Services and Programmes

Are you a budding author? Cork City Libraries can help you develop your talent.

• Join one of the writing groups meeting in our libraries
• Take a creative writing class in our Summer School of Creative Writing
• Consult our Reference collections, including dictionaries, thesauri and style guides, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style,  The Writers and Artists Yearbook, The Collins Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Famous Writers Course Vols 1 – 4 and more
• Use our study spaces and public computers
• Attend an event or a book launch and hear from other emerging or well known writers
• Borrow from our collection of books on writing technique. We have books on writing fiction, non-fiction, writing a blockbuster, travel writing, crime, writing for magazines and more. Click on the list of subject headings to visit our library catalogue:

          Books on Creative Writing
          Books on Fiction Authorship
          Books on Writing Skills
          Books on English Language - Rhetoric
          Books on English Language - Written English
          Books on Publishers and Publishing

On Writing: Lessons from the Great Writers by Billy O'Callaghan

During Cork World Book Fest 2012, award winning writer Billy O'Callaghan gave a workshop on the writing advice of the great writers. Here is an extract from his workshop:

On_Writing_Lessons_from_the_Great_Writers_by_Billy_OCallaghan (PDF file 394 KB)

Interested in what the great writers have to say about the writing process? We recommend the following books:

Stephen King On Writing: a memoir of the craft	Frank O'Connor The Lonely Voice: a study of the short story
Eudora Welty One Writer's Beginnings	Kate Grenville Searching for the Secret River
Michael Greenberg Beg, borrow, steal: a writer's life	Kate Grenville The Writing Book: a workbook for fiction writers
Nava Atlas The Literary Ladies' Guide To The Writing Life	Elizabeth Bowen Pictures and Conversations
Andre Brink A Fork in the Road	Cyril Connolly Enemies of Promise
Virginia Woolf A Writer's Diary	Annie Dillard The Writing Life
Marie Arana The Writing Life: Writers On How They Think And Work	Ray Bradbury Zen in the Art of Writing: releasing the creative genius within you
Clare Boylan, ed. The Agony and the Ego : the art and strategy of fiction writing explored	David Morrell Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing : a novelist looks at his craft
Flannery O'Connor Mystery and Manners: occasional prose	Various Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times
Various Writers on Writing, Volume II: More Collected Essays