writing for all seasons
All Weather Words is a creative writing community offering workshops, courses, and retreats.
Each of our courses is carefully designed and combines expertise on craft, prompts, and personalised feedback.
We started with an in-person retreat in Co. Mayo. It was a gorgeous weekend of new work, laughter, prompts, walks, and readings. We also run writing workshops at The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
Now, we’ve expanded to digital, because we believe writing should be accessible to everyone.
Writing for us has always been more than a job, it’s a place to express creativity, to explore ideas, to find comfort in difficult times. With the rise of AI and points outside general chaos, we think it’s more important than ever to share what we’ve learned about how to incorporate a writing practice into your life.
Why All Weather Words?
Because creativity is for all seasons. It’s for solace, for rage, for growth. Writing helps us in innumerable ways, whatever the weather.
Who we are
Hello, we’re Alice Kinsella and Daniel Wade, writers, couple, and founders of All Weather Words.
Between us we have eight books and two decades of experience teaching creative writing.
is a writer, teacher, and editor. Her books include Milk: on motherhood and madness (Picador, 2023) and The Ethics of Cats (Broken Sleep, ‘25). She studied English and Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in Writing at University of Galway. She edited Empty House: poetry and prose on the climate crisis (Doire, 2021) and is the current literary editor at Mayo Books Press. She’s an Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Artist, and lives in Co. Mayo.
Alice Kinsella
is a writer from Dublin now based in the West of Ireland. In 2017, his play The Collector opened the 20th anniversary season of the New Theatre, Dublin and was called a ‘viciously convincing portrayal of Dublin City life’ by Emer O’Kelly. In January 2020, his radio drama Crossing the Red Line was broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra. He is the author of the poetry collection Rapids (Finishing Line Press, 2021), and the novel A Land Without Wolves (Temple Dark Books, 2021).
Daniel Wade
Together Dan and Alice wrote Wake of the Whale, which was a Sunday Independent Book of the Year, and developed the work into a performance show with Druid Theatre’s FUEL programme 2025.
Student Reviews
“I cannot speak highly enough of this course. I found it inspirational and the feedback I received was kind, helpful and encouraging.”
— Former Customer“I really enjoyed this course with Alice Kinsella. She stretched me outside my comfort zone, but that is all to the good. I loved the topics, and found myself writing about things I had never written about before. Poetry, I find, is a great way of finding healing for the past, finding joy in the small things of life, and a desire to make each poem the best I can. Alice’s comments were helpful and insightful, and I sensed her delight in each poem I offered, as if she were opening up a gift each time she read one. Alice is delightful to work for and a very encouraging and discerning tutor.”
“My poetic imagination took several leaps through Alice Kinsella's Introduction to Writing Poetry course. I was able to identify my strengths, but more importantly through Alice's exercises and questions, I could also see the weak spots of my writing, the things i wasn't enjoying about my own writing - and I found this invaluable. Alice's imagination is wonderful and i hope that i absorbed some of it. Her feedback was helpful because it wasn't purely positive - some great constructive ideas. Thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile.”
— Former CustomerThe longer story
Hi, Alice here! I started facilitating workshops in the literary society in college. Having spent my teenage years doing youthwork, I was familiar with ice-breakers, facilitation, and the empowering nature of a workshop. I loved to write, but knew that the doing and teaching are separate skills. After college, I trained in teaching creative writing with the Big Smoke Writing Factory. I then went on to facilitate community workshops as writer in residence with South Inner City Community Development Association. I did an MA in Writing and continued to develop my own work. The writers workshops during my MA were always my favourite, and they reminded me of those community workshops I’d been in and also run.
In the last ten years I’ve taught creative writing for The Linenhall Arts Centre, Big Smoke Writing Factory, Creative Writing Ink, Roscommon Arts Centre, Dingle Literary Festival, the University of Galway, Motherlore, Doolin Writers Weekend, to name a few.
Having taught at both second and third level, I enjoy community settings the most. It’s where I meet people who are taking this time to nurture their creative selves, often for the first time in their lives.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than getting to know someone’s work across a period of time, seeing it develop, making suggestions and reading new drafts.
When I work with someone who starts out as stuck, an invisible hurdle they can’t seem to break through, and we find a way around it together. Suddenly they’re writing pages and pages, but it’s the difference in confidence that never fails to wow me.
I have been this person a hundred times over. I’ve wanted someone to guide me and to provide the right balance of criticism and encouragement. One of the first people to ever give me that balance was Daniel Wade. I’m not sure I’d be a writer if I hadn’t met him when I did.
Twelve years later, we live and work in my home county of Mayo. Between us we write non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and plays. We wrote a book together, give each other feedback on our own writing, and know our strengths and weaknesses as writers and teachers. Together, as well as solo, we develop and deliver workshops.
We share a belief in the power of writing for wellbeing. Creative writing is not just about writing stories. It’s about giving people permission to use their own voices, to remind them that they deserve to be heard.
With this shared philosophy and the experience we both bring to the table, we decided to work together in founding All Weather Words.
It’s such an honour to witness that intimate stage of creativity.
All Weather Words started as an in-person retreat. We will offer this retreat annually (maybe more often, we’ll see!)
Like many people, the day to day responsibilities of a young family mean a lot of our work is done from home. Happily, we live in the age of the internet. So I decided to launch All Weather Words online. Community creativity from the comfort and convenience of our own homes.
Contact us
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!