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New Course: writing as a reader / reading as a writer (Irish Writers Centre Academy)

This spring I will lead an 8-week course with title 'writing as a reader / reading as a writer.' The course is offered as part of the Irish Writers Centre Academy's Spring 2026 programme.

This is an online course. Beginning on Thursday 5 March 2026, it will run weekly between 6.30pm - 8.30pm Dublin time.

Limited spaces available. Book your place here.

Full course information on the IWC website, and below.


Course Summary:
As poets and writers we are first and foremost readers mediating external material, text and otherwise, in the process of making new work. And as readers operating in the digital age we are increasingly aware of the creative potential of reading and repurposing. In ‘writing as a reader / reading as a writer’ participants will exercise their capacity to read creatively, critically and intuitively, and to employ source material directly towards literary composition. This is a generative course incorporating regular writing tasks underpinned by carefully selected and targeted contemporary and historical examples, as well as informal and unhierarchical group discussion and exchange.

Course Outline:
Week 1: Introductions / Writing the Everyday
Week 2: Sampling, Remixing, and other appropriative techniques
Week 3: Documentary Poetics
Week 4: Translation and Re-writing
Week 5: Intersemiotic (cross-media) translation / audiovisual content
Week 6: Constraints / Transcription / post-Artificial Intelligence
Week 7: Digital poetics / DIY publishing and publishing beyond the page
Week 8: Collaboration

Each session incorporates writing/making exercises.

Course Outcomes:
‘writing as a reader / reading as a writer’ is designed to stimulate participants’ engagement with reading as a creative act, and the expanded possibilities of contemporary writing practice. It is designed to operate cumulatively to deepen their understanding of the creative potential of pre-existing material, to provoke experimentation and collaboration, and to grant permissions through example and dialogue.

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