GMIT employee's short story makes RTE competition shortlist

A member of staff in GMIT Mayo, who started writing as a hobby two years ago, has been shortlisted in a prestigious national short story competition for her story “Poked” which will be broadcast on RTE Radio 1 on 18 July.

Anne Donnelly, Student Services Officer, is one of 25 writers shortlisted out of a total of 813 entries for this year’s RTE Radio 1 Frances Mac Manus short story competition. Irish writers from around the world submitted entries from countries such as the UK, Australia, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Japan, Canada and the US as well as well as Ireland.

All of the shortlisted stories will be broadcast on RTE Radio 1 over five weeks starting on Monday 30 June (2014). Anne's story "Poked" , which will be broadcast at 11.02pm (on Friday 18 July), tells the story of a woman whose world is turned upside down when her mother, who she has not seen in twenty six years, pokes her on Facebook.

Anne is originally from Carlow but moved to Castlebar 19 years ago to work in GMIT Mayo in Castlebar. She started writing in 2012 when she completed a part-time evening course in Creative Writing at the GMIT Mayo campus.  “Being short listed for this competition and having something that I have written broadcast on national radio is very life-affirming,” she says.

“I only started to write two years ago in the evenings and at weekends and then I decided to do the evening course at GMIT Mayo to see if I was any good. The course was brilliant and gave me the confidence and skills I needed to continue writing."

Anne writes poetry, short stories and plays and has also had plays shortlisted and performed at the Claremorris Fringe Festival of Drama in 2013 and 2014.

Dr Deirdre Garvey, Head of GMIT Mayo, says staff and students are delighted at Anne’s success and are looking forward to hearing her story broadcast on 18 July.

For further details on the range of part-time programmes offered in GMIT Mayo’s Lifelong Learning Dept, see: http://www.gmit.ie/lifelong-learning/lifelong-learning-mayo