Irish Writers Centre Climate Writing Series: Session #2

Join authors Caoilinn Hughes (The Alternatives) and Roz Dineen (Briefly Very Beautiful) for our second Climate Writing Session on 27 May!

🚨IMPORTANT NOTE TO ATTENDEES: To block spam bot access to the event, we have included an access code you will be promtpted use at the checkout which is 'CLIMATE26'

The Irish Writers Centre Climate Writing Sessions began in 2021 as a free online series originally founded and curated by Lynn Buckle, followed by Kerri Ní Dhochartaigh and Alice Kinsella. The project brings together writers, scientists, and activists to explore how storytelling can respond to the climate crisis. Supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, we hope to create a space for writers of all forms, whatever their level of experience, to engage with climate-related themes through discussion and creative practice.

Now in our fifth year, we continue our focus on the intersection of science, activism, and literature. Five one-hour sessions (7–8pm) will take place across April, May, June, July, and September, with a sixth session devoted to the announcement of the winner of the Irish Writers Centre Inaugural Climate Writing Prize.

For our second session, we're delighted to welcome Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Alternatives (Oneworld Publications), the story of: 'four brilliant sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the eldest disappears into the Irish countryside' (Books Upstairs.) Our second guest is writer Roz Dineen, whose book Briefly Very Beautiful (Bloomsbury) was shortlisted for the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize in 2025. Dineen's novel is: 'an unforgettable dystopian vision of a familiar world in flames' (Dubray Books.)

This will an hour-long conversation about Climate Fiction, and literature's mediation in the current climate crisis. The discussion will be moderated by Irish Writers Centre Programming and Communications Coordinator Ezra Maloney. There will be a 10 minute audience Q&A at the end of the session.

About the Guests:

Caoilinn Hughes’s latest novel is The Alternatives, a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her second novel, The Wild Laughter won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award, and her debut Orchid & the Wasp won the Collyer Bristow Prize. Her short stories have won many prizes and she was a finalist for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2025. She was recently Oscar Wilde Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and a Cullman Center Fellow at New York Public Library.

Roz Dineen was at the Times Literary Supplement for twelve years, variously as Fiction Editor, Features Editor and a contributor of essays, reviews and a column. Roz was born in Brighton in 1983. She studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and received a Masters in International Studies and Diplomacy from SOAS, London. She was Robert L. Bartley Fellow at The Wall Street Journal, where her writing has also appeared. She lives with her two children in Peckham, South London; a few metres from what was once her great-grandfather's home. Her debut novel, Briefly Very Beautiful, is out with Bloomsbury.

More info on the Climate Writing Prize: Each session of the Climate Writing series will end with hosts leaving a writing prompt for attending writers. Attendees can then enter the Climate Writing Prize with:

up to 1,500 words of fiction

or

up to 150 lines of poetry based on any of the five sessions prompts.

The winning piece will be awarded €250 and publication in Channel with a runner-up receiving a course bursary for the Irish Writers Centre worth €250. The aim of the Prize is to encourage writers to develop their work beyond the sessions, and to explore the genre of climate writing.

You can submit to the Climate Writing Prize via our website here.

The Irish Writers Centre would like to thank the support the Climate Writing Programme has received from Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.