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Award-winning writer Kelly McCaughrain has accepted the post as the new Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast.

The Fellowship was created as part of Queen’s University and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's (ACNI) joint ten-year Seamus Heaney Legacy project supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies. Kelly follows on from the inaugural Children’s Writing Fellow Myra Zepf, who has held the post for the last two years. Kelly will be based at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s for two years, working with students and engaged in outreach activities.

Speaking about the appointment, Kelly said: "I feel so honoured to have been invited to be the next Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland. It’s a wonderful role and I applaud The Seamus Heaney Centre and the Arts Council for creating it. Reading offers so many benefits to children’s development, and therefore to our whole society. Children’s literature is something that should be valued and promoted, and I’m thrilled to see that happening in Northern Ireland.

“We have some truly inspiring organisations, teachers, librarians and writers already working hard to promote children’s literacy and reading for pleasure and I’m really looking forward to working with them and learning from them and I hope that I can use my fellowship to support them.

 “This is an opportunity to do something really special and I think it’s going to be an adventure!"

Kelly McCaughrain is a Young Adult writer from Belfast. She studied Creative Writing at Queen’s and mentors young writers at Fighting Words. Her first novel, Flying Tips for Flightless Birds, published by Walker Books, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and won the Children's Books Ireland Eilis Dillon Award, Children's Choice Award and Book of the Year Award 2019 and the Northern Ireland Book Award 2019.

 

Catherine Heaney, daughter of Seamus Heaney said: “As the first Children’s Writing Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Myra Zepf brought incredible energy and enthusiasm to the role, and set the bar in fostering a love of reading and writing among children and teenagers across Northern Ireland. I am delighted with the appointment of Kelly McCaughrain as her successor, and look forward to watching Kelly carry on that vital work over the coming two years.” 

 

Professor Glenn Patterson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, said: “We look forward to welcoming local writer, Kelly McCaughrain, to the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s and working with her over the next two years as the next Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland.

“Kelly is a wonderful writer and I know she will inspire many children and young people to take an interest in creative writing and reading more books.”

 

Damian Smyth, Head of Literature and Drama at the Arts Council for NI, commented: “We are delighted to announce Kelly’s appointment today as the new Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland. Working with primary and secondary schools, she will promote reading for pleasure, encouraging children of all ages to discover the joy of books, as well as embarking on their own story-telling adventures. 

“We’d like to thank Myra for the incredible work she has done over the last two years, sharing her infectious love of books with hundreds of children across Northern Ireland, through interactive workshops, readings and school visits.”

Kelly McCaughrain will take up her post as the Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland in August 2019.

 

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Media enquiries to Zara McBrearty at Queen’s Communications Office on 028 9097 3259 or email: z.mcbrearty@qub.ac.uk and Sarah Coburn, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 02892 623506 or email: scoburn@artscouncil-ni.org.