WordFlight - Young People’s Written and Verbal Arts Project

ACE invites young people of all nationalities who are aged between 8 and 17 years to participate in WordFlight.

Are you aged between eight and seventeen years? Would you like to enter a short story, poem, or song to WordFlight with the chance to win one or more prizes? If so, send your entries, contact details and age, by post to WordFlight, Artists in Creative Enterprise, Creeveoughter, Rathmullan, Donegal, Ireland, or by email to wordflight@artistsincreativeenterprise.com

Entry to the project is free. Short stories should not exceed 1200 words in length. All entries must be original and not previously published. The closing date for entries is 31 March 2007. Entries will not be returned so entrants are advised to keep copies.

First, second, third, and fourth placed winning entrants short-listed from three age categories, 8-10, 11-13, 14-17, will be announced during June 2007 www.artistsincreativeenterprise.com

It is anticipated that with the continued support of Donegal County Council and other lead partners, a significant prize-giving event proposed for September 2007 will coincide with the 4th Centenary Commemorations of the Flight of the Earls from Rathmullan, Donegal. Prizes will be presented by internationally respected figures drawn from the literary world.

WordFlight is designed and managed by Artists in Creative Enterprise (ACE), a collective of experienced and published writers, and artistic directors. ACE’s Director, Patrick Kearney, said: ‘WordFlight is a unique project in more ways than one. It not only involves young people on a cross-community, cross-border basis on the island of Ireland but also extends to young people in other countries. It is an international event. Just as the Flight of the Earls was an international event. And with the story of the Earls essentially being about loss and new beginnings, young people entering WordFlight are encouraged to write about losing or finding something or someone important, be it a friend, parent, home, identity, faith, opportunity, peace, and so on. Young people entering the event can write about anything, as long as it links to the themes of loss and new beginnings.

'In their flight from Rathmullan in 1607, the loss of land, family, friends, neighbours, and dreams were not just painfully experienced by the last Earls of Ireland, but equally by their children, both those who fled into exile too, and those left behind in the panic. However, given the constant reality of life’s push and pull, the Earls and their children experienced a sense of excited adventure for what lay ahead of them. Hopes of new beginnings were not entirely lost to them in their darkest hour, at least not in their individual and collective imaginings.

'Participation in WordFlight by young people will enable them to engage the experience of the Flight of the Earls as a source of inspiration to use prose, poetry, and song to explore and storytell their own experiences, thoughts, and imaginings. More information about the Flight, can be accessed at Donegal County Council's new website www.flightoftheearls.ie

'WordFlight will demonstrate and affirm that there is more to unite young people through the commonly-shared experiences of loss and new beginnings, than exists to divide them. This reality marked and celebrated through WordFlight will, on an international scale, contribute to peace and reconciliation amongst young people. WordFlight will erode inter-community and cross-community tensions, racism, prejudice, and bullying, and remove barriers to new opportunities in lifelong learning.’

ACE and partners will promote WordFlight through running creative writing workshops during 2006 and 2007 in schools, colleges, and other youth-orientated centres in Counties Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Britain, USA, and Italy. You might like to participate in these publicised workshops if they are taking place at a venue near you.

WordFlight will, given received support, culminate in a Literary Showcase Event in September 2007 in Donegal, the epicentre of the 4th Centenary Commemorations of the Flight of the Earls. Ultimately, it is anticipated that WordFlight will stimulate an annual young people’s literary event within County Donegal, with linkages made to other art events both within and beyond the county.

ACE and partners call upon young people, parents, teachers, and youth leaders internationally, to become involved in WordFlight. To use WordFlight as an opportunity to creatively express what it is like to be young and growing up in the world today. Like the next centenary of the Flight of the Earls such an opportunity will be a long time coming around again. So don’t miss this unique chance to successfully launch yourself into the creative arts.

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