Westmeath Libraries host their first Fighting Words workshop at Athlone Library

Westmeath Libraries is delighted to announce their new partnership with Fighting Words, a creative writing organisation based in Dublin. Founded by Roddy Doyle and Seán Love, it offers a wide range of workshops, all of which are designed to promote creativity and writing as a fun and powerful means of self-expression.

Athlone Library staff delivered their first primary school story writing workshop on Wednesday 26^th March, where they invited 4^th class from local school St. Mary’s NS to participate.

The focus of the story writing workshop is on imagination and creativity, and the structure allows them to participate both orally and through writing, which means there is a way for everyone to get involved and have a great time inventing new stories.

The library staff worked with the young writers to identify key elements of a story and help them write the first half of their story together as a group. The children choose their characters and plot the group story sentence by sentence, editing as they go. In the second half of the workshop, students can choose to continue the group story or write a new story of their own or perhaps illustrate their own drawings. At the end of the session, there is time for students to share their work. As part of Fighting Words volunteer team, the library staff were also joined by an illustrator online and a local volunteer to help guide the workshop. The story is then published on the Fighting Words website for children to show off their incredible, imaginative writing to the world and a copy is left in the library for the children to admire on their next visit. Please see the story compiled here.