I attended a workshop in the Mountains to Sea Festival with Liz Berry. My first ever poetry workshop was at a similar event a few years ago with Moya Cannon where I received my first critique outside my writing group. This year, the workshop was focused on how to get a first collection published. There were 12 writers on the course and it was lovely to be in the company of some familiar faces, Jane Clarke (who has her first collection coming out soon), Rosalind Taylor (fellow Poetry Introductions compatriot), Phil Lynch (who read with Rozz at a Wordlegs event a few years ago) and my good friend and mentor Derek Coyle.
Liz was an excellent facilitator and it is no surprise that her day job is that of a primary school teacher. She divided the 2 hours into 6 parts, with some “stretch” breaks in between each one. We alternated between answering questions about publishing and responding to some lovely prompts, which really stirred the creative juices.
There’s very few places like Dun Laoghaire on a sunny Sunday and it was great to enjoy a little bit of time browsing around the place too.