Belinda McKeon leads Maynooth University's new Master's programme in Creative Writing

Maynooth University has announced that the award-winning author Belinda McKeon will lead the Department of English’s new Master of Arts (MA) in Creative Writing programme.

The author of novels Solace and Tender, and editor of the anthology A Kind of Compass: Stories on Distance, McKeon will join Maynooth University as Associate Professor in Creative Writing from May.

As a novelist, she has received the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Irish Book of the Year Award, and has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize and the Encore Award.

Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in journals including The Paris Review, Granta, A Public Space, and The Stinging Fly, and she worked for many years as an arts journalist with The Irish Times.

She is also a playwright, currently working on a project with Fishamble Theatre Company, supported by the Arts Council's Markievicz Award. She comes to Maynooth from Rutgers University in the United States, where she has taught fiction since 2014. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme.

The new MA in Creative Writing at Maynooth University combines workshops and seminars with one-on-one mentoring of writing projects. Students can take optional modules in literature or other creative modules from across the Faculty, such as Writing for Screen Media.

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Taught by award-winning, internationally-renowned writers, the MA will focus on guiding each student to further develop their voice as a writer, as well as enriching their existing interests with new perspectives and a grasp of stylistic approaches.

Tactics for editing and revision will be taught in tandem with generative exercises and practices aimed at deepening each student’s relationship to their creative process. Students will have the opportunity to build and develop networks which will sustain their writing practice beyond the MA degree. The MA in Creative Writing equips students for careers in professional writing, professional editing, and the creative industries.