Arts Ability writing launch
THE PRESENTATION Centre in Enniscorthy came alive last Thursday with the launch of a series of poetry and prose by twelve gifted writers from the Arts Ability programme, based at the Killagoley Training and Activation Centre (KTAC). As part of the programme, excerpts from the series are being published weekly in the Enniscorthy Echo.
‘A Window to Our Words’ features stories and poems by artists including John Yates, Cyril Fenton, Fiona Doyle and Philip Priestly. The pieces were produced in workshops in the 1798 Centre with facilitator Sylvia Cullen, who has worked with the Creative Writing programme for the past seven years. The work features a wonderful and varied range of topics from stories of childhood such as ‘the Strawberry Car’ to poems about a late night in a local take away in ‘Chip Shop Stop’.
Former RTE Newsreader Anne Doyle made a guest appearance and commended the writers on their work, saying the greatest gift she got in life was reading and she was “struck very forcibly” by the artist’s high standard of writing. She was also inspired not to be what she referred to as a “lazy retired lump” and to write a story about her childhood strawberry picking in Boolavogue called ‘Three Blazers’, which she read out at the presentation.
Newly appointed Wexford County Council Cathoirleach Cllr Kathleen Codd Nolan congratulated the KTAC writers on ‘A Window To Our Words’, which she added had an “absolutely lovely heading”. She also told of the importance of social inclusion and that Wexford County Council “aim to create an environment where people from a range of backgrounds come together”.
The KTAC groups writing echoes the “golden renaissance of literature” that Wexford is experiencing, according to The Echo Editor Tom Mooney. He spoke of how the work of the writers is adding to the repertoire of this county, which is already “synonymous with great literature”, citing established writers such as Eoin Colfer and John Banville. He praised the writers talent and their no nonsense approach in writing what he called “intrinsically Wexford prose”.
Martin Matthews from Shine, the organisation that previously collaborated with Arts Ability in 2009 to produce a CD of spoken stories, told how the groups have grown alongside each other through their work in the past few years. He praised facilitator Sylvia Cullen who evoked“energy, whirlwind from the writers” through her workshops. He said the fresh writing by the KTAC group has the ability to “reawaken experiences you’ve had yourself”, and that the resounding success of the Wexford group has “inspired other writing groups all over the South East”.
Sylvia Cullen introduced each of the speakers as well as some of the writers themselves, who read out each other’s work throughout the launch. She thanked everyone who helped with the project, especially the writers themselves who produced such brilliant work. She gave a brief history of the Creative Writing programme and previous works by the group including an anthology ‘From the Hills of the Wild Berries’ in 2008, and in 2009 a CD version of the work which was launched in Wexford Opera House. The anthology was the first publication that gave the KTAC writers “a sense of ownership: their book, their names”, and encouraged them to work together to produce ‘A Window to Our Words’.
