Submission window now open for the Young Writer Delegates programme
Young writers aged 18-26 are invited to apply for an extraordinary opportunity to attend and contribute to Belfast Book Festival 2024 as an Irish Writers Centre Young Writer Delegate.
iwc-yd-24-web.jpg
The Young Writer Delegates Programme seeks to create new opportunities, grant access and develop networks that connect writers to each other. This programme aims to enhance opportunities for people across all communities to explore and participate in creative writing, as well cultivate an engaged community of writers.
What to expect
Now in its seventh year, the Irish Writers Centre (IWC) Young Writer Delegates Programme was created to give young writers an opportunity to immerse themselves in and contribute to a literature festival, soak up the atmosphere and experience the Irish literary landscape first-hand.
The Young Writer Delegates will spend five days (four nights) at Belfast Book Festival 2024* from Thursday 06 June, 2024 to Monday 10 June, 2024.
What does the Young Writer Delegates Programme include?
- Mentoring: Delegates will be supported by a local writer-mentor Deirdre Cartmill for the duration of the festival. Deirdre will help the delegates to develop a new or in-progress piece of work and support the delegates through their public showcase.
- Festival Events: Delegates will be granted access to as many festival events as they’d like to attend (depending on individual event availability), excluding workshops.
- Public Showcase: Delegates will read the piece of work they have developed at a public showcase as part of the festival programme. The festival provides a small honorarium for this event which will be paid to the delegates at the beginning of the festival.
- Social Media: Each delegate will be in charge of the official Young Writer Delegates Instagram for one day to highlight festival events they are attending and their experiences as a Young Writer Delegate.
- Post-Festival Review: After the festival, each delegate will write a piece in response to their experience of the festival, which will be published on the IWC website. This could take the form of a creative piece, a review of an event or an interview with a writer.
Feedback: In exchange for being awarded the programme, the IWC will ask for feedback and evaluation to continue to improve the programme for future delegates
Please note that accommodation is only provided for two delegates from outside the Belfast area.
Eligibility
This programme is open to writers aged 18-26 living anywhere on the island of Ireland with a strong interest in writing, reading and an ambition to connect and contribute to the Irish literary scene. It is not essential for applicants to have been published to be eligible.
Terms:
- Accommodation is provided for two delegates who are resident on the island of Ireland.
- Two places are reserved for two local delegates.
- Please note that if you have availed of the Young Writer Delegates Programme in the last three years, in any iteration, you are ineligible to apply.
- We encourage young writers from backgrounds typically underrepresented in Irish literature to apply. We particularly invite applications from Black, POC (person of colour), Traveller, Roma, LGBTQIA+, disabled and working class writers, and those who consider themselves to be within the target groups described in the EDI Policy on the irish Writers Centre's website.
Click here for more information on how to apply.
« BACK
