Children encouraged to write

CHILDREN aged from nine to 12 years of age are invited to take part in the inaugural Guaire Magazine Children’s Writing Competition. The theme for the inaugural competition is ‘The Loop’.

Tonii Kelly, Guaire Magazine editor, said, “Gort is home to Coole Park, which, in the 20th century, was the cradle of the Irish Literary Revival and the foundation of the Abbey Theatre, through Lady Augusta Gregory. With such a history, it is only fitting that Gort should be home to the next generation of young writers and poets through the establishment of the children’s writing competition.”

In order to encourage young authors to take part in the competition, Guaire Magazine and Gort Library, with sponsorship from the local Lions Club, will be running a number of creative writing workshops with internationally recognised children’s authors. The first workshop scheduled is for Saturday, October 7 at 3pm, with Debbie Thomas.

Debbie is the writer-in-residence with Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin. She has written four comedy adventure books for children – Dead Hairy (2011), Jungle Tangle (2013) and Monkie Business (2014). Her most recent book is Class Act (2015).

The deadline for entries to the writing competition is April 20, 2018. The winners will receive a specially-commissioned prize by a local artist, an e-reader and their work will be published in Guaire Magazine.

Gort librarian Eileen O’Connor said, “We are delighted to collaborate with Guaire Magazine on this project. The workshops will harness the creativity of our young community and we look forward to welcoming budding writers to Gort Library.”

Guaire Magazine is distributed widely throughout South Galway and is now available online, with readers in the United Kingdom and USA.