We opened a creative writing centre in Dublin’s inner city in January 2009. We called it Fighting Words – a temporary name that immediately felt like a good idea. We didn’t conduct extensive market research to see if it was wanted. Nor did we seek to align it with the formal education system. We took our belief in the enterprise from ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson, in Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.”

We wanted to address the absence of outlets for children and young adults in Dublin to engage with creative writing, and the lack of time allowed for it in the school curriculum. It seemed daft, in a country that prides itself in being a land of writers, that there was so little space for writing.

From the very beginning, the interest has been colossal. We host 10,000 students each year – mainly children and young adults – at creative-writing workshops and programmes. They are all free. Most of the students come with their schools, but we also host sessions outside of school time attended by a wide range of special-needs groups, as well as individual children and teenagers. Our tutors and mentors are volunteers. We have more than 400 of them.

We had our own inspiration: we’d visited 826 Valencia in San Francisco, a creative-writing centre established by the author Dave Eggers. We’d loved what we’d seen being done there – the way little kids were invited to put pen to paper, and the way monosyllabic teenagers were persuaded to write thousands of their own words. Since that project launched, similar creative-writing centres have opened all over the world: as well as our own Fighting Words here in Dublin, there are centres in Milan, Stockholm, London, Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Sydney, with plans for ones in Belfast, Vienna and Buenos Aires. All of these creative-writing centres are linked together informally. They communicate regularly, sharing ideas and experience.

Writing is a solitary occupation – eventually. But having witnessed it again and again over the last five years, we know that if it begins as a collective exercise, as a bit of fun, then by the time the children start to write by themselves, they produce better, more confident work. They’ve seen what they can do, the simple things that can make a good line brilliant, and they’re keen to give it a go themselves.

Quite soon after we opened, often at the suggestion of artists from other disciplines who wanted to get involved, we started to run programmes tailored towards other types of writing, including film scripts, plays, graphic novels, radio drama, journalism, songwriting and film animation. As with those we run for creative writing, the demand by children to participate is consistently staggering, and their creativity is extraordinary.

We think creative writing is an essential part of every child’s education. We want to give as many children as possible the opportunity to engage with their imaginations and see what possibilities are then opened up for them. Fighting Words is not state-funded, and our existence is dependent on people who believe passionately in what we do – like the writers and artists who have written and illustrated these brilliant stories. We are especially grateful to a great friend of Fighting Words, Sarah Webb – the creative- and driving force behind this wonderful collection.

Roddy Doyle & Seán Love

All profits made from the sale of this book go to Fighting Words, a registered charity.