cloudofthink@gmail.com

In recent times, those of us involved in creative writing have sought to broaden the definition of what we do. “Creative writing” is generally taken to mean fiction, poems and short stories. It is that, but it should be a lot more besides so we started doing workshops in which we experimented with writing comedy, movie scripts, sparkling dialogue, features, regular items and ideas for a magazine called Cloud of Think. The Cloud is the centerpiece of what we do. It started off as a paper but we knew we wanted to get a website up and running. The Cloud allows pupils to be individuals and express their ideas, explore their own thoughts and comment on the world not only as pupils of Spioraid Naoimh but also as young people whose voices matter in a widening and ever-changing world.

Our meetings are informal but we discuss lots of ideas and contributors are enthusiastic. There are many out there who want to write or read or both. The Cloud invites them to do so. We are interested in reviews, features, comedy, comment and analysis, business, science, religion,  philosophy…anything really.

Writing allows young people to practice a craft and improve their organisation; it allows them to think more clearly and consider their own feelings on things. At the very least it is just a bit of fun. Besides, with the recent emphasis on literacy in government policy, reading and writing with your friends is one really effective way of improving your skills. We welcome everyone at the Cloud and encourage free, independent thought and creativity. I’ve always explained it thus: writers put words to the thoughts and feelings we all share but can’t always articulate. That’s got to be very important.

Contributors can e-mail their work to cloudofthink@gmail.com where our team of editors will consider it and perhaps edit it and then decide whether or not to post it to the site.

Our contributors so far:

Aaron McCarthy

Conor McCarthy

Michael Soderlund

Osama Shammary

Ben Aherne

Daniel Dilworth

James Meeke

Cormac Larkin

Conor Scannell

Peter Fagan

Peter Barlow

Alex Smith

James Roche

Gavin O’Leary

Stephen Fogarty

Steven Hannon

Jamie O’ Leary

Ross Horgan

SwagDaddy

Conor Canavan

Eugene O’Brien

Anonymous

Lisa O’Riordan

Omar Aftab

Captain Shamrock

Luke Dilworth

Cian Morey