Communities coming together through writing

ACROSS the county a number of writers groups are offering a communal outlet for what is essentially a solitary pastime.

 

The Inis Creative Writers Group has been operating for the last two years and Brian Dinan has been involved since the beginning. “It started with the support of Siobhán Mulcahy in the Clare Arts Office. She got a few of us together, who had been making enquiries, in the Rowan Tree. She led the group for the first year and we started in a simple enough fashion, reading our own writings and making comments on them. Since we’ve started we’ve had about 40 people drop in and we have about 20 who are active,” he says.

The group meets in the Rowan Tree on every second Monday evening and all types of writing is welcome. “There’s a lot of people who are interested in creative writing and that could range from poetry to memoirs, there is a lot of that.”

Brian has had quite a lot of his work published. “Down the years I’ve always written, I’ve had about 20 short stories published. I wrote a history of Clare which was published. I’m trying to publish a book about St Flannan’s Terrace, all the residents and the history of the houses. I’m kind of doing that with the help of a few people who are researching material for me.”

He has also completed a novel, which as yet hasn’t been published. “It’s a literary novel, it’s basically a fictional account of my experiences growing up. I’m sending it to people who might be interested in publishing it.”

A lot of people come to the group to try it out. Some find it suits them, while others don’t. “Next week we might get one or two people again that we’ve never heard from. Every week we get some people in making enquiries, a lot don’t know what they’re looking for; some don’t find what they’re looking for and they go on to something else.
“Everyone’s different, we don’t satisfy everybody. We stick to the principle that if you have something written and you want to read it out, we’ll listen and talk about it. We haven’t got too complicated after that, we’re not critics.”

The group aren’t too severe in their assessments of each other’s output. “Usually we get about eight to 16 people and the average would be about a dozen. Anyone who wants to read and most of them do, reads for seven minutes and there’s a three-minute period after the reading for comments.
“We’re not too critical but we make comments about what they’ve read and how we reacted to it. We’re bringing out a book in December and we have about 20 or 25 submissions. It’s being put together with the aid of the Arts Office. It’s just a small, private publication just to show people what their work is like when it is published.”

He notes other groups have fizzled out in Ennis but the formula at Inis Creative Writers is working quite well so far. “I was always interested in some kind of a group and there were things over the years but they never seemed to last. It’s very hard to know how to keep it going and what people are looking for but we’ve found that if you allow people to express themselves, don’t apply too many rules, let them find their own way and make it a bit sociable, they’ll stay with it.”

In Crusheen, author Darragh McManus started another writers’ group a year ago. A full time writer, his novel Even Flow has just been published. He said the group gave him a social outlet, something that’s important for someone in a solitary profession.
“I suppose I was looking for a social thing to do because I work from home and you’re kind of on your own all the time. I was in a writing group about ten years ago up in Loughrea and I thought it was very enjoyable. I started putting notes into the papers and the parish newsletter and I probably put a note behind the counter in the local shop.”

They meet once a month on the last Thursday and some of the regulars come from beyond the parish.
“There’s a small group, between five and ten. Most of the group are local but there’s a guy coming from Derrybrien which is a bit away and there’s someone coming from Clarinbridge, which is a good bit away too. Everyone else would be in the village or the surrounding area.”

As with the Inis Creative Writers, all sorts of styles of writing are welcome. “People don’t have to bring something to read if they don’t want to, but most people will have something written. Usually at the previous meeting we’ll have given a theme if people want a bit of inspiration, but they can write on anything they like. People write poetry, a bit of fiction, an essay or something, everyone takes turns reading out and the group will have a bit of a chat about what was said. It’s not a heavy-duty critique of each others work.”

He feels reading one’s work out to a group offers a lot of positives. “Writing is such an internal thing, it’s in your own head and if you’re writing fiction you’re creating words that don’t exist at all. Not that I’m any kind of tortured artist! Also I don’t really like reading in front of people but it’s good to do it, get over the bit of self consciousness that you’d have and just read your stuff out. It’s nice to have an audience as well.”