On returning from S.W. France to live in Northern Ireland, a retired teacher of twenty-six years, Mary Farrell joined her first Creative Writing Group in Flowerfield Arts Centre in Northern Ireland in 2017. While her first Creative Writing Group as Facilitator, Words Inc in Coleraine, was begun in 2022 for The NI Library Authority, since 2023 she has co-ordinated a second weekly Writing Group called Sanderlings in her home town of Portstewart. A regular facilitator for Portglenone Writers, she now also co-ordinates by Zoom each week an All-Ireland Writing Group called Write So! , which was originally formed in September 2023 by AsIam, an Irish Charity for Autistic Adults.
Previously a member of CIEP, The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, UK, she is now in her third year as a member of the Judging Panel for the Weekly Competition run by the Reedsy Online Publishing Company. In September 2024 she became Assistant Editor at Impspired Publishers, based in Lincoln. Since January 2025, Mary is also a Professional Member of the Irish Writers Society, based in Dublin.
Her published work includes a trilogy of general Collections, It’s like Walking a Tightrope, 2021, Out of the Chrysalis, 2022 and A Phoenix Still Rising in 2023. Springboards: a Creative Writing Manual for Beginners through to Facilitators was published in October 2022. The three books in The Circle Trilogy, The Kingdom, Maybury and New Asgarth were published in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Editor of three Anthologies, Irish Hares and Seahorses, 2022, Spun Yarns and Woven Words, 2023, and Sea Spray and Woodland Glades, 2024, her books have all been published by Impspired Press.
She organises two Performance Events each year in her local area: Flash Fiction Portrush each Spring, and Soundwaves, an Impspired event which is now an annual part of the Swell Festival each October, both taking place in Portrush on the North Coast of Ireland. Details of both can be found on this website .
Having read her own work on BBC radio, she was a guest on the Time of Our Lives show, also on BBC Radio Ulster, in 2019. A regular performer on stage at Tenx9 events, she has performed at various Open Mic Sessions around Northern Ireland. Her short story, A Tale of a Barn won the Lurig Drama Club Competition in 2020. Recorded by the actor Ciaran Hinds on November 26th, 2020, it can be found at www.thenineglens.com. She has had various pieces of Prose and Poetry published in Magazines and Anthologies, both locally and internationally.
You can contact Mary directly through this website, by emailing maryfarrell85@hotmail.com, or on Facebook.
