Welcome to our writers' workshop
You're very welcome! We're proud to announce our fifth season in Connemara. "Love Comes in at the Eye" is a line from "The Drinking Song Poem" by William Butler Yeats. A century ago, Yeats himself wrote and honeymooned at Renvyle House, in Connemara, Ireland, where we work.
We're looking for serious writers in an intimate setting: memoirists, novelists, poets and creative nonfiction writers. We're open to narrative storytelling in all forms. The goal is to make progress on your current writing project in daily workshop review, whether you're writing in the first person voice or writing fiction or poetry or podcast pages.
Our writers tell us this workshop is unlike any other. There is individual attention, group work, and a public reading in Clifden. The goal is progress amid camaraderie. And Craigh!, to use the Irish for an ineffable good time.
Your workshop leaders are founder Jacki Lyden, author of the acclaimed best-selling memoir "Daughter of the Queen of Sheba," and a longtime NPR host and workshop leader.
And, Massachusetts-born Nick Flynn, a phenom in poetry, nonfiction, collaborations, and innovations.An exciting teacher. His most recent books include: This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire (Norton, 2020); and Stay: threads, collaborations, and conversations (Ze Books, 2020), which documents twenty-five years of work with artists, filmmakers, and composers. He is also the author of five collections of poetry, including I Will Destroy You (Graywolf, 2019). His bestselling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Norton, 2004), was made into a film with Robert DeNiro --and has been translated into fifteen languages. A New Yorker, he also teaches at the University of Houston, the Provincetown Fine Arts Center and is a Guggenheim recipient."Love Comes in at the Eye" is limited to twelve writers, so that everyone gets ample guidance and feedback. We welcome all persons inclusively. Please write to us to tell us what you’d like to work on.
Tell Me More
How does this work?
Once we've established that you're attending, we'll ask for a non-refundable down payment of $750 out of total cost $3750 for eight nights, seven days. Registration is open to qualified writers. please write Jacki.Lyden@gmail.com and include submissions of your work under 20 pages.
You should arrive in Ireland no later than the morning of the workshop, May 25 (your travel to Ireland is not part of our fee-- ) We'll send a van for everyone arriving that morning to Shannon International Airport--and send a van back on the last day June 2. You are welcome to make your own arrangments of course. We stay in the gorgeous Renvyle Hotel, which is on the Renvyle Peninusla. It's a four-star hotel, featuring rooms with thrilling views, of mountains or water or gardens, and common areas that are inviting and relaxing. There's usually a turf fire in the evenings. (The Nobel-prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney and the former President of Ireland--also a poet!-- have both stayed here -- Heaney even planted a tree.) Opening night champagne and oysters!
Every afternoon, we gather in the library to review, having turned in our work, led in review by Nick and Jacki. We have a short break for tea and coffee and maybe lunch. We're usually done at 5pm. That leaves a couple hours walking time til dinner out. (We provide transport.) We do a public reading at Clifden Christchurch, time TBD, and people have hiked, ridden horseback on the beaches and walked with Bronze Archaeologists. The main thing of course, is the writing, but the food, music and explorations are undeniable. We are very near Connemara National Park.
The "Love Comes in at the Eye" fee includes tuition and lodging, daily buffet breakfasts, two bar lunches, and two dinners at the hotel from award-winning chef Tim Sullivan. Other dinners around Connemara as available are at your own expense. However, dinner transport (only) is included in the fee, so that no one has to rent a car or drive on the wrong side of the road at that time.
The "Love Comes in at the Eye"reading at Christchurch introduces our writers to Connemara, and Connemara to our writers. The reading becomes a program and podcast on Connemara FM.