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It’s an immense pleasure to introduce you to our incredible Voices 2022 cohort. This year we have worked with 69 talented emerging writers from across the UK as they hone their craft skills and industry knowledge and apply their learning and creativity to the creation of treatment documents for new and original series ideas.

Between March and June this year the writers have participated in a range of craft workshops, expert masterclasses and panels with writers including , , and , plus industry talks from agents, producers and key industry organisations such as and the . The Voices have also been working collaboratively in their local groups to define and develop their original ideas with the guidance and editorial support of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom team.

We’ve had a blast working with and getting to know these talented early career writers and we’re delighted to introduce them all to you. We'll be announcing one group a day this week (Belfast, London, Northern, Scottish, Welsh).

We are still in the process of deciding which writers will take part in the Voices development groups for 2023 following our Open Call script submission window which closed in January this year.

Jess Loveland, Head of New Writing, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Drama

It has been an absolute blast working with this incredibly talented group of writers and it has been so exciting to see their ideas develop and evolve over the course of the programme. They’ve been an incredibly creative, enthusiastic, inspiring and supportive group and we can’t wait to see what our brilliant Belfast Voices do next!

Heather Larmour, Assistant Commissioner for Northern Ireland, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom & ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Drama

Tom Berkeley and Ross White began working as a writing partnership in 2019. Their debut short film ‘Roy’, which the pair co-wrote and directed, played in competition at 14 Oscar-qualifying film festivals, before going on to be one of ten films longlisted for Best British Short at the 75th BAFTA Awards. â€‹

Their second short, the rural black comedy ‘An Irish Goodbye’, was filmed in Northern Ireland in Spring 2021 before going on to premiere at the Oscar®, BAFTA and IFTA qualifying Leeds International Film Festival. Currently on festival release, ‘An Irish Goodbye’ has recently won the European Audience Award at the Academy Award® qualifying Leuven International Film Festival in Belgium, the inaugural Norman Houston Award at the Capital Irish Film Festival in Washington D.C., and the Festival Award at Chicago Irish Film Festival. â€‹

The duo are currently in pre-production on a third short film whilst also developing a number of television and feature film projects.​

Ash Corristine

With screenwriting training from UCLA, Ash Corristine’s work has been selected and showcased at the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum twice. Her TV and feature scripts have won a number of awards including Table Ready, My Screenplay and Shore Scripts. In 2020, her play ‘David Duchovny’s Sperm’ was chosen for the New Irish Playbook and she made the interview stage of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Dramaroom. In 2021 her short script ‘Shadow’ won funding from Screen Ireland and her play ‘Savages’ was selected by Prime productions for Verge Season 2. She has a feature film in production with Screen Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen and Next Wednesday Films. She lives in Spanish Point with her partner and son.​

Gina Donnelly and Seón Simpson

SkelpieLimmer (Misbehaving Child) is a writing partnership featuring Seón Simpson and Gina Donnelly dedicated to making uncensored theatre that provokes change and starts conversations. They believe that “serious theatre doesn’t have to feel serious” and that is why they are committed to discussing taboo subjects in a fun and entertaining way. They premiered their partnership at Dublin Fringe Festival 2019 with the award winning ‘Two Fingers Up’. They have gone on to become resident Hatch & Scratch Artists at The MAC, Belfast for 2020/21 and are currently developing new piece ‘Crushed’ under the Abbey Theatre & Dublin Fringe Festival Creative Thinking Award, to premiere early 2023. Their hit show ‘Two Fingers Up’ is featured in Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022 as part of the Culture Ireland showcase​.

Oliver Doone is a playwright from the North Coast of Ireland, who now lives in Belfast. After deciding writing was a pipe-dream, he abandoned his ambitions to go and study something he didn’t want to study, travel somewhere he didn’t want to travel, and work as something he didn’t want to work as. But no matter what he did, the spectre of writing always haunted him, and he eventually capitulated to his dream and started writing again. â€‹â€‹

His first play ‘The Free State of ‘Rathlin’ was shortlisted by Druid Theatre Company, his second play ‘A Matter Of Course’, is being performed by Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass at Latitude Fest in July. Oliver recently entered the realm of television writing, and subsequently reached the interview stage for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Dramaroom 2018 & 2020. He has several writing credits for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ NI comedy ‘Soft Border Patrol’. In 2020, Oliver set up Feckless Theatre Company, and will be staging excerpts from his newest play ‘Murder Hole Beach’ in Belfast in August. His short film ‘Fable of a Ditherer’ will hit the Irish film circuit later this year. â€‹

Tom Floyd grew up on the north coast of Northern Ireland, a landscape and community to which he is constantly drawn back in his writing. He is a graduate of the Screenwriting MA at the London Film School. His background is in writing films, with numerous short credits over the years, and his most recent feature script in development with TW Films -  ‘Heather’ - a drama about a woman nursing her dying mother while managing her own condition of lycanthropy. At the start of 2020, Tom completed the NI Screen-funded short ‘Caroline’ with Village Films, which he directed from his own script. His work exists at the intersection between a naturalism of the everyday and the excitement of genre conventions. Not all his projects are single word titles of a woman’s name however. Increasingly interested in the scope offered by TV miniseries as a broader form for storytelling, Tom is developing, amongst other ideas, a four-part thriller about the mental health pressures faced by a man who works for the police, on the task force for a serial acid attacker investigation in contemporary Belfast. Its working title is ‘Policeman’.​

Dan Gordon is a writer, actor, and director. He has presented and co-authored many tv and radio documentaries, has a number of produced stage plays to his credit and is a weekly columnist for the Sunday Life Newspaper since 2009. He has written a series of published plays for children on Shipbuilding, Linen, Blitz, Education, Agriculture and Titanic. His work has been performed across the UK and Ireland in Belfast, Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Mold and New York. He won the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ NI inaugural Radio Drama playwriting competition and has had a short story broadcast on Radio 4. He regularly writes for the public and corporate sectors recently completing work for Belfast Harbour Commission (175 Anniversary), Belfast City Council (Commemoration), Bushmills Whiskey (Tasting Notes), Titanic Visitor Attraction (Chartered Association of Business Schools) and W5 Science & Discovery Centre Belfast (Belfast Blitz). He has written and performed radio comedy for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Ulster and is a regular contributor to news and current affairs programmes. â€‹

Aidan Largey is the Writer/Director of numerous award winning short films, with commissioned work for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳3 and RTE. He created the crime series ‘Farr’ which debuted at Number 1 on the RTE Player. It was also critically successful, winning Best Drama from ITVFest and Best Original Pilot and Best Director at Series Fest and is now in development as a long form series.

Aidan then directed new episodes of ‘The Break’ series ‘Last Night In Belfast’ and ‘Binbagged’ (Nominee for Best Short at Celtic Media Festival) for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳3 as well as ‘Eat The Rich’ for RTE Storyland. He was selected for the prestigious David Puttnam Scholarship and recently completed post-production on ‘Human Error, an ambitious BFI sci-fi short and directed 20 episodes of the first series of Channel 5’s new kids’ drama ‘Mimi’s World’. 

He is currently in development with Causeway Pictures and Northern Ireland Screen on debut feature thriller ‘Monsters(s)’ with Heather Basten casting (Dashcam/Blumhouse Production, Jungle/Amazon Studios, Dreaming Whilst Black/³ÉÈËÂÛ̳3). ‘Monsters(s)’ was an international screenplay finalist including Austin Film Festival, PAGE International, Screencraft Fellowship and Austin Film Festival. Aidan is currently directing episodes of a YA Sci Fi Drama series for Zodiak.​

Nicky Larkin is an incurable introvert who feels a bit too comfortable writing about himself in the third person. He's a writer/director and documentary filmmaker from Offaly, living in Belfast.​

Excused from the obligations of human interaction during the first lockdown, he wrote the comedy short ‘Gone Viral’ about a middle-aged man’s bleak quest for social media stardom during the Covid pandemic. Funded by Northern Ireland Screen and produced by Green Dragon Media, ‘Gone Viral’ was filmed during a brief window between lockdowns, and went on to win 'Best UK Short' at the North London Comedy Festival, and 'Best Comedy' at the Oxford International Short Film Festival.​

His feature-length screenplay 'The Screamers' is currently in development as part of the Northern Ireland Screen New Writer Focus, the first draft of which he also wrote during the lockdown - an incredibly productive time that as an incurable introvert he sometimes pines for, but is afraid to admit that publicly.​

Nell Mercier is a comedy writer and improviser from Connemara. She is a resident performer at the alternative comedy company ‘Mob Theatre Dublin’, where she performs with her house team ‘Sneak Preview’. She also writes and performs with her improv group ‘Pseudo Queens’. Nell’s first script was shortlisted for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Comedy Writer’s room in 2020, starting her screenwriting career. She has a playful approach to any theme she writes about but gets a great kick out of writing about wild Irish women and teenage girls.​

Katie Bridget Murphy is a writer, filmmaker & actor from Belfast. She is also a law & politics graduate with a background in radio production, having produced several shows for local radio station, Blast106.4fm, including music & politics/current affairs. â€‹

After completing her law degree, Katie studied acting & filmmaking in London at the ‘International School of Screen Acting’ in East London at the Three Mills Studios and at the ‘Margie Haber’s Studio’ in LA where she received a scholarship to study. In 2018-2019, she was offered a place on Northern Ireland Screen’s ‘New Shorts Focus’ writing scheme and subsequently wrote & directed her first funded short film ‘Miss & Missus’ produced by Farset Films, Northern Ireland Screen & BFI Network. â€‹

She has most recently finished writing & directing her NI Screen funded film ‘Fourth’ and her Arts Council funded film ‘Silver’. Her poetry has recently been included in CAP’s newest ‘Poetry in Motion’ anthology ‘Threshold’ 2021-2022.

Mark Kavanagh is a graduate from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) and has worked as an actor in the UK and Ireland. Mark has always written extensively and for the theatre wrote/directed ‘Mad North Northwest’, ‘Cold Snap’, ‘Wake’, ‘A Noose for Hanratty’, and ‘Ratchet’. Mark moved back to Northern Ireland in 2019 and his new play ‘The wife and me…and my sex doll Ruby’, premiered in Belfast in 2022. Mark has recently been commissioned by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and worked on ‘The Break’ and ‘Soft Border Patrol’. â€‹

Eimear Morgan is a screen writer from Newry. She came to the attention of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ by applying to multiple writing opportunities through their ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom page. To date she has been short listed for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ The Biggest Weekend comedy monologues May 2018, short listed for Sideline Production’s comedy showhouse radio play Oct 2019, long listed for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Zodiak Kid’s Writers Award Scheme Dec 2019, long listed for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer comedy shorts March 2020 and long listed for 33Films Short Film call April 2021.​

Eimear wrote her first feature, ‘Faces In the Grain’ during the 2020 lockdown. With a love for dark comedy, she finds writing an excellent form of therapy for grief. After ten years working in retail, she is more than ready to try and carve out a career as a writer. â€‹

Karen Quinn is an award winning writer and educator based in Donegal. She was longlisted for the Mammoth Screen TV Writer’s Award 2021, and twice shortlisted for the Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting award run by the International Emmy Committee, in both 2014 and 2015. She was also the winner and recipient of the Northern Ireland Comedy Writers programme in 2016, organised by Grand Scheme Media, and a shortlisted writer and director for Jameson First Shot 2016. She has toured her writing both nationally and internationally. She is also a published children’s writer, with her work broadcast on television and published in short story collections. At the moment, her main focus of creative work is on young women’s mental health.​

Matt Whitby and Claire Whyte’s first screenplay ‘Living with Abaddon’ was shortlisted for interview by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom Open Call 2021. They subsequently joined the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writersroom Belfast Voices programme 2022,​ where they developed ‘Charitable Causes’, as well as an anthology series ‘Dog Walkers’ – both with a dark comedy slant.​

In 1997 Matt and Claire moved from the UK Midlands to Ireland and retain a shared connection to their roots and the sharp tongues they grew up around. After thirty years of friendship, they formally began writing collaboratively as​ Whitby and Whyte.​

Determined and hardworking, Whitby and Whyte write surreal stories with darkly comic undertones and authentic, multi-layered characters. These two have an appetite for telling original and funny stories - that bite!     â€‹