Winner of prestigious Waterford creative writing award revealed

Waterford City and County Council’s Arts Office has announced the winner of the national Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2025.

Laura Cassidy from Cork city was announced as the award winner for her short story Digs, and received a cash prize and a writing course at the Molly Keane Writers Retreat in Ardmore, Co Waterford, to a total value of €550.

Laura is a contributing editor at Banshee literary journal, where, along with her co-founders, she was named a Bookseller Rising Star. Laura received an Agility Award and Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland in support of her short stories, which have appeared in The Pig's Back and Trinity's College Green Magazine.

In 2024 she was awarded a Munster Literature Centre Mentorship Bursary with Frank O'Connor Fellow Camilla Grudova. Laura reviews books for the Irish Examiner and is currently working on a collection of stories and a novel. She grew up in the village of Two Mile House in Co. Kildare, just a few miles from Molly Keane's birthplace.

Waterford City and County Council Arts Officer, Margaret Organ, congratulated Laura on her well-crafted short story and acknowledged all those who took the time to enter their stories into the competition.

Digs is the 28th winner of the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award run by Waterford City and County Council’s Arts Office and by kind permission of the Keane family, and was announced as the winner on Culture Night. The reading of the winning story can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayixVoMUQOw