The Winter Writing Session at Kylemore is a residency programme (Sunday to Friday) for writers who are seriously working on a work of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry. The programme includes room and board in the renovated St Joseph’s wing at Kylemore Abbey, Connemara, as well as the opportunity to connect with fellow writers, and discussions/talks by a professional writer-in-residence (to be announced).
Applications will be read by a panel and accepted on a rolling basis. Residents will arrive on Sunday, December 8th, 2024 for dinner and a welcome session, and depart on Friday, December 13th. The residency includes 1-2 talks and discussions and plenty of time to write.
How to Apply
In order to be considered for this residency, please submit a work in progress. It must not have been previously published, and it must relate specifically to the work you plan on doing while in residency with us. Please submit according to your form:
- For prose: up to 2,000 words of a work in progress for which the application is being made. It should be in 12-point font and double spaced.
- For poetry: ten pages of poetry, single spaced, with no more than one poem per page.
Applications will be assessed by a panel of judges and admissions will be on a rolling basis.
Applications open in April on a rolling basis. Fill out an application here.
Programme Information
Cost
- €1500/$1650
Dates
- December 8-13, 2024
Program Includes
- Daily group discussion
- 1-2 talks by the writer-in-residence, a professional writer who will be with the group for the duration of the residence
- Private en-suite bedroom
- Nutritious & filling meals prepared by our in-house chef
- Access to the abbey grounds & museum
Beginning the Saturday preceding the retreat, writers will be asked to practice free-writing in response to prompts (designed by the writer-in-residence) that will be sent to them each evening.
Writers are free to turn off all technology while they are with us - we will sound a gong at 8AM every morning and for each meal time.
Mike McCormack announced as writer-in-residence for 2024 Winter Writing Session
Mike McCormack’s first collection of short stories Getting It In The Head was published by Jonathan Cape in 1996. The book won the Rooney Prize and was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
This was followed in 1998 by his first novel Crowe’s Requiem.
In 2005 Notes from a Coma was published and was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award. In 2010, The Irish Times described it as "the greatest Irish novel of the decade just ended".
A second collection of short stories Forensic Songs was published by Lilliput in 2012.
Solar Bones was published by Tramp Press in 2016 to widespread critical acclaim. The single novel-length sentence story which takes place on All Souls’ Day in Louisburgh, Co Mayo went on to the win the coveted the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize in November of that year and in December won The Eason Book Club Novel of the Year at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. It was also an Irish Times Book Club Choice and was Longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize and for the European Literature Prize 2018. In June 2018 the book went on to win the prestigious €100,000 International Dublin Literary Award, the world's most lucrative literary prize for a single novel published in English.
The book has also been translated into over ten languages while UK rights have been sold to Canongate and the US rights to Soho Press.
In 2023 Canongate, in tandem with Tramp Press, snapped up Mike’s new novel. Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls was published in October to rave reviews.
Mike has also written the screenplay for The Terms, based on his short story, which was adapted into an award-winning short film directed by Johnny O'Reilly.
He was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in 2007 and has been the recipient of several Arts Council Bursaries. In May 2018 he was elected as a member of Aosdána, the Irish association of artists.
Mike lives in Galway with his wife Maeve and young son.