A new chapter for Cork writer Ann Marie O'Sullivan

Passionate about young people engaging in creative writing, Ann Marie O’Sullivan was recently appointed creative writing co-ordinator at Graffiti Theatre.

In this role, she will facilitate @fightingwordsireland creative writing workshops for primary school children visiting Graffiti.

She is also setting up a writing club for teenagers interested in writing and aims to give as many children in Cork as possible creative writing opportunities.

Ann Marie has been volunteering with @fightingwordsireland since 2022. This charity, established by writer Roddy Doyle in 2009, provides creative writing opportunities for young people and adults with disabilities.

“In Cork, we’re focusing at the moment on running primary school workshops through English and Irish. We’re also setting up Write Club for 13 to 18 year olds. The charity relies very heavily on volunteers. We’re hoping to build up volunteers,” said Ann Marie.

When primary school children visit Graffiti Theatre, they will be helped to make a story.

“They come up with the character, the character’s fears, their greatest wish and their best friend. From that, the children will build a story, sentence by sentence. In the second half of the workshop, they will work on their own, continuing the story from where the group has brought it. It’s lovely, full of creativity and energy.”

The Write Club for teenagers is something new.

“We’re talking with young people to make sure the club meets their needs. Some people have been waiting for this for a number of years. We have people on the waiting list since 2021. There is a huge demand for it,” she said.

Ann Marie says there are publication opportunities for young people.

“The Write Club in Dublin produces a quarterly magazine which young people can submit to. There’s also the @fightingwordsireland supplement with the Irish Times every year.”

A varied career

With a varied career behind her, Ann Marie is delighted to be employed on a writing project. In 2007, she started working for the ministry of justice in New Zealand. She was a policy and legal executive assistant.

“I really enjoyed that job. There are many departments within the ministry for justice. My role was to coordinate between those departments and the minister for justice’s office. We also had to get answers to parliamentary questions that came in. There was a lot of coordination in the role, similar to @fightingwordsireland in Cork.”

When Ann Marie, who loved New Zealand, returned to Ireland, she started to work in the area of advocacy for people with disabilities, having been involved in the Citizens’ Information phone service before that. She worked with the national advocacy service.

“I think I would have been in that job for many years only that I had a break to have a child.”

Now the mother of an 11- and eight-year-old, Ann Marie says when she first went on maternity leave, she realised that she had left everything she loved about writing to the side.

“Writing was something I really enjoyed at school. I never thought of it as a career path. When I had time and space to write, I realised that it really helped me get my head around motherhood. It felt important to keep it up. It made me connect with something I had forgotten.

"I get so much from writing. It’s really how I process the world, becoming a mother and all that stuff.”

'I just went for it'

Ann Marie wrote a parenting and lifestyle blog for a number of years. She got into freelance journalism but found that it was “difficult to plan anything”, adding: “It was either a feast or a famine, which is tricky with family life.”

On a family trip to London, Ann Marie had an idea for a children’s book. “I just went for it, deciding to write it and publish it.”

She also did the illustrations for her book, Pimlicat And The Midnight Explorers. She hadn’t drawn since her school days.

“As an adult, you tell yourself that you can’t do things, whereas when you’re a child, you’ll give it a go. I was trying to be more childlike in my approach.”

She had a ready audience of critics in her two children to whom she read the story as she wrote it, taking on board their reactions.

Ann Marie self-published her book (for eight- to 12-year-olds) this year. When she saw the advertisement for a creative writing coordinator channelled through Graffiti Theatre, a number of people encouraged her to apply for it. Because the job is part-time, it allows her to write - she is working on a sequel to her debut book.

Ann Marie says that despite the ubiquity of smartphones in young people’s lives, they love to write - using old-fashioned paper.

Enjoying a new chapter 

In June 2020, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Instead of wanting to cosset herself at home, she became determined to volunteer with Dragon Boats.

“Getting out on the water was something I always wanted to do. I was well enough in 2022 to sign up both for @fightingwordsireland as a volunteer and Dragon Boats.

“Dragon Boats was for people who were breast cancer survivors or were friends or family of someone who had had breast cancer. It’s for everybody now.”

Having a cancer diagnosis during covid was particularly difficult.

“The kids were at home so it was challenging on many fronts. Obviously, we told the children when I was going through cancer treatment. There was no escape from it. It took over the house. I’m well now,” says an energised Ann Marie, who is enjoying the latest chapter of her career.