“RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena programme is to run an on-air creative writing course, with opportunity for submissions to be broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 and published by New Island Books.

The course begins on Tuesday December 4 at 7.30pm on the programme and continues on the first Tuesday of the month thereafter throughout 2013.

The course, which is being run in association with New Island Books, is entitled New Planet Cabaret and features writer, poet, performer and creative writing teacher Dave Lordan discussing, deconstructing and demystifying the process of writing poetry, short story writing, novel writing, writing for theatre, crime fiction, song lyrics.

Each month, Dave will set out assignments for followers of the course, who will then be invited to send their submissions in to arena@rte.ie for review by Dave Lordan and the Arena team.

Dave Lordan currently teaches contemporary critical theory and poetic practice on the MA in Poetry Studies at Dublin City University. He also teaches creative writing at primary, secondary, third, and adult education levels. An internationally-acclaimed poet, he was the first to win Ireland’s three national prizes for young poets. 

Lordan is also the current holder of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award and previous winner of both the Patrick Kavanagh and Strong Awards for poetry.

New Planet Cabaret will feature guest contributions from writers Nick Kelly, Colm Keegan and Kathy D’Arcy to name but a few. Arena is presented by Sean Rocks.”