Program Directed by
Portia Watson
If you have questions or would like to talk further about this program, please get in touch!
Ireland
Writers' Workshop & Craft
Explore the Emerald Isle during your student travel in Ireland as you expand and refine your writing skills with a select group of passionate, like-minded peers. Under the guidance of published and acclaimed writers, write in historic taverns, medieval ruins, and overlooking the low-lying beaches of the mythical Irish Sea. Participate in Ireland’s lively storytelling tradition at readings, concerts, plays, city parks, and village taverns.
- Highlights
• Write your way around Dublin, a UNESCO City of Literature
• Explore medieval monasteries and seaside fishing villages
• Travel to a remote island for a three-day writers’ retreat
• Collaborate with your peers to produce a public reading
• Explore medieval monasteries and seaside fishing villages
• Travel to a remote island for a three-day writers’ retreat
• Collaborate with your peers to produce a public reading
“Talia loved all of it—the writing instruction, exploring the country, the people, the instructors, the independence of it. She gained a lot of confidence and some very close new friends.”
—Debra L., Natick, MA
Featured
Expert
An Expert joins each Career program for a portion of the itinerary, lending their insights and perspectives to the experience.
Brenna M. Casey is a writer and educator who splits time between Los Angeles, California, and Gambier, Ohio. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Kenyon College where she teaches courses in American Literature. Brenna has previously...
Brenna M. Casey is a writer and educator who splits time between Los Angeles, California, and Gambier,...
Itinerary
This itinerary represents our best projection of the group’s schedule. However, we may implement changes designed to improve the quality of the program.
Departure — Travel Day
Meet your fellow high school student travelers and one or more of your leaders in New York, and fly together to Dublin, Ireland. To learn more about how we organize travel, click here.
Dublin — 5 days
Begin in the historic and vibrant city of Dublin. Explore with your workshop group and leaders, drawing inspiration from the city and culture for your own original poetry, fiction, nonfiction, writing for stage and screen, and various hybrid forms as you participate in field-based writing exercises. Incorporate the five senses in a busy covered marketplace, then reunite with your group in an outdoor café to read and comment. Read Yeats in Dublin’s Municipal Gallery, and then set off to record your own intuitions and observations. Get constructive feedback while sitting on the expansive emerald lawns of Saint Stephen’s Green or University College of Dublin. Take in Ireland’s amazing lyric and storytelling traditions at literary readings, traditional music concerts, parks, award-winning theatres, and storied public houses. Evening activities include readings, enrichment seminars, concerts, movies and student-organized events. Throughout the program, receive one-on-one feedback from your fellow writers and leaders, meet with working writers and publishers, and discuss issues of craft. For a change of pace, travel with your workshop group on day trips to the surrounding areas of Dublin. Hike winding paths over starkly green hills, explore grand Anglo-Irish estates, or stroll the cobbled alleyways and 19th-century oceanfront promenades of nearby fishing villages.
Writers’ Retreat — 3 days
Travel over boglands and verdant countryside to Ireland’s west coast for an intensive Writers’ Retreat, designed to give you the chance to revise and workshop your writing in a relaxed environment. Your home base during this time is Inishbofin, a small island off the coast of Connemara in the Gaeltacht, Ireland’s traditional Irish-speaking region. Spend your days hiking, swimming, and exploring this mystical, sparse island landscape. In the late afternoons and evenings, gather with your fellow students and instructors for workshops, craft talks, readings, and the occasional sunset hike. A special invited guest writer joins you to lend their expertise and insight and remains with the group until the end of the program.
Final Reading — 3 days
Return to Dublin for a student-organized Final Reading on the last night of the program. Publicize and stage a reading of your original poetry and prose completed throughout the course of the program in one of the city’s many hip cafés, bookstores, or collaborative art spaces.
Return — Travel Day
Fly from Dublin to New York with your group and a leader, then continue on to your final destination. To learn more about how we organize travel, click here.
Itinerary
This itinerary represents our best projection of the group’s schedule. However, we may implement changes designed to improve the quality of the program.
Departure — Travel Day
Meet your fellow high school student travelers and one or more of your leaders in New York, and fly together to Dublin, Ireland. To learn more about how we organize travel, click here.
Dublin — 5 days
Begin in the historic and vibrant city of Dublin. Explore with your workshop group and leaders, drawing inspiration from the city and culture for your own original poetry, fiction, nonfiction, writing for stage and screen, and various hybrid forms as you participate in field-based writing exercises. Incorporate the five senses in a busy covered marketplace, then reunite with your group in an outdoor café to read and comment. Read Yeats in Dublin’s Municipal Gallery, and then set off to record your own intuitions and observations. Get constructive feedback while sitting on the expansive emerald lawns of Saint Stephen’s Green or University College of Dublin. Take in Ireland’s amazing lyric and storytelling traditions at literary readings, traditional music concerts, parks, award-winning theatres, and storied public houses. Evening activities include readings, enrichment seminars, concerts, movies and student-organized events. Throughout the program, receive one-on-one feedback from your fellow writers and leaders, meet with working writers and publishers, and discuss issues of craft. For a change of pace, travel with your workshop group on day trips to the surrounding areas of Dublin. Hike winding paths over starkly green hills, explore grand Anglo-Irish estates, or stroll the cobbled alleyways and 19th-century oceanfront promenades of nearby fishing villages.
Writers’ Retreat — 3 days
Travel over boglands and verdant countryside to Ireland’s west coast for an intensive Writers’ Retreat, designed to give you the chance to revise and workshop your writing in a relaxed environment. Your home base during this time is Inishbofin, a small island off the coast of Connemara in the Gaeltacht, Ireland’s traditional Irish-speaking region. Spend your days hiking, swimming, and exploring this mystical, sparse island landscape. In the late afternoons and evenings, gather with your fellow students and instructors for workshops, craft talks, readings, and the occasional sunset hike. A special invited guest writer joins you to lend their expertise and insight and remains with the group until the end of the program.
Final Reading — 3 days
Return to Dublin for a student-organized Final Reading on the last night of the program. Publicize and stage a reading of your original poetry and prose completed throughout the course of the program in one of the city’s many hip cafés, bookstores, or collaborative art spaces.
Return — Travel Day
Fly from Dublin to New York with your group and a leader, then continue on to your final destination. To learn more about how we organize travel, click here.
Featured
Leaders
Meet some of our featured leaders. Please note that these may not be your leaders for the program.
Featured
Leaders
Meet some of our featured leaders. Please note that these may not be your leaders for the program.
What to Expect
Review specific program expectations here. For more general information:
Workshop Theme
Writing Workshop: Whether your goal is to pursue a career in a writing-related field or simply to experiment with writing as a passion, this program provides dynamic, individualized exercises that allow students to engage with place through the lens of writing, gaining valuable skills and experience as they immerse themselves in a rich and vital culture. Time spent writing and workshopping is complemented by public readings and an array of enrichment seminars on such topics as Irish history, literature, music, food, theatre, and special mini-workshops in poetry, travel writing, photography, blogging, and more. In the final days of the program, students participate in an intensive, three-day Writers’ Retreat during which they can further workshop, revise, and polish their work. The program culminates with a student-organized reading of the group’s best work on the final night in Dublin. You are not expected to join the program as an expert writer. However, you should bring a passion for writing, a willingness to try new things, and a desire to be an active part of a supportive group of open-minded and creative young artists.
Putney Writers
Among Putney’s leaders, instructors, and guest writers are some of America’s most acclaimed young writers, including Tessa Fontaine (The Electric Woman); Salvatore Scibona (The End, 2008 National Book Award Finalist); Brian Staveley (The Emperor’s Blades, The Providence of Fire, The Last Mortal Bond); Karen Russell (Saint Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Swamplandia!, a 2012 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Vampires in the Lemon Grove); Alan Huffman (Here I Am: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer; Mississippi in Africa; Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History; and We’re With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics); B.J. Hollars (From the Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us About Life, Death, and Being Human; Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America; Flock Together: A Love Affair With Extinct Birds); Jessica Lee Richardson (It Had Been Planned and There Were Guides); Rosecrans Baldwin (Paris, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down); and Tim Weed (Will Poole’s Island and A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing).
Ireland’s Literary Legacy
Whatever your chosen genre, you are likely to find an Irish author who has distinguished themselves its practitioner: Jonathan Swift, Maria Edgeworth, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker, Seamus Heaney, Edna O’Brien, Maeve Binchy, Eavan Boland, Elizabeth Bowen, Seamus Deane, Paul Muldoon—the list goes on. Related to its world-class literary reputation, Ireland is full of native-born storytellers, as you are likely to discover when you strike up conversations on park benches, in cafés, or just walking down the street. Explore and draw inspiration from the people, literary legacy, history of struggle, and rich and diverse cultural and physical landscape of this evocative country.
Technology
To encourage full engagement and immersion in the Putney travel experience, we limit the use of cell phones and other devices on our High School programs. Students are allowed to use their phones in transit to the program, and keep their devices throughout. During in-country orientation, leaders will lock phones with a code, unlocking them for the second half of the program. During the tech-free portion of the program, students have the opportunity for a weekly call home according to a pre-arranged schedule. For more details, please see our FAQ.
Physical Activity
This is a physically active summer travel program. Exploring the streets of Dublin and Galway on foot, hiking coastal trails, playing a pick-up game of frisbee, or taking an Irish step-dancing lesson are all activities in which you might participate during this program. You do not need to be at peak fitness to participate, but it is important that you have a desire to be physically active, and that you are excited about trying all activities.
Accommodations
In Dublin, we stay in multi-bedded, dormitory-style accommodations north of the River Liffey, in the quiet North Georgian Quarter close to the Dublin Writers’ Museum, the James Joyce house, and the lively arts quarter of Temple Bar. While on Inishbofin, we stay at a small, family-run hostel in multi-bedded rooms. Students have access to common space at our accommodations as well as ample outside space for community meetings, writing, pick-up games of frisbee, and socializing. Leaders reside in the same residences with students throughout the program.
Meals
We begin each day with a simple breakfast at our residence. For lunches and dinners, we find small restaurants and pubs, or hit the markets to purchase food for a picnic in the field.
What to Expect
Review specific program expectations here. For more general information:
Workshop Theme
Writing Workshop: Whether your goal is to pursue a career in a writing-related field or simply to experiment with writing as a passion, this program provides dynamic, individualized exercises that allow students to engage with place through the lens of writing, gaining valuable skills and experience as they immerse themselves in a rich and vital culture. Time spent writing and workshopping is complemented by public readings and an array of enrichment seminars on such topics as Irish history, literature, music, food, theatre, and special mini-workshops in poetry, travel writing, photography, blogging, and more. In the final days of the program, students participate in an intensive, three-day Writers’ Retreat during which they can further workshop, revise, and polish their work. The program culminates with a student-organized reading of the group’s best work on the final night in Dublin. You are not expected to join the program as an expert writer. However, you should bring a passion for writing, a willingness to try new things, and a desire to be an active part of a supportive group of open-minded and creative young artists.
Putney Writers
Among Putney’s leaders, instructors, and guest writers are some of America’s most acclaimed young writers, including Tessa Fontaine (The Electric Woman); Salvatore Scibona (The End, 2008 National Book Award Finalist); Brian Staveley (The Emperor’s Blades, The Providence of Fire, The Last Mortal Bond); Karen Russell (Saint Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Swamplandia!, a 2012 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Vampires in the Lemon Grove); Alan Huffman (Here I Am: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer; Mississippi in Africa; Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History; and We’re With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics); B.J. Hollars (From the Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us About Life, Death, and Being Human; Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America; Flock Together: A Love Affair With Extinct Birds); Jessica Lee Richardson (It Had Been Planned and There Were Guides); Rosecrans Baldwin (Paris, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down); and Tim Weed (Will Poole’s Island and A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing).
Ireland’s Literary Legacy
Whatever your chosen genre, you are likely to find an Irish author who has distinguished themselves its practitioner: Jonathan Swift, Maria Edgeworth, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker, Seamus Heaney, Edna O’Brien, Maeve Binchy, Eavan Boland, Elizabeth Bowen, Seamus Deane, Paul Muldoon—the list goes on. Related to its world-class literary reputation, Ireland is full of native-born storytellers, as you are likely to discover when you strike up conversations on park benches, in cafés, or just walking down the street. Explore and draw inspiration from the people, literary legacy, history of struggle, and rich and diverse cultural and physical landscape of this evocative country.
Technology
To encourage full engagement and immersion in the Putney travel experience, we limit the use of cell phones and other devices on our High School programs. Students are allowed to use their phones in transit to the program, and keep their devices throughout. During in-country orientation, leaders will lock phones with a code, unlocking them for the second half of the program. During the tech-free portion of the program, students have the opportunity for a weekly call home according to a pre-arranged schedule. For more details, please see our FAQ.
Physical Activity
This is a physically active summer travel program. Exploring the streets of Dublin and Galway on foot, hiking coastal trails, playing a pick-up game of frisbee, or taking an Irish step-dancing lesson are all activities in which you might participate during this program. You do not need to be at peak fitness to participate, but it is important that you have a desire to be physically active, and that you are excited about trying all activities.
Accommodations
In Dublin, we stay in multi-bedded, dormitory-style accommodations north of the River Liffey, in the quiet North Georgian Quarter close to the Dublin Writers’ Museum, the James Joyce house, and the lively arts quarter of Temple Bar. While on Inishbofin, we stay at a small, family-run hostel in multi-bedded rooms. Students have access to common space at our accommodations as well as ample outside space for community meetings, writing, pick-up games of frisbee, and socializing. Leaders reside in the same residences with students throughout the program.
Meals
We begin each day with a simple breakfast at our residence. For lunches and dinners, we find small restaurants and pubs, or hit the markets to purchase food for a picnic in the field.
A Day in the Life: Dublin
Due to the traveling nature of this student program abroad, each day is different. Here is a snapshot of a day in Dublin.
- Morning
8:00am
Enjoy breakfast as a group
9:00am
Create an original character then visit the Book of Kells at Trinity College
11:00am
Practice poetic ekphrasis at the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
- Afternoon
12:00pm
Make a picnic lunch in the Iveagh Gardens
2:00pm
Workshop writing with your peers and leaders
4:00pm
Take downtime to write, reflect, or relax
- Evening
6:00pm
Enjoy dinner, ice cream, and a group walk along the River Liffey
7:00pm
Attend a play at the Abbey Theatre
10:00pm
Meet your group to discuss the day and upcoming schedule
A Day in the Life:
Dublin
Due to the traveling nature of this student program abroad, each day is different. Here is a snapshot of a day in Dublin.
- Morning
8:00am
Enjoy breakfast as a group
9:00am
Create an original character then visit the Book of Kells at Trinity College
11:00am
Practice poetic ekphrasis at the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
- Afternoon
12:00pm
Make a picnic lunch in the Iveagh Gardens
2:00pm
Workshop writing with your peers and leaders
4:00pm
Take downtime to write, reflect, or relax
- Evening
6:00pm
Enjoy dinner, ice cream, and a group walk along the River Liffey
7:00pm
Attend a play at the Abbey Theatre
10:00pm
Meet your group to discuss the day and upcoming schedule
“I learned how to make the most out of a relatively short time with new people, and how to be respectful as a visitor in another country while making the experience what you want it to be.”
—Cate C., Chicago, IL
Program Directed by
Portia Watson
If you have questions or would like to talk further about this program, please get in touch!
