About
Theresa is a writer and teacher. She was assistant to the late author/playwright/artist J.P. Donleavy for many years before attending Maynooth University. From there she graduated with an MA in Ancient Classics in 2013 and followed this with a teaching degree in 2016. Her first submitted story in 2015 won the Molly Keane Creative Writing award and her work has since been published widely. Theresa was a regular contributor to the award winning #WomenXBorders project in the Irish Writers Centre. In 2017 she started a business in Cork city where she taught a variety of courses and hosted literary events until pandemic disruption. She is passionate about the ancient world and runs regular courses on ancient themes in her endeavour to bring Classics to a wider audience. She is an eager environmentalist and combines her interests as a regular at the Irish Writers Centre Climate Writers
Contact Details:
email: Theresaryder100@gmail.com
Twitter: @TheresaRyder_
Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn.
An article for Maynooth University Dept. Adult & Community Education on my route to teaching in the further education sector.
Open Season.
Opinion piece in The Irish Times 23/12/2023.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/12/23/some-of-us-need-a-way-out-of-the-seasonal-madness/
Letterkenny Literary Festival October 2022.
https://donegal.ie/live/whats-happening/letterkenny-cathedral-quarter-literary-festival
What an amazing festival it was. This year the theme was the environment and I opened the Saturday night session with a reading from my work in progress memoir of life on the land when I lived in the Gatehouse of J.P. Donleavy’s Mullingar estate.
On Sunday morning I was invited to read a poem at a lecture and performance piece dedicated to Brendan Behan in Paris. The presentation was given by Dr. Deirdre McMahon. The Elusive Theatre players performed a section of Behan’s play Borstal Boy My contribution was a rendition of Behan’s poem Oscar Wilde.
The Better Judgement of Paris.
A pandemic project was launched by the Actors of Dionysus for their #dailydose and I received a commission to rework an ancient myth into a short video play. In the style of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, I follow Paris’s thought process in making his judgement, and perhaps lend him some credit for his infamous decision, renaming the myth The Better Judgement of Paris.
This concept has now grown into a full-length production, which is currently a work in progress.