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Welcome to Inksplinters at the Irish Writers Centre

Inksplinters is a splinter group of writers whose origins lie with the Inkslingers writers’ group at the Irish Writers Center in Dublin, Ireland. Inkslingers usually met on Saturdays at lunchtime and the splinter group called Inksplinters met on Tuesday evenings. Our facilitator was, for many years, John Farrell. Unfortunately for us John relocated to another city in Europe. That’s when Harry stepped in and kept things going. It was not just Harry but also his family who supported this project that aimed to support all writers whoever they are and whatever stage they are at in their writing. All this happened after the boom years, i.e., after the crash in 2008. The community of writers in our city depended on the generosity of spirit of those who could step up and gift their time for the benefit of their fellow writers. Thanks to Harry the Inkslingers survived, and thanks to this blog the Inkslingers survived, with Harry’s help:-)

In order to remove adds it has been necessary to make some changes this this website. Here is the link to Harry’s first two chapters of his inspiring book, Time and Time Again, a fantastic read, highly recommended – https://inksplinters.wordpress.com/?page_id=45

We are a writers’ group who meet in the Irish Writers’ Centre at Parnell Square in the city centre of Dublin, Ireland; except when the Centre is closed, Bank Holiday Saturdays for instance. Feel free to drop in around 1 o’clock where you’ll find a welcome and can happily join us for tea/coffee and find out more. Whether you’re new to writing or you’re already a well-established author, this is a great group, very enjoyable. Afterwards, the group go to a local cafe or hotel bar for a bit of socialising. So be prepared to spend an afternoon. The writing session usually goes on until about 3 o’clock and the after-party lasts typically until around 4 o’clock though occasionally longer.

http://www.writerscentre.ie/html/about.htm .

We also occasionally meet in other venues usually on Bank Holiday weekends.

We publish an anthology of the work of member every year. If you join our group, you are welcome to submit your work. You can also submit work to this blog. Please note that we have very little time to monitor messages to this site, so if you are interested in joining Inkslingers please just come along to the Irish Writers’ Centre at Parnell Square on Saturday at 1 o’clock. The group meet in the Centre for tea/coffee before their writing session which starts at 1.30. A donation to the centre of €1 is suggested for tea/coffee and biscuits, €5 is recommended for the writing workshop at 1.30pm if you are not a member of the Irish Writers’ Centre.

Over the years we’ve had a few weekends and holidays away from Dublin during the summer months, for example, Clifden, Berlin and Listowel. These are typically informally organised. This year I’ve set up the Ireland Poetry, Literature and Creative Festivals Meetup (link below). These are just the festivals I’m going to, but there may be more. The best place to find out about what’s happening is to come to the Centre. Ask for Harry, he’s the main contact for the writing workshops. Join the chat before the writing session and find out more about what’s going on. Follow our blog and keep in touch.

https://www.meetup.com/Ireland-Poetry-and-Literature-Meetup/events/

Read about Inkslingers below

Inkslingers is a group of people who get together on a weekly basis to write at Irish Writers’ Centre. We write for half an hour to a prompt and then read out what we’ve written. You will be nicely surprised by the encouragement, but you don’t have to read, you can just sit back and listen. We don’t insist that you restrict yourself to the prompt or that you read what you’ve just written, you can read something you brought along that you’ve been working on.

We provide our own prompts, usually of our own invention. Often, they take the fairly standard form of a phrase, an image, a story beginning etc. However, we have also used photos/paintings; curios; items of clothing etc!

We are not a group in the sense of a members’ list and criteria for entry, or terms of reference. A lot of us are just regulars at the Writers’ Centre but other than that we are a mixed group in terms age, gender, city/country, nationality and so on. We are drawn together by our desire to write and to be in the company of others who share our passion.

Different members have evolved to have different roles e.g., the person who usually organises the room and manages the session; the person who usually takes care of this site; the person who usually organises extracurricular activities, but there is no leader or committee etc.

Our writing sessions are firstly, all about the writing and secondly, positive and encouraging. We seek out what we like in each other’s work and if we’ve nothing good to say, we say nothing.

We meet at the Writers’ Centre on Saturdays at 1 o’clock for a 1.30 start. the cost of the sessions is free to Writers Centre members, though some contributing between €3 and €5. The charge to non-members is €5 per session. At other venues, when the Centre is closed (for bank holiday Saturdays normally) a small charge for a room may apply.