The Arts Office, Waterford City & County Council, is pleased to announce that the winner of the national Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2021 is Patrick Holloway, Carrigaline, Co. Cork.
Patrick is a writer of stories and poems. He was the winner of Headstuff’s Poem of the year and Caring for Carers Poetry Contest and took second place in the Raymond Carver Contest, the Irish Times Travel Writing Award, and the RTE/Penguin Short Story Competition.
Patrick has been placed and shortlisted for the Allingham Fiction Contest, Allingham Poetry Contest, Bath Short Story Prize, Moth Short Story Prize, Dermot Healy Poetry Prize and The Bridport Prize. He was a finalist for the prestigious Alpine Writing Fellowship and was Highly Commended for the Manchester Fiction Prize. His writing has appeared in Carve, Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, The Illanot Review, The Moth, Overland, The Lonely Crowd and Southword, among others.
 Patrick’s story ‘The Paradox of Remembering’ is the twenty fourth winner of the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award run by Waterford City & County Council’s Arts Office with support from the Arts Council and by kind permission of the Keane family with an award of €500.
You can view a reading of the winning story online Waterford In Your Pocket on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WaterfordIYP or YouTube which was broadcast live as part of Culture Day/Night celebrations at 1.30pm on Friday 17th September.
Margaret Organ, Arts Officer thanked all the entrants and judges for their work. She said that the feedback from the adjudicators was that the standard of stories was particularly high this year.
The next significant literature event in Waterford’s calendar is the Waterford Writers Weekend from October 21st to 24th 2021.