Archived Announcements
- Southword Editor’s Poetry Award Result
This year’s Southword Editor’s Poetry Award has been won by José Buera for the best entry of three poems. The winning poems will be published in issue 50 of Southword (summer 2026) and he will receive €1000. Each entrant for their €24 entry fee will receive a complimentary postage-free, one-year subscription to Southword. The judge also… Read more: Southword Editor’s Poetry Award Result - Southword Poetry Podcast: Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin
Episode 29 with Eilean Ni Chuilleanáin is now available anywhere you get podcasts Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork City in 1942. She was a founder member of Cyphers, the literary journal (1975). Her first collection, Acts and Monuments, won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. The Gallery Press has published her nine collections of poems including The Sun-fish which… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin - Southword Poetry Podcast: Mary O’Malley
Episode 28 with Mary O’Malley is now available anywhere you get podcasts Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara, and educated at University College Galway. She lived in Lisbon for eight years and taught at the Universidade Nova there. She served several years on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on the Committee of the… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: Mary O’Malley - Submit to Southword
Unsolicited submissions of poetry and short fiction (for issue 51, winter 2026) will open as follows: POETRY: 1st ‒ 31st January FICTION: 1st ‒ 28th February Our Submittable account limit means that we can only receive 1000 submissions per month, so if we reach this limit before the end of January (for poetry) or February… Read more: Submit to Southword - Southword Poetry Podcast: Aifric Mac Aodha
Episode 27 with Aifric Mac Aodha is now available anywhere you get podcasts Aifric Mac Aodha was born in 1979. Her first collection, Gabháil Syrinx, was published in 2010. She has taught in St Petersburg, New York and Canada and has lectured in old and modern Irish at UCD. She lives in Dublin where she works for… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: Aifric Mac Aodha - Shangyang Fang: Inaugural Cork City International Poetry Fellow
Shangyang Fang will be our inaugural Cork City International Poetry Fellow. Details to follow in the coming weeks. Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China, and composes poems both in English and Chinese. While studying civil engineering at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he realized his bigger passion lies in the architecture of language and is… Read more: Shangyang Fang: Inaugural Cork City International Poetry Fellow - Orders processed until end of the week
We will be processing book orders until the end of the week (up until midday 19th December) but cannot guarantee they will arrive before Christmas. Any orders after this will be processed on our return (5th January). - Southword Poetry Podcast: Isabelle Baafi
Episode 26 with Isabelle Baafi is now available anywhere you get podcasts. Isabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber / Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which is a Poetry Book Society (PBS) Recommendation, and Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020), which won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. Her writing has been published in Granta, the TLS,… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: Isabelle Baafi - Farmgate Café National Poetry Award Entries
55 valid entries have been received for the Farmgate National Poetry Award for the best original collection in English (or translated into English for the first time) published by a poet living on the island of Ireland in the calendar year of 2025. The award is worth €2000. A shortlist will be announced late March… Read more: Farmgate Café National Poetry Award Entries - Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition Results
The tied-for-first-prize manuscripts of the Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition are We Fall, We Carry by Róisín Leggett Bohan and Playing Paradise by Katie Hale. Their chapbooks will be published next year and launched at the Cork International Poetry Festival. We have also highlighted the finalists and 21 highly commended entries below. Winners Playing… Read more: Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition Results - Southword Poetry Podcast: Gerry Murphy
Episode 25 with Gerry Murphy is now available anywhere you get podcasts. Gerry Murphy is an Irish poet, born in Cork in 1952. His first poetry collection was A Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards (1985, 1992). He has since published many collections with The Dedalus Press including Rio de la Plata and All That (1993), The Empty Quarter (1995), Extracts from the… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: Gerry Murphy - 1961: Frank O’Connor’s Cork | Monitor BBC Broadcast
Frank O’Connor, the celebrated Irish short-story writer, novelist, essayist, and poet, revisits the city of his birth, where he lived for twenty-eight years and which provides the setting or inspiration for many of his stories. He speaks to Huw Wheldon about what Cork means to him, reflects on his childhood there and why he left.… Read more: 1961: Frank O’Connor’s Cork | Monitor BBC Broadcast - Southword Poetry Podcast: David Nash
Episode 24 with David Nash is now available anywhere you get podcasts. David Nash was born in Co. Cork and lives between Ireland and Chile. His work is widely published in journals, and his texts have appeared in numerous art exhibitions and books, including for Wolfgang Tillmans at IMMA. A Spanish-language children’s book, Bajo Mis Pies,… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: David Nash - Statement in Support of Sally Rooney
We at The Munster Literature Centre express our unequivocal support for the position which author Sally Rooney has taken in using her platform to advocate for free speech. We vehemently reject the distortion of the definition of ‘terrorism’ to include non-violent manifestations of civic protest, which is one of the cornerstones of a free, democratic… Read more: Statement in Support of Sally Rooney - Order Southword 49, Cork launch 21st November
21st November, 6.30 p.m., CTC space Triskel Arts Centre as part of the Winter Warmer Festival The winter issue of Southword includes, as well as poetry and fiction, the winner and runners up from our Creative Non-Fiction Award. Join us for a glass of wine at the launch of issue 49 with readings from some… Read more: Order Southword 49, Cork launch 21st November - Aneas 6
€12.00, Southword Editions, 2025, 81 leathanach Iris nua bhliantúil atá tiomnaithe go hiomlán don gcuid is fearr de litríocht chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge í Aneas, iris a léiríonn go bhfuil neart, ealaín, pléasúr agus tathag fós ag baint le litríocht na teanga sinseartha sa tír seo. Laistigh dá clúdach geobhair filíocht, gearrscéalta agus léirmheasanna doimhne ó na scríbhneoirí… Read more: Aneas 6 - Macedonian Bursary for Cork Poets
Submit here Deadline 31st October The Munster Literature Centre will provide annual sponsorship of 750 euro as follows: The Cork poet must be a poet who has not read at a Macedonian poetry festival already. The Cork poet must have published at least one poetry chapbook, either published by a reputable publisher or a self-published… Read more: Macedonian Bursary for Cork Poets - Online Fiction Workshop with Laura Jean McKay
Join Frank O’Connor Fellow Laura Jean McKay to journey through the short story form – idea, character, voice and editing. This practical four-week workshop series will take apart the short story form, using examples from Laura’s and other authors’ works. Through readings, discussion and workshopping, participants will work together to celebrate and explore the precise,… Read more: Online Fiction Workshop with Laura Jean McKay - The Farmgate Café National Poetry Award
postal Submissions by publishers accepted until 15 november The award will be €2000 for the best full-length poetry collection published in the previous year (2025) by a poet residing in Ireland. All entered books must be in English. Translations will be accepted as long as the translated poet resides in Ireland. The judges this year… Read more: The Farmgate Café National Poetry Award - Southword Poetry Podcast: Joyelle McSweeney
Episode 24 with Joyelle McSweeney is now available anywhere you get podcasts. Guggenheim Fellow Joyelle McSweeney is the author of ten books of poetry, drama and prose, a well-known critic, and a vital publisher of international literature in translation. McSweeney’s recent book, Toxicon and Arachne (Nightboat Books, 2020), was called “frightening and brilliant” by Dan Chiasson in… Read more: Southword Poetry Podcast: Joyelle McSweeney