There’s plenty of magic to occupy both young and old in Fighting Words - the creative writing centre that’s the brainchild of Roddy Doyle. Viktor Posudnevsky pays a visit.
When one first sets foot inside Fighting Words, the new creative writing centre in Dublin’s north inner city, the atmosphere brings to mind those old adventure tales that almost everyone was fascinated with when they were growing up.
It has the appearance of a small library at the entrance, but then one of the bookshelves suddenly shifts and a secret passage is opened which ushers the visitor into a sizeable classroom complete with whiteboards, chairs and inflatable stools for the younger visitors. Here, the centre’s developers hope that thousands of children and adults will take part in creating fictitious worlds and get a chance to discover the writer within them.
The keeper of this secret library, just a few doors away from Croke Park, is a Mr Sean Love. He is a man who smiles kindly and has a wizard-like appearance about him – indeed, even his name sounds as if it comes from a novel.
Love has overseen the development of the centre for the past year, and has made sure that it is ready to open its doors to the public on 7 January. Yet all the creative input, he claims, comes from another wizard – the celebrated Irish writer Roddy Doyle.
“All the ideas that went into the centre came from Roddy Doyle,” says Love, who is a long-time friend of the Dublin-born author.
Doyle’s idea was inspired by a creative writing facility in San Francisco called 826 Valencia. This centre, set up by the American author and publisher Dave Eggers, is concealed behind a storefront that sells pirate supplies ¬– eye patches, peg legs, you name it – and it invites writers to conduct workshops with local children. It is now famous around the world, and has spawned a number of sister centres across the US, each with its own theme (the centre in Brooklyn, for example, is fronted by a superhero supply store). “It’s like a franchise now,” says Love.
Doyle wanted to create something similar in Dublin, but what finally came about was a centre in many ways different to those in the States. Even the name, Fighting Words, is a common Dublin expression, typical of the area where the centre is located.
“This name would probably be misunderstood in the US,” laughs Love. “People would probably associate it with violence or extremism.”
He pronounces the name with a northside twang and explains its meaning: “Them’s fighting words… You’d say that when you’re really arguing about something, moving your case forward. But it can be also ironic.”
The slogan for the new centre is the deliberately misspelled as “The write to right”, which caused the team some difficulty at first. “One of the builders who did the exterior was trying to change the words so the slogan would be spelled correctly,” remembers Love. “We had to talk to him and explain that this is exactly the way we wanted it.”
He says in the year that has elapsed since the inception of Fighting Words, the centre has enjoyed a great deal of interest from various parties, with North Dublin primary schools booking all available sessions until June.
“The main difference between our centre and those in the States is that ours is not limited to children,” explains Love. “In the morning we will have sessions for primary school pupils, which will last two hours. In the afternoon we’ll have older students, in particular transition year students, who will work on more comprehensive projects. And in the evenings we will cater for adults who want to write. We want to make this place accessible to everyone, a place where everyone is welcome and can feel at home.”
All the tutoring will be conducted by volunteers. “Anyone who’s interested in volunteering and encouraging creativity is very welcome to contact us,” says Love. Fighting Words already has around 300 volunteers, but will need more as the demand for its services is quite high.
The entire Irish writing community is involved, says Love, with Roddy Doyle being a constant presence. “He really loves to encourage others to write and to help people find the writer in them.”
A typical session for primary children is a joint exercise in writing a story. Initially the group shouts out ideas for characters, plot developments and so forth, with a facilitator typing them up on a laptop. The text is projected onto a big screen for the children to see, along with pictures which are immediately drawn up by a volunteer illustrator who is also present during the session.
The group then takes time to vote on things that will go into the final story, and later they edit the story by narrowing down the multitude of ideas on the screen. The final version, complete with illustrations, is then printed in a small book, with each child’s name and picture on it. However, exactly one third of the book is left blank and each participant is encouraged to finish the story individually.
The creative writing in the centre is not limited to stories and can be very diverse, ranging from poetry to blogging. All the work will be published in the end.
“Whether it’s in a magazine, in a book or on the internet, we will aim to publish the works of our students,” says Love. One of the current ideas is to create a literary magazine similar Dave Eggers’ own McSweeney’s, where the works of budding authors would mingle with fiction produced by established names such as the centre’s patron, Roddy Doyle.
Love stresses that the new centre welcomes all, and is especially looking to receive students with immigrant backgrounds as well as volunteers who speak various languages.
“All the writing will be done in English only,” he says. “But if anyone comes to us and they have a difficulty with the language we will provide free assistance for them, possibly in the form of one-to-one classes.”
With all the primary school sessions already booked out six months in advance, Doyle’s grand idea seems to be working. “The only limit,” says Love, “is how many volunteers we’ll get.” n
Fighting Words is located at Behan Square, Russell Street, Dublin 1. Anyone who is interested in developing their creative writing or helping others to do so is urged to contact Fighting Words by e-mail at info@fightingwords.ie or phone at 01 894 4576.
