The Air is Alive with Fear and Care
When people greet in South Sudan, they hold hands for many minutes – half an hour if the warmth is strong, the bond of kin or friendship. How is your mother? Your aunt? Your son? And your herd of cattle – thriving? Did the speckled cow survive the difficult birth?
Now the air crackles between us, friend or stranger, in every nation. Two metres. Six feet, the length of a coffin.
I walk a narrow path in the woods, meet a man with an unleashed terrier. Will he step to his side, mirror my care? He does. We smile, we breathe a sigh. The air is alive with fear and care.
On the lake the Swans continue their slow courtship. I am learning the songs of the residents – Blackbird, Robin, Song Thrush, Wren – while they have the forest to themselves. The evenings are longer by the day. Larks exhilarate, Starlings murmurate, dark swirls against a brightening sky.
Soon the explorers will arrive from Africa – Cuckoo and Swallow, the creaking Corncrake, not yet extinct. There is no call to quarantine the birds. This island will levitate with their cacophony, their mating joy, they will tell again their noisy stories, how they navigate by star maps and the magnets in their eyes.
Leave us our green walks, I pray. O makers of the rules of wise restraint, let me be close to the wisdom of Hazel, let me watch its first leaf unfurl out of the cell of winter. I can do this, I tell myself. Cocoon. Lock-down. Self-isolate.
And if they say I cannot walk between the trees, there is still my garden, small and unruly, in need of love. I can do this, however long it takes.
If every day I can rinse my heart clean of fear. If I can fill my lungs with the forest god’s green air.
Monica Corish, 24 March 2020, @AllinghamArts #CreativityAgainstCorona
You like to write, but you don’t know where to start? You used to write, but you can’t remember how you made it happen? You are a writer, but your words feel stale on the page?
At this workshop we will write in response to prompts inspired by Samhain.
nterested in developing your skills as a poet, this is the workshop for you. You will spend time reading and learning from established poets, writing new work, and revising your poems through constructive critique and insightful feedback. 
Explore your creativity and develop confidence in your voice by writing with other women in a warm and encouraging environment. If you are new to creative writing, or if you want to use the workshop time to explore your voice, experiment with different genres and styles and write new work, then this 
My interview with Harry Keaney for 
Be inspired to write by the landscapes and borders, mythologies and megaliths of Leitrim and the North West. Four one day workshops at the Glens Centre, Manorhamilton, led by Monica Corish. €30 / single workshop; €100 / 4 workshops
You’d like to be a better writer? Or a better poet? You write a little, but you’d like to write more? Or you haven’t written since school, but you’d like to give it a try? 
Develop your writing skills through free-writing and craft exercises, constructive critique and insightful feedback. Seven x 3 hours: Tuesdays, 7 – 10 pm, Sept 11 & 25, Oct 9 & 23, Nov 6 & 20, Dec 4 2018. Cost: €125, early bird concession €100, before Tues Sept 4.
Explore your creativity and develop confidence in your voice by writing with other women in a warm and encouraging environment. Seven x 2.5 hours: Wednesdays, 7 – 9:30 pm, Sept 12 & 26, Oct 10 & 24, Nov 7 & 21, Dec 5 2018. Cost: €105, early bird concession €90, before Tues Sept 4.
€90
She is the Hag of Winter, both female and male, the end and the beginning, the gateway to the ancestors, she is the dark before birth and the dark we fear. And, in her wild and withered dryness, she is the juicy source of our best writing…
Last year I launched 
The Irish Writers Centre, the National Botanic Gardens, and Channel (a new environmentalist literary magazine) are hosting a Flash Fiction/Creative Non-Fiction competition. Entry date is March 11.
