World-Building and the Power of the Journey: A Gulliver’s Travels-Inspired Writing Workshop
World-Building and the Power of the Journey: A Gulliver’s Travels-Inspired Writing Workshop
Venue:The Acre Project, Maynooth Road, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, W23WOXK
Date: 20260714
Time: 10am - 12pm
Tickets: €20
It has been 300 years since Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels. To celebrate this literary milestone, this two-hour workshop will use prompts inspired by Swift’s masterful use of world-building, satire, and the journey narrative to spark new creative work. Whether you are writing a novel, short story, memoir, or play, at the heart of every story is a journey. As characters travel through unfamiliar landscapes (real or imagined) they are challenged, transformed, and often forced to reconsider their understanding of the world and their place within it.
Drawing inspiration from Swift’s four extraordinary voyages, participants will explore how imagined worlds can illuminate contemporary concerns, reveal hidden truths, and deepen character development. Through a series of guided writing exercises, the workshop will offer space to generate fresh material, experiment with new perspectives, and discover unexpected directions for your work. Suitable for writers of all genres and levels of experience. Facilitated by Krystal Sweedman, playwright and Associate Dramaturg (Axis Theatre).
Artists
Krystal Sweedman
Krystal Sweedman, is an Australian writer and dramaturg playwright. She presented work during The New Theatre's New Writing Week, The Provoke Festival, The NEWvember New Writing Festival and Smock Alley’s Scene and Heard Festival, as well as had a Tiny Play selected for Fishamble's Tiny Play initiative, and had a small play produced by About Theatre as part of their Transatlantic Tales zoom festival. Her full-length play Black Cherry is available to listen to on Near FM’s Woman's Hour, audio drama webpage.
In Australia her play Sunnytown was produced at La Boite Theatre. Her adaptation of Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride, played at the Loft Theatre, and she was one of six writers commissioned to write scenes for The Wheel of Fortune, which played at Metro Arts Theatre.
Krystal studied Writing for Performance at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2013. Before NIDA, Krystal completed a dual degree in Business Management and Arts (Majoring in Drama and Psychology) at the University of Queensland. Recent bursaries and residencies include: the Axis Assemble program in 2022, an Agility Award in 2023. In 2024, she was an artist in residence with Mother Tongues.