Kilkenny's Butler House to host creative writing day with novelist

Historical fiction novelist Sheila Forsey will host an immersive creative writing day in Butler House to inspire writers and to coincide with AKA Kilkenny.

This August 12, Sheila will bring the event to the 18th century Butler House and Garden in Kilkenny city, to coincide with the AKA - Kilkenny Fringe Arts Festival.

This full-day creative writing workshop will focus on vision, language, theme and narrative. It is suitable for anybody with a love of words and a wish to unleash their authentic voice.

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Sheila spent many years living and working in Kilkenny city and is best known in the city for her theatrical work with the Watergate Theatre.

The creative writing tutor, and graduate of NUI Maynooth, is currently undertaking postgraduate studies in Kilkenny city’s prestigious Design and Craft Council of Ireland through Trinity College Dublin.

Sheila is bringing her new creative brainstorming techniques and design thinking training to her workshops.

Currently, Sheila is working on a fifth novel.

Born on a farm on the south-east coast of Ireland, Sheila was brought up listening to the legends and folklore of Ireland’s past. This gave her a love of words that became the stepping-stone for her career in writing.

An intriguing interest into Ireland’s complex and at times very difficult past led her to write historical fiction. With a love for the theatre and many years treading the boards, she turned her love of being on the stage to writing for the stage.

Sheila spent two years as a curator for Wexford Literary Festival and is the facilitator for creative writing in adult education.

“The Ireland of my childhood was filled with stories. Not from a book but from memory, passed from generation to generation. These stories fueled my imagination and gave me a cornucopia of memories to carry with me that now inform my words. Ireland’s windswept coastline, rugged mountains, valleys and ever-changing sky can be wild and haunting and filled with the voices of the past.”

The workshop will take place at Butler House from 10am to 5pm on August 12 and costs €120.

 Places are limited. For bookings, contact sheila.forsey@gmail. com or phone 087-6338027