Creating community: women responding to crisis through creative writing in Co. Donegal

Catherine Barbour (Writing in Society) and Mariana Villegas Triay will discuss the findings from workshops held as part of the 2022 Irish Research Council New Foundations Award ‘Creating Community: The Role of Creative Practice in Empowering Donegal Women’ in collaboration with Women’s Collective Donegal. Workshops and focus groups were held across the county in June 2023 with the aim to examine the role of writing and craft in allowing groups of local women to explore issues relating to the theme of ‘crisis’. We examine women’s creative outputs and own evaluation of their creative writing process as a means to confront societal issues affecting their daily lives, demonstrating the value of creative writing for rural and border communities from an intersectional feminist perspective.