The Fellowships will enable three writers annually to contribute to the activities of the Seamus Heaney Centre within the university and the wider literary community, and represent a major commitment on the part of the Centre to the encouragement and celebration of writing in all its forms.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, who writes in Irish and English, was the winner of the 2016 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Jo Baker is the author of six novels, most recently A Country Road, A Tree. While Hallow – Duke Special’s latest release on CD and vinyl – is based on the poetry of Michael Longley.

Peter Wilson said, 'I am delighted and honoured to have been offered a Fellowship at the Seamus Heaney Centre.  For the last decade, I have been exploring the places where art forms collide, between music, photography, theatre, fiction and poetry.  I am excited to see what transpires as a result of this fellowship and my encounters with other creative people at the Seamus Heaney Centre.’

 Doireann Ní Ghríofa meanwhile said she was excited at the prospect of spending time in Belfast. ‘I've been following the literary vibrancy of ​the city from afar for some time.​ I'm immensely grateful to be offered this opportunity. I am very much looking forward to working in tandem with the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University​ to devise and deliver a series of events.’

For Jo Baker the Fellowship represents a kind of homecoming. ‘I’m a former student of Queen’s, and my time there, within the English Department, and as a member of the Writers’ Group, was absolutely transformative for me. 
The Seamus Heaney Centre was established towards the end of my time at the University. I remember the fresh clean paint and the deliberately-red-wine-coloured carpet, and the sense that here was what was needed: space - whole rooms, a whole building - in which writers could work and learn, and be part of a creative community. Life took me elsewhere, but it was wonderful place to start from, and I’m delighted that they're prepared to have me back.