per author, poets may submit two poems.
Max. 1,500 words
FORMAT: Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced. Please attach the email as a Word document. Please do NOT send PDF or handwritten submissions.
Please Include in your email:
Fighting Words NI was invited to attend the recent launch of the iCommunity Report, a joint initiative between NICVA (Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action) and The Wheel, (Ireland’s national association of charities, community groups and social enterprises) outlining a new vision for all-Island collaboration in the community and voluntary sector.
The latest project in the Young Playwrights series took place online over two weeks in August, with a cohort of young writers from England and Northern Ireland, attempting one of their most ambitious ventures yet: to create a full radio play series in under two weeks, with each playwright tackling an episode each.
Fighting Words NI has just wrapped a one-of-a-kind event for young writers – our very first creative writing summer camp. In a fantastic four-day event between the 8th and 11th of August, young people from around Northern Ireland participated in our workshop in Belfast, flexing their creative writing skills through scripts, prose, song writing, poetry, and even video game world building.
Fighting Words Northern Ireland has launched ‘New Worlds’, an anthology of creative writing from pupils at four Belfast primary schools. Between January and March 2022, over 100 young writers from P6 and P7 classes at Scoil an Droichid, Victoria Park Primary School, Fane Street Primary School and Holy Family Primary School attended workshops and collaborated over Zoom to create and produce story endings for the anthology which is now online.
The short (10-minutes maximum) original plays were developed by 14-18-year-olds from around Northern Ireland who took part in YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS: ON STAGE AT THE LYRIC between February and May 2022. Each writer had the chance to create and develop their own original short play, then work with professional directors, dramaturgs, actors and designers to bring it to the stage.
Young Playwrights mentor Emily DeDakis explained:
Northern Irish Playwright and mentor with Fighting Words Northern Ireland, Karis Kelly, has been awarded the Women’s Prize for Playwriting for her play ‘Consumed’, a drama about four generations of Northern Irish women at a 90th birthday party in a “house full of hungry ghosts”.
Karis’ play was selected from 850 entries and 12 finalists, by the panel of judges that included Arifa Akbar, Mel Kenyon (Chair) and Lucy Kirkwood.
She said of the award:
