AlL-Island & GB-WIDE ONLINE WRITERS’ CIRCLE
What Other Writers Say About the Writers’ Circle!
“I think it is important to say that I have tried a few different writing workshops and groups in the past few years, and this has far and away been the most expansive experience for me.”
The Writers’ Circle is warm, welcoming, creative and safe space, and it is truly a gift to writers!”
“I would be surprised if anyone in the group didn't say that they made serious progress over the past 6 months - I could see the growth in everyone's work from month to month.”
With the 2026 Writers’ Circle now underway and growing demand from writers across Great Britain and the island of Ireland, we are delighted to launch our All-Island and GB-wide Online Writers’ Circles.
The 2026 Writers’ Circle brings together an exceptional group of talented writers, whose profiles are showcased in the gallery below.
We’re seeking 6–8 dedicated talented writers for the All-Island and GB-wide Circles, who are committed to deepening their craft and growing alongside a supportive community of fellow writers.
Successful applicants will have the opportunity to receive constructive feedback, engage in meaningful discussions about their writing challenges, access peer support, and become part of a vibrant creative community.
Writers must have a core project that they intend to work on (ideally nearing a first draft, or they must have significant work completed on their project), AND they must be willing to commit to supporting other writers in the Circle. Work across all genres is welcome except horror and poetry.
In 2027, the online Writers’ Circle will continue to focus on critiquing excerpts, while we strongly encourage participants to use the Circle to explore the broader challenges that naturally arise across a long form work.
Applications are now open and will close on 1 December 2026. All applicants will be notified of the outcome in December, with successful applicants invited to secure their place by paying a nominal fee to cover the basic costs of running the Circle.
The first online Writers’ Circles will begin in January 2027 and run through to July 2027, giving participants the time and space to develop their work between sessions and make sustained progress.
The Writers’ Circle is a dedicated space for writers who are serious about advancing their work. It offers a high level of sustained support, with consistent guidance, constructive feedback and opportunities for development throughout the programme. This distinguishes the Circle from the more flexible, informal or occasional support that writers may find elsewhere.
Accidental are committed to creating a supportive and inclusive environment for all participants.
To be considered applicants must submit a 2,000 words sample from the project they intend to work on HERE and complete the form below.
Accidental Writers’ Circle 2026/27
Jacqueline Ruddell is an Ayrshire-born writer based in Northern Ireland, studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast. Her work explores the strange and unsettling, with an interest in voice, identity and connection. Her writing has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, CafeLit and The Belfast Review. Longlisted for Flash 500, she has been selected to read work at the AE Festival in Armagh and the Seamus Heaney Centre. Her ten-minute play, The Satchel, was performed at Culture Night Belfast and produced by Belfast Playwrights at The Black Box. She has also co-written work for the stage.
Manuel Ambra, is originally from Milan, Italy. He is a Belfast-based creative whose interests are shaped by life across different cultures and an ongoing fascination with identity, intimacy, guilt, and the darker corners of human behaviour.
Currently, Manuel is working on his debut novel. Described as a psychological autopsy of a Catholic family, the novel aims to explore the nature of sin, grief, and belonging.
Manuel is also the founder of the Inkpot Collective, a free space for writers to connect and progress their work in Belfast.
Deirbhile Maguire is a Belfast-based writer with a background in English Literature, History and Communications. Her writing spans poetry, theatre and film, including editorial broadcast credits on factual entertainment formats and writing and directing Screen Sugar, shortlisted for the 2025 Derry Féile Short Film Festival. Drawing on her experience in storytelling and media production, she is now pursuing screenwriting and playwriting with the Accidental Theatre's Writer's Circle.
Siobhán F. Murphy is a Belfast-based freelance writer and editor with a specialism in fiction writing and in ELT and educational publishing. Her first two books in a YA fantasy trilogy, Hedge Witch and Mage Call, were published in 2025 and 2026. Reaper Queen will follow in December 2026. Siobhán primarily writes fantasy and dystopian fiction, educational video scripts and has also written a comedy short story for BBC Radio Ulster, and a body horror story for The Selkie. She has a degree in English Literature and Spanish, and is currently studying part time for a Creative Writing MA.
Susan Mulholland grew up in Belfast where she lives and works as a clerical officer. She holds a BA degree in French and German and an MA in European Literature and Culture. She published her first two novels, A Quarter Clown and Rowan and Christina in 2016, followed by her third, Wallflower in 2026. She is in the process of preparing her fourth novel, Human Graces for publication. She has also been experimenting with poetry and is planning to release her first collection in 2027. She is working on her fifth novel, Beyond Black Mountain with the Writers’ Circle.
Andrew McNeill is a working-class writer and performer for both theatre and film, living in my hometown of Belfast. My work generally explores themes of conflict and oppression from a working-class perspective, frequently using historical settings as a way to explore current-day issues. My most prolific work so far is the feature film, Rozkvet, one of the first films to portray the Nazi persecution of the Romani people during the Second World War. I am currently developing The Coward, a solo-performer theatre show based on firing squad executions during the First World War.
Cormac McNamee is a Ballymena-born writer whose work explores outsiders and identity through period drama, folk horror and comedy. An engineer by profession, he turned to screenwriting in 2023 whilst recovering from a kidney transplant. His recent projects include the feature screenplay Castrato, crime drama pilot The Estate, and short film Changeling, which he also directed. For Writers' Circle 2026/27, he is developing The Queen of Aughnasheugh, a dramedy feature about a complicated Belfast influencer who reinvents a struggling Mid Ulster village festival in her own image, only to find herself challenged by a community that refuses to be packaged.
Accidental Writers’ Circle 2024/25
Darcey Elizabeth Youngman is a Manc writer, based in Belfast. She graduated from Queens University with an MA in Creative Writing in 2023. Her work has been published/performed with BrickFox Theatre, The Blackbird anthology, Slugger O'Toole and Tenby9.
She is currently working at the Seamus Heaney Centre, as co-ordinator and editor of critique.
Fionntán Macdonald is a writer of prose, poetry and drama born and based in Belfast. He has previously written for QFT Belfast, been featured in Film Daze and Hear Us Scream and has had poetry published in Aurora’s and Blossoms and Eascair Magazine. His short drama has been performed with Patchwork Productions and he is currently collaborating with local artists on several theatre projects.
He is currently writing his first full length play and working on his first novel with the Writer’s Circle.
Kristen Kernaghan is an American playwright and educator living in Belfast. She studied Drama and Creative Writing at the University of Alabama, and her short plays Yes, No, Maybe So (Guerilla Theatre), Fallen Socks and Fear (Accidental Theatre, Cork Arts Theatre), Shakespeare’s Sisters (Fickle Favours) and This is the First Scene, Maybe the Only (Accidental Theatre) have been produced in Ireland, England and America. Her first full-length play Visitations received a staged reading with Ransom Production’s Write on the Edge programme. Her second play Our Father explores what we do with uncomfortable legacies as three adult children move their father into a dementia care facility.
Bethany Waterhouse-Bradley is an American, living for two decades in Belfast. She has been writing poetry and short stories since she was a precocious girl in Maine. She has published a volume of academic work in sociology and social policy journals. Bethany is in the final stages of completing her first novel, Murmurations - a ghost story about intergenerational trauma and the terrors of motherhood. She has shared her poetry in workshops at Seaside Books, read a short story at Accidental Theatre's Piano and Prose, and is a member of the 2024/25 Accidental Writer's Circle.