About Creative Writers Network

Growing an active literary community throughout Northern Ireland

CWN was established in 1996 as the umbrella organisation for Northern Irish writers and writers groups. Currently we have around six hundred members on file from all over the North. CWN is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It is run by a Board of volunteers and currently has three employees. Through the generous support of those who fund us, we are involved in a variety of work to support creative writing and writers.
In recent years, we have grown and developed into a Literary Development organisation which covers the whole of Northern Ireland and supports the professionalisation and growth of the literary sector in the province.
We offer support to developing writers through workshops and to advanced writers through mentoring, critical feedback and professional skills development. All of these programmes are expanding and reaching more people than ever over the coming year.
Ulla's Nib, the CWN Magazine has now published its seventh issue. We are all very proud of what we have been able to produce and hope to make it even better, by including more local writing and further involving our membership in its production. We are now printing the magazine ourselves, along with small books and marketing material, on our digital press, which will enable us to help local writers find new ways into print. We are involved in Outreach Workshops in areas where arts infrastructure is low. We are currently organising new workshops in East, West , South and North Belfast areas, where this year we are partnering with Digital Communities on a Digital Storytelling project working with elders.


What do we Do?

• CWN provide a wide range of services, which assist the individual writer in the development, and pursuance of their craft, assistance to literary event organisers, information and advice in relation to publication of work.

• CWN offers out a range of fee-for-contract management services, running literary programmes for external organisations. Through these programmes, we are able to provide more employment opportunites to the workshop artists we work with.

• CWN also has printing resources allowing us to produce short run books, magazines and marteting materials for writers and organisations. We are developing into the social economy by offering these services locally.

• In addition to these, CWN provide a range of individual support packages such as Mentoring, Critique and Editorial support.

• Annually, CWN also hosts the Brian Moore Short Story Competition and other events, such as Poetry Slams.

• CWN is continually developing our area of work and services to meet the needs of the Literary Art Sector in Northern Ireland. (Information on developments can be found on either the web site or in our weekly E:Bulletin and quarterly magazine.)

• Membership of CWN is open to all Northern Irish Writers both living in Northern Ireland or anywhere in the World, and to writers throughout Ireland..