Sinead Keegan

I'm delighted to be offering a digital found poetry workshop inspired by the Chawton House archives for their Lockdown Literary Festival. The introduction will be live on their YouTube channel at 11am (BST) tomorrow, Friday, 15th of May, and then we'll follow up with a Facebook Live event from 4-5pm (BST) on Saturday, 16th of May. It's suitable for poets of all experience levels from never written a word of poetry to confident writers. And it's all free, too! What? Crazy. I know. It's what lockdown does. Other (free) events include tours of the house, talks on Jane Austen (she used to live on the estate), and talks with authors from Joanna Trollope to Gill Hornby.  Please join in and have some fun!

Some of you will no doubt notice the new layout to this site, where the emphasis is now being placed on my writing, teaching and editorial services. It's a brave new world folks, but with Aldous and Dolly on my side, I reckon I can't go too far wrong. For some time now - well over a decade, in fact - I've been providing high quality content for businesses, newspapers, and non-profit organisations, and, since completing both my MFA in creative writing and my higher education teaching qualification in 2013, I have also been working with writers of all levels and in many different fields to improve their written communication. I've finally decided to take the plunge and change this website from primarily being a blog to a landing page for this writing and teaching business. The blog will still be here, but it's taken a back seat to my other work in the last 2-3 years and now I've reorganised the website to reflect my current priorities. It's been a fun 18 (...

SouthWestFest is back for another year and so am I, your faithful creative writing workshop leader! So if you're interested in free creative writing sessions, come by. There are three sessions: 3rd, 4th & 7th of July | 6.00pm -7.00pm | Pimlico Library You can sign up for a free place at http://southwestfest.org.uk/event/sw-oneworld-creative-writing-workshop but (shh!) just for readers of this blog - even if the sessions say they are booked up, just come by. Tell me you saw it on my blog and I'll squeeze you in!

Only one week to go. In just seven days I will be packing my bags, ready to head of for a week of chatting writing for the internet with the wonderful students of the International Creative Writing Summer School in conjunction with the British Council and Kingston Writing School. We'll be building blogs, talking Twitter, writing for Wattpad, how to get work copywriting and, of course, all about creative writing and the internet - all together now: all the sins ! I'm hoping to get some collaborative digital writing going and to have some fun work to share with you all. I'm also hoping to survive the heat. I always think I love hot weather but then find myself teetering on the edge of death when it goes above 80F/25C. I'm a pastey northern european no matter how many US summers I've survived (I barely survived one summer in DC...oh, the humidity!). Fortunately, I'll have writing, writers and Greek food to get me through. What else could you want?

It's official! I mean, they've spelled my name wrong on the website, but, still, I'm pretty sure they mean me. This summer, from June 19-23, 2017 I will be teaching a one week course for the British Council and Kingston Writing School's Creative Writing Summer School . My sessions will be on writing for the internet including blogging and internet-based publishing. I'm really excited and busy building some fun, hands-on sessions to help writers get comfortable and gain confidence in writing for all you lovely internet readers. We'll cover all sorts of topics like finding and maintaining a readership, finding your niche, the basics of SEO, various platforms, tone, length, visuals, whether print is dead and what that means to digital writing and, of course, my passion project, the amazing all the sins . If you are wondering about editing or just being published in an online publication, find out all that entails and get a peek behind the scenes. I'll be te...

In more news that I hope (continues to) explain my absence from my dearly beloved blog, I will be working with the amazing Lucy Furlong over at Seethingography in exactly 4 weeks time to celebrate National Poetry Day (UK). We will be at the Museum of Futures in Surbiton throughout the day running all sorts of fun and challenging exercises and workshops in poetry for people of all ages and experience. There is no need to be a poet, just drop in and have some fun! The theme is 'Messages' so come explore ways of sending, receiving, crafting, reflecting, refracting messages and much more. Think letters, bottles at sea, texts, subliminal messages, psychic messages, missed messages, mixed messages and whatever else comes to mind. Get the message? What: National Poetry Day Sounds scary: It's not! Fun activities that anyone can do. Plus enthusiatic writers to help you out! Where: The Museum of Futures 117 Brighton Rd Surbiton When: Thursday, 06 October 2016

This Thursday is the first of the annual series of 3 workshops that I run with SouthWestFest . They are a great time and suitable for writers of all levels. In the past we have had complete beginners through to competition winners. The atmosphere is relaxed and supportive, but the feedback is astute and pushes writers to improve, regardless of from where they are starting. Best of all, these workshops are FREE! So much cheaper than doing a university degree to get into a class with me ;-). I'm also running two additional workshops this year: an introduction to blogging and one on public speaking. If either of these intrigues or intimidates you, come on out for a friendly, practical introduction that will build your confidence and your skills. Creative Writing: Thursdays, 2nd, 9th and 16th of May 5:45-7:45pm in the Pimlico Library       You don't have to come to all 3 sessions, but they will be different, so it would be great if you did!    ...

One update this year. Shocking behaviour! But I've had a busy year. Honest. Super busy. I ended up with loads of teaching this year, which regular readers will guess made me extremely happy. I had first and second years in class, did a bit with some postgrads and got to see the first students I had in their first year finish at uni. Wow, where did that time go? It was a privilege to see them grow and develop both as people and as writers. They are an impressive bunch. Some of them are throwing themselves into the professional writing community and are being recognised for their considerable talents. But the most satisfying thing for me has been to see how their work ethics and confidence have developed. Students who lacked confidence and didn't start at the top of the class have ended up there because they put in the work. This seems to be the overlooked element of creative writing. There's a debate about whether universities and adult ed centres are just making money...

I have recently, in a fit of what can only be termed poor judgement, decided to take up golfing. Historically, golf has not been a great sport for me. 1997 brought an awful lot of tears as my poor dad valiantly dragged me around a course. He learned his lesson as we haven't been out since. Somewhere about 2002/2003 the taller half decided we should go for a quick 9 holes. We were lapped by 9-year-olds. All previous experience points to golf being similar to that year I ran track in high school: a total disaster. The only thing I mastered in track was the bit where we stretched. I've taken a slightly different tack on golf this time around. I'm getting lessons from a local golf pro and, to date, there have been no tears. In fact, he tells me I'm a natural. What? I suppose it's in his best interest to butter me up so I keep coming back for lessons. Except, the taller half agrees. What? I suppose it's in his best interest to butter me up so that I don't retur...

Last night, I went to Shark Tank , a play that is a part of the International Youth Arts Festival and currently playing at the Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston-upon-Thames.  It's a farcical look at the world of contemporary art and was written by a former student of mine, Nik Way. This isn't so much a review of the production, because I'm obviously quite biased. It's more that it got me thinking about what it means for a teacher to see a student succeeding. I love teaching. I love seeing students learn and grow and become better writers. I like it even more when they suddenly realise they've gotten better and the leap in confidence that they have. You would think, then, that seeing a student write a play that is chosen to be performed at a festival. Watching that production which he has co-directed and in which he is acting would be the culmination of everything a teacher could want. In some ways it was. I'm very proud of Nik. It's a good play. But, ...

In January of 2013, poet Christian Ward made major news in the UK poetry world when his poem, 'The Deer at Exmoor' won the Hope Bourne poetry prize. It was rather quickly discovered that his poem bore an uncanny resemblance to Helen Mort's poem 'The Deer'. When pushed, he made the extraordinary claim that he realised he was wrong but only because he had not changed Mort's work enough. In a statement published in the Western Morning News , Ward wrote: "I was working on a poem about my childhood experiences in Exmoor and was careless. I used Helen Mort’s poem as a model for my own but rushed and ended up submitting a draft that wasn’t entirely my own work. I had no intention of deliberately plagiarising her work. That is the truth." This seems to me, an extraordinary claim: that there is, somewhere, a line that exists where, once crossed, one has changed the work of another sufficiently to claim that it is not one's own, original work.

I'm delighted to announce that I will be working with SouthWestFest this year for a series of FREE creative writing workshops and a creative writing competition as part of the Stories of SW1 Exhibition . The two-hour workshops will run on the evenings of 24 June, 01 and 08 July 2014 from 5:45-7:45pm at the Pimlico branch of Westminster Libraries . These are low-pressure, supportive, fun workshops designed for writers of all levels. You don't need any previous experience and there will be exercises to help you get started with putting pen to paper. Space is limited so book now by emailing: info@southwestfest.org.uk . Participants will have the opportunity to submit for the Stories of SW1 creative writing competition, which has a £50 prize. Work will be displayed as part of the Stories of SW1 Exhibition and we hope to do a live reading at the end of festival bash! Competition Rules: Deadline for creative writing submission is midnight Sunday 06 July 2014 Email t...

On the first day of my MFA in creative writing, I entered my first workshop and looked at my colleagues, the people who would critique my work and make me a better writer. Our tutor had us go around the table and introduce ourselves.  Hello, I’m Sin é ad . My favorite book is Dracula , my favorite fiction author is Margaret Atwood and my favorite creative nonfiction writer is Bill Bryson.  I write memoir and I've been blogging for ten years. I’m interested in writing a humorous literary travel memoir. Hello, I’m M---- and I don’t read. I don’t really write either. WHAT? What the hell are you doing here? This guy is never going to be any help to me. Cue eye-rolling, not-so-suppressed sighing and general outrage from me. I could not fathom what this man was doing in a postgraduate writing course and I took it as a personal affront that he did not have the dedication that I did.

On 10 October 2013, an author I know Twitter-declared that "the short story is officially dead." This was a direct response to the announcement that Alice Munro is the 2013 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dead? Officially dead? Makes me want to go in and immediately lecture my students on the dangers of hyperbole. So here's a couple of thoughts on the latest Twitter death rumor: