DCU Creative Writing M.A. Graduates celebrate successes

Recent alumni of the MA in Creative Writing have scored a number of notable successes of late in the fields of prose, drama and screenwriting.

Screenwriter Lynn Ruane graduated from the MACW in 2022. Her debut feature film, Ready Or Not, premieres at the Lighthouse Cinema, as part of the Dublin International Film Festival, on 22 February. Ready Or Not is based on a screenplay she wrote as her M.A. dissertation.

Another of the graduates of 2022 was playwright Charlie McGuinness. Charlie has won the 2024 RTÉ PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Award, for his play, Clarity At Last.

Also shortlisted for the same prize was Tom Tierney, an MACW graduate from 2023, who was recognised for his play, Wristband.

In December’s An Post Irish Book Awards, 2023 MACW graduate Kathleen MacAdam won the New Irish Writing Best Short Story in association with the Irish Independent, for her short story, ‘Valentine's Day’. Kathleen first began writing this story in response to an in-class prompt. At the gala ceremony held at Dublin’s Convention Centre and broadcast nationally on RTÉ, she gave a big shout-out to DCU and the MACW.

Also representing DCU alumni at the An Post Irish Book Awards ceremony was Fiona McPhillips (MACW 2022), whose critically-acclaimed debut novel When We Were Silent (Penguin 2024) was shortlisted in the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year category.

MACW Chair Darran McCann said DCU was proud of all of these graduates, and offered his congratulations. ‘These are the latest achievements by our students that we are delighted to add to what is a burgeoning list of success stories. These emerging writers are bringing distinction to the MACW programme, to the School of English, and to the university. I have no doubt that they, and others like them, will continue to do so throughout the careers.’