Meet The Writers

Lane Ashfeldt is an Irish writer whose stories have appeared in anthologies and journals in Ireland, England, the US and Greece. Awards include the Fish Short Histories Prize and the Global Short Stories Prize.

Born in 1956, Peter Benson was educated in Ramsgate, Canterbury and Exeter. His first novel, The Levels, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. This was followed by A Lesser Dependency, winner of the Encore award, The Other Occupant, which was awarded the Somerset Maugham Award, and three more novels, Odo's Hanging, Riptide and A Private Moon. He has also published short...

Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise, Ireland in 1963 and currently lives in Dublin. He has published five full-length collections of poetry as well as a New and Selected Poems. His latest collection, The Next Life, was published by Dedalus in September. In addition to poetry he has published short fiction for adults and children, and his non-fiction titles include the...

Melvyn Bragg was born in 1939 and educated at Wigton’s Nelson Thomlinson School and at Oxford where he read history.  He is President of the National Campaign for the Arts and in 1998 he was made a life peer. He won an Academy Fellowship at the BAFTA Television Awards in 2010.  He presents In Our Time on Radio 4. His...

Barbara Claypole White grew up in an English village with dreams of becoming a novelist. After a detour through women’s and medieval history at York University, she landed a job promoting London fashion. Part of the first British Designer Show, she measured celebrities in their underwear and worked for Dame Vivienne Westwood. After falling in love with an...

Thomas Conway works as a director, dramaturg, lecturer and journalist. Directing credits include, Whoop It Up for Liberty!, Gentrification, The Winter’s Tale, The King of Friday’s Men, Once Upon a Barstool, Closer, In the Blood, Beowulf and What Where. As a dramaturg, he has worked with Druid, Pan Pan, Fabulous Beast, Idle Motion, Cups and Crowns...

Sheryl Cornett teaches Literature and Writing at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and lives in Chapel Hill with her family. She writes regularly for the Southern Women's Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Image, Pembroke Magazine, and Mars Hill Review among other journals, magazines, and anthologies such as The Global Jane Austen. She holds a Master of Fine Arts...

Jimmy Crowley has been a central figure in the Irish folk scene since the enthusiastic reception of his debut album “The Boys of Fairhill” in 1977. With his band Stokers Lodge, their mission was to present the street ballads of Cork city complimented by the ornate folk songs of the rural hinterland of Cork and Kerry in an exciting...

Louise Doughty is the author of six novels, most recently Whatever You Love, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction.  She has won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her hugely popular newspaper column. She...

Carol Drinkwater is an Anglo-Irish actress, author and film-maker. Best known for her award-winning portrayal of Helen Herriot in the television adaptation of the James Herriot books, All Creatures Great and Small, which led to her receiving the Variety Club Television Personality of the Year award in 1985, she has acted in numerous television series and films, including Bouquet of Barbed...

Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962. She studied English and Philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin and went on to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her short stories have appeared in several magazines including The New Yorker and The Paris Review, and her short story collection, The Portable Virgin, published in 1991, won...

Nuruddin Farah, recognised as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world, is one of Africa’s most highly-acclaimed writers. He is author of eleven novels, a non-fiction book about the Somali diaspora, and numerous plays and journalistic pieces translated into over twenty languages. Farah is known for tackling the controversial and complex topics of arranged marriages, patriarchal...

Nicholas Fox Weber has written biographies of courageous and extravagant art patrons (Patron Saints, The Clarks of Cooperstown), an architect of unequalled imagination (Le Corbusier: A Life), a twentieth century-master famous for his eroticism and self-mythologizing (Balthus), and some of the most brilliant modern artists of the twentieth century (The Bauhaus Group). He will discuss the consuming search to get...

Ruth Galloway is an award-winning author and illustrator, who has written and illustrated six children's picture books, and illustrated many more. Her first book, Fidgety Fish, was an instant hit, and has been followed by several bestselling sequels including the award-winning Smiley Shark, Clumsy Crab, and Tickly Octopus. Her books have been translated into many languages, and are enjoyed...

Magi Gibson is currently Reader in Residence with Glasgow Women's Library, as well as the creator of Wild Women Writing Workshops. (www.wildwomenwriting.co.uk) She has held three Scottish Arts Council Creative Writing Fellowships as well as a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship with the University of Paisley. She was the first Makar of the City of Stirling. She...

Chrissie Gittins' children’s poems have won two Belmont Poetry Prizes and been animated for Cbeebies TV. All three of her collections – Now You See Me, Now You …, I Don’t Want an Avocado for an Uncle and The Humpback’s Wail are PBS Choices for the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf and two have...

Kristin Gleeson is a writer, artist and musician living in the West Cork.  She has published essays and short stories and recently a biography, Anahareo: A Wilderness Spirit.  Selkie Dreams is her first novel.

Michael Harding has worked in theatre as an actor, director and writer. Most widely known as the author of such plays as Strawboys, Una Pooka, Misogynist, Sour Grapes and Amazing Grace, all produced by the Abbey Theatre. He has directed for the Abbey Theatre, the Project Arts Centre, and Red Kettle. He has been Writer in Association with The National...

Noted for his friendly and insightful guidance as a workshop leader, James Harpur has had five poetry collections published by Anvil Press. His latest book, Angels and Harvesters (2012), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; The Dark Age (2007) won the Michael Hartnett Award; Oracle Bones (2001) was a Tablet Book of the Year; and The Monk’s Dream (1996) includes the sonnet...

Philip Hensher was born in 1965 in South London, where he still lives.  His nine books include Kitchen Venom, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, The Northern Clemency, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, King of the Badgers, and, in 2012, Scenes from Early Life. He is a regular contributor to the Independent, the Mail on Sunday, and the...

Dr Sophia Hillan was born in Belfast and educated at Queen’s University. She became the first woman Assistant, Acting and Associate Director of the Institute of Irish Studies, and first Academic Director of its International Summer School in Irish Studies. She has published widely on Irish literature of the 19th and 20th centuries and her short stories have...

Claire Kilroy’s debut novel All Summer was awarded the 2004 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Her second novel, Tenderwire, was shortlisted for the 2007 Irish Novel of the Year and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. It was followed in 2009 by the highly acclaimed novel, All Names Have Been Changed. Claire Kilroy was educated at Trinity College and lives in...

Ellyssa Kroski is an award-winning editor and author of 21 books including 'The Tech Set', the ten-book technology series for which she won the ALA's Greenwood Publishing Group Award for the Best Book in Library Literature in 2011. She is the Manager of Information Systems at the New York Law Institute as well as an adjunct faculty member at Pratt Institute....

In 1976, long before supermarkets sold bags of mixed salad leaves, Joy Larkcom set off around Europe with her family and a caravan on her Grand Vegetable Tour. While her husband did the cooking and taught the children, she bicycled off to collect rare seeds and find out how people were growing vegetables. The tour led to a lifetime of garden...

Deborah Levy’s most recent novel Swimming Home (2011, And Other Stories) was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, the 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards (UK Author of the Year) and 2013 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, while the title story of her most recent work of fiction, Black Vodka: ten stories, was shortlisted for the 2012 BBC International Short Story Award. This summer...

Dave Lordan, renowned writer, teacher and creativity-in-education advocate, is the first writer to have won all three of Ireland's national prizes for young poets. He is the current holder of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award and previous winner of the Patrick Kavanagh and Strong Awards for poetry. Southword, the magazine of the Munster Literature Centre called him '...

John MacKenna is the author of fifteen books - short-stories; novels; memoir; poetry and biography. His most recent books are Where Sadness Begins(poetry 2012); The Space Between Us (a novel, 2010) which was short-listed for the Kerry Book Award and The River Field (short-stories, 2009). His awards include the Hennessy Award; the Irish Times Fiction Award and the C Day Lewis Award....

Deirdre Madden is from Toomebridge, Co. Antrim. Twice shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize for her novels Molly Fox's Birthday and One by One in the Darkness, Madden's other novels include The Birds of Innocent Wood, Nothing Is Black and Authenticity. She also writes books for children. Deirdre Madden teaches at Trinity College, Dublin, and is a member...

Francesca Main graduated with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Warwick in 2002 and began her publishing career with an internship at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency before joining Penguin Books. She worked in the editorial department at the Hamish Hamilton imprint and then spent four years as a commissioning editor for Simon & Schuster. Francesca...

Kate Mosse, who is co-founder and Honorary Director of the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction, is a well-known campaigner for literacy and one of the authors leading the campaign against library closures in the UK.  In 2011, she was named by the Guardian and by the Bookseller as one of the top 50 most influential people in UK publishing. She was...

Peter Murphy's 2009 novel John the Revelator was one of the most acclaimed Irish debuts of recent years, hailed as 'an absolutely wonderful novel' by Colm Toibin and 'a brilliant book' by Neil Jordan, it was shortlisted for both the Costa First Novel Award and the Kerry Group Prize for Fiction. He is also part of the Revelator Orchestra, a...

Jane Murray-Flutter is the daughter of Rumer Godden (1907-98), the acclaimed author of over sixty works of fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Godden is considered by many to be one of the foremost English language authors of the 20th century. Born in England, she and her siblings grew up in Narayanganj, India, and she later spent many years...

Mary Noonan’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Poetry London, The Dark Horse, The SHOp, The Stinging Fly, Wasafiri, Tears in the Fence, Cyphers, Southword, The Moth, The Echo Room, The Same, The Cork Literary Review, The Threepenny Review (Summer 2012), Penned: Zoo Poems (2009), The Alhambra Poetry Calendar (2010, 2013), Best Irish Poetry 2010, The Captain’s Tower: Seventy...

Julie O’Callaghan’s poems for older children have appeared in numerous anthologies in the UK (including the New Oxford Book of Children’s Verse, the Oxford Book of Children’s Poetry and the New Faber Book of Children’s Verse) and in school texts in Ireland, England, America and Canada. Her poems for children...

Billy O'Callaghan was born in Cork and is the author of three short story collections: In Exile and In Too Deep (Mercier Press), and The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind (New Island Press). His stories have won and been short-listed for numerous awards in Ireland and the United States, including the George A. Birmingham Award,...

Jamie O’Connell’s debut collection of short stories, Some Sort of Beauty, for which he received an Artist's Bursary from Cork City Council, was published in 2012. Most recently, O'Connell came third in The Sea of Words International Short Story Contest, a competition for writers under 30 run in 42 European and Mediterranean countries run by IMed and...

Alison O’Connor is a journalist and broadcaster. Her work as a political columnist involves regular commentary on current affairs on radio and television. Most recently she has worked as a columnist for The Sunday Times and RTÉ Radio One’s Drivetime programme. She is a native of Bantry, Co. Cork.

Paul O’Donoghue is from Bantry. For the past four years he has coordinated the Open Mike session of the West Cork Literary Festival. He earned a Master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where he worked as a wire-service and newspaper reporter covering diverse issues including politics, law and the Los Angeles...

Colm O’Gorman is Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland. He previously worked as a psychotherapist, and was the founder of One In Four, the national non-governmental organisation that supports victims of sexual violence. Colm served as a member of Seanad Eireann and is also the author of the bestselling memoir, Beyond Belief.

Hazel Orme is a freelance editor, working with several publishing houses in the UK and Ireland. During the 1990s she was editorial services director at Pan Macmillan, with responsibility for copyediting, proofreading and indexing across all of its imprints. Hazel has worked with many internationally-known authors, some of whom she has been with since the start of their careers. She...

Ruth Padel is a prize-winning poet, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s pioneer programme Poetry Workshop: in which she travels round the UK visiting local writing groups to discuss their poems with them on air. Her books on reading poetry - 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem, The Poem and the Journey,...

Karl Parkinson‘s work has been published in many magazines and journals, including The Stinging Fly. His chapbook A Sacrament Of Song was published in 2010 by Wurmpress and his first collection Litany Of The City & other Poems will be coming out soon from Wurmpress. He has been a featured reader/performer at The Electric Picnic, Glór...

Gillian Perdue is a writer and primary teacher based in Dublin.  Her first book, Adam’s Starling won the Eilis Dillon Prize in the Bisto Book Awards for that year.  She is the author of a number of Pandas in the O’Brien Press series of the same name, featuring the brave and fearless character, Conor,...

Tina Pisco’s bestselling novels, Only a Paper Moon and Catch the Magpie, have been translated into five languages. Her poetry collections include She be and Adolescence 2: hormonised poems (both Bradshaw Books). Tina is well known in Cork, particularly for her newspaper columns: A West Cork Life, a cookbook West Cork Fusion (both Random Animals Press), and as a...

Beth Powning is an American author based in Canada, whose work has been widely published in books, anthologies, and magazines. She is known for her lyrical, powerful writing and the profound emotional honesty of her work. She is the author of Seeds of Another Summer; Home: Chronicle of a North Country Life; Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss;...

Callum Roberts is a marine scientist and conservationist at the University of York. He is author of The Unnatural History of the Sea (Island Press, 2007) which won the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award 2008. Callum’s team at York built the scientific case for the world’s first network of high seas marine reserves in the North Atlantic that...

One of the most inspiring women of our age, Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders.  As an academic, legislator and barrister she sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human...

Kevin Rushby is the chief travel correspondent of The Guardian and author of several acclaimed travel books, including Hunting Pirate Heaven and Eating the Flowers of Paradise. His most recent book is Paradise, an historical account of human searching for perfection over the centuries. He is also co-founder of the documentary film company Thinktank Films. Photo credit: Maddy Carr Rushby

Roz Savage is a British ocean rower and environmental campaigner. She holds four world records for ocean rowing, including the first woman to row three oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian. She has rowed over 15,000 miles, taken around 5 million oarstrokes, and spent over 500 days of her life at sea in a 23-foot rowboat. Roz is a United Nations Climate Hero,...

Tim Severin, gold medallist of the Royal Geographical and Scottish Geographical Societies, has retraced the storied journeys of Saint Brendan the Navigator, Sindbad the Sailor, Jason and the Argonauts, Ulysses, The First Crusade, Genghis Khan, and Robinson Crusoe.  His signature technique is to travel in replica boats of the time or on horseback. His books examining their legends are...

Darren Shan’s track record is phenomenal. To date, over 25 million copies of his books – which include The Saga of Darren Shan and the Demonata series – have sold around the world. It was his epic Demonata series that cemented Darren’s place as The Master of Children’s Horror and which scored him his first...

Niamh Sharkey is Ireland’s second Laureate na nÓg. Author and illustrator of children’s picture books, her books have won numerous awards, including the prestigious Mother Goose Award for the Best New Illustrator and The Bisto Book of the Year for her first two Picture Books; Tales of Wisdom and Wonder and The Gigantic Turnip....

Richard Skinner is the author of four novels. His first, The Red Dancer, was published by Faber and has been translated into seven languages. A translation of his second, The Velvet Gentleman, was shortlisted in France for the Prix Livres & Musiques. For his third novel, The Darks, he was awarded an ACE Writers’ Award. He has written a...

Ahdaf Soueif was recently named by the Guardian as “one of the 100 people with most influence on the English reading public”, and by Arabian Business as “one of the 100 most powerful women in the Arab world today.”  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the UK and the Lannan Foundation for...

Susan Stairs has lived in Ireland since early childhood. Involved in the art business for many years, she has written extensively about Irish art and artists.  She received an MA in Creative Writing from UCD in 2009 and was shortlisted for the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award in the same year. She lives in Dublin with her family. The Story...

Gerard Stembridge is the author of three novels: Unspoken, Counting Down and According to Luke. He has also written and directed film and television. Credits include About Adam with Kate Hudson, the screenplay for Ordinary Decent Criminal (starring Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Linda Fiorentino), and he co-wrote Nora (a film about James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, starring Ewan McGregor...

Mary Talbot is an acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. Her recent books include Language and Gender and Media Discourse: Representation and Interaction, though she continues to be best known for her critical investigation of the 'synthetic sisterhood' offered by teen magazines. Dotter of Her Father's...

Ken Taylor lives in North Carolina. He is the author of the chapbook,"first the trees, now this" (Three Count Pour 2013). His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Hambone, VOLT, The Offending Adam, 3:AM Magazine, Verse Daily, elimae, EOAGH, MiPOesias, Carolina Quarterly, The Chattahoochee Review, Southword, ARDOR, can can, Gigantic Sequins, Clade Song and others. Ken is also the...

Kate Thompson has a Masters degree in English and French literature from Trinity College, Dublin. She has had thirteen bestselling novels published, one of which, The Blue Hour, was shortlisted for the RNA Award. A former actress and voiceover artist (she has recorded several of her own audiobooks, and is known as Ireland’s answer to Joanna Lumley), Kate...

Jonathan Williams was born and raised in Briton Ferry, Wales. For the past quarter-century, he has been a literary agent in Dublin, after working as a writers’ agent in Canada the previous six years. He founded the Poet’s Corner venture on the DART. He is an Adjunct Professor in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin.