Authors who teach for INKwell

We've assembled an amazing cast of authors to teach for us at INKwell, and you can find out more about them here. Just click on each one's name to read more about him/her.

Alex Barclay

Ivy Bannister

Claudia Carroll

Paul Carson

Tracy Culleton

Marita Connon McKenna

June Considine

Daisy Cummins/
Abby Green

Martina Devlin

Rose Doyle

Maeve Friel

Miriam Gallagher

Noelle Harrison

A.J. Healy

Kate Holmquist

George Hook

Ferdia MacAnna

Monica McInerney

Oisin McGann

Mary Malone

Sandra Mara

Lia Mills

Sinead Moriaty

Beth Morrissey

Eilis Ni Duibhne

Anita Notaro

Patricia O'Reilly

Julie Parsons

Jonathan Stroud

Sarah Webb

Trish Wylie

Grace
Wynn-Jones

Claire Hennessey

David Maybury

Jacinta McDevitt 

Niamh O'Connor

 
Chris Agee

Chris Agee was born in 1956 in San Francisco and grew up in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. He attended Harvard University and since 1979 has lived in Ireland.

He is the author of three books of poems, In the New Hampshire Woods (The Dedalus Press, 1992), First Light (The Dedalus Press, 2003) and Next to Nothing (Salt, 2009), as well as the editor of Scar on the Stone: Contemporary Poetry from Bosnia (Bloodaxe, 1998, Poetry Society Recommendation), Unfinished Ireland: Essays on Hubert Butler (Irish Pages, 2003) and The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland (Wake Forest University Press, 2008).

He is currently completing a collection of essays, Journey to Bosnia. He reviews regularly for The Irish Times and is the Editor of Irish Pages, a journal of contemporary writing based at The Linen Hall Library, Belfast. He holds dual Irish and American citizenship, and spends part of each year at his house near Dubrovnik, in Croatia.  Next to Nothing was shortlisted for the first Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, funded by the Poet Laureate and organized by the Poetry Society in London.

 Alex Barclay

Website

Darley Anderson signed her up, sent ‘Darkhouse’ out to auction and she signed a two book deal with Harper Collins for a high six figure advance.

‘Darkhouse’ is a dark gritty novel set in the US and Ireland and explores how the paths of very different people can cross geographical, political, cultural and moral boundaries simply because of the choices they make. It traces the evolution of a killer from childhood to adulthood and the evolution of a detective from the right side of the law to the wrong.

Back to Top of Page

 Ivy Bannister

Her memoir is ‘Blunt Trauma’: After the Fall of Flight 111, which was published in Ireland (2005) and in Canada (2006).

Her plays have been produced on stage and radio in Ireland, the UK and Germany, among them, ‘The Wilde Circus Show’ (Delaware, Proscenium Press, 1990).

A book of poems, ‘Loose Women’, is due out at the end of 2008.

Her radio credits include fifty contributions to RTE’s Sunday Miscellany.

Awards received among many others are the:

Ivy Bannister is also among the distinguished writers to appear recently in New Dubliners, a collection celebrating 100 years of James Joyce's Dubliners. Her current projects are a novel and a new play. She lives in Dublin and New York.

  Back to Top of Page

 Claudia Carroll

Claudia Carroll was born in Dublin and is a graduate of UCD, the College of Music and of the Gaiety School of Acting. Since then she has worked extensively as an actress on the Irish stage, but is probably best known for her role as TV’s Nicola Prendergast in the long running Dublin soap opera, ‘Fair City.’

Her first novel, ‘He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me’, was published last year, and has since been widely translated. Her second, ‘The Last Of The Great Romantics’ is due for publication this September.

Back to Top of Page

 Paul Carson

Website

Born in 1949 Paul studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, graduating with an honours degree in Paediatrics. Not long after he moved to Australia, returning to Ireland in 1984 to establish his own practice, a specialised clinic dealing with allergy problems in children. He now lives in south Dublin with his wife and two children.
 

From 1984 to 1996 Paul wrote numerous articles of medical interest for journals, newspapers and magazines in Ireland and the UK. He published five health books and two children’s novels and was a regular commentator on health and social issues on Irish radio and television.

His first thriller, ‘Scalpel’ was published in 1997, became an immediate Irish Times bestseller, spending 17 weeks at number one and a total of 33 weeks in the top five and is being developed for television. ‘Cold Steel’ followed a year later and in 2000 ‘Final Duty’hit the bookshelves. Both were Irish Times bestsellers.

‘Ambush’(2003) was an immediate Irish Times number 1 Bestseller and held the top spot for five weeks.

‘Betrayal’(released Aug 2005) is action packed with graphic descriptions of life in a high security penitentiary, from it’s explosive opening to dramatic ending. And there’s a spicy romantic angle to the hero’s chase; the doctor’s search for his girlfriend Lisa Duggan.

Paul’s novels have been translated into over a dozen languages, from German to Japanese. He is represented by the Darley Anderson literary agency.

  Back to Top of Page

 Tracy Culleton

Website

Tracy Culleton was born in Dublin in 1964. She has been writing all her life, but began her professional writing career in 2002 with the non-fiction book ‘Simply Vegetarian’. Her fiction career began when she won the 2003 'Write A Bestseller' Competition jointly run by Poolbeg and RTE's Open House. This winning novel, ‘Looking Good’, went on to spend three weeks in the top ten. ‘Loving Lucy’ was published in 2004 and ‘More Than Friends’ in 2005. She is currently working on her fourth novel, ‘Grace Under Pressure’.

Tracy has extensive experience in adult education, having worked with NALA as an adult literacy tutor. Tracy focuses on commercial fiction, and has a special interest in the reasons for, and the cures for, writer's block, and has written a non-fiction book about this.

Back to Top of Page

 Marita
Connon-McKenna

Born in Dublin in 1956 Marita was always fascinated by the Famine period in Irish history and read everything available on the subject. Hearing a radio report of an unmarked children's grave from the Famine period found under a hawthorn tree, she decided to write her first book, ‘Under the Hawthorn Tree’.

Published in May 1990, it was an immediate success, remaining in the Irish Bestseller List for over two years, sold to Puffin in Britain and Holiday House in America, and has been translated into French, Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and Irish. It has been made a supplementary curriculum reader in many schools and is also used by schools in Northern Ireland for EMU (Education through Mutual Understanding) projects. ‘Under the Hawthorn Tree’ has been filmed for RTÉ and Channel 4.

Marita went on to write several more books for children : ‘The Blue Horse’ reached No. 1 on the Bestseller List and in 1993 won the Bisto Book Of The Year Award. ‘No Goodbye’ tells of the heartbreak of a young family when their mother leaves home. It was recommended by Book Trust in their guide for One Parent Families. ‘Safe Harbour’ is the story of two English children evacuated from London during World War ll to live with their grandfather in Greystones, Co Wicklow. It was shortlisted for the Bisto Book of the Year Award, 1995. Marita's first foray into the world of fantasy, ‘In Deep Dark Wood’, was also a huge success..

Marita has won awards, including the International Reading Association Award, the Osterreichischer Kinder und Jugendbuchpreis, the Reading Association of Ireland Award and the Bisto Book of the Year Award.

Back to Top of Page

 June Considine

June Considine has written extensively for children and adults. Her twelve books for children include the fantasy trilogy: ‘When the Luvenders Came to Merrick Town’, ‘Luvenders at the Old Mill’ and‘Island of Luvenders’

Seven popular teen books published under the heading ‘The Beachwood Series’ and also ‘View from a Blind Bridge’ and ‘The Glass Triangle’, are all published by Poolbeg Press

Her adult novels, published by New Island, are:

Her work has also appeared in a number of short story anthologies for teenagers in Ireland, the UK and US. Anthologies include: Her work has also appeared in a number of short story anthologies for teenagers in Ireland, the UK and US. Anthologies include First Times, Poolbeg Press, Thicker than Water, Delacorte and Orion, Skimming, O’Brien Press, Flame Angels, Mammoth, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, St Martin’s Press, USA

Over the years she has worked as a freelance journalist and as an editor specialising in the fashion and craft industries - and has written scripts for children’s television/radio, as well as participating in Sunday Miscellany.

Back to Top of Page

 Daisy Cummins
Abby Green

Website

Living in Dublin, Abby spent her childhood holidays in Ballybunion Co. Kerry. One summer she discovered a Mills and Boon library book in her grandmother's bedroom. “Either my very good, catholic grandmother had picked it up by mistake or she was a closet fan. I read it. Devoured it. And started looking out for more. The love affair had begun.”

Devouring every available title at school, her obsession with Mills and Boon waxed and waned but never disappeared. After school, Abby got a job as a trainee assistant film director in her gap year - by the time the year was up she was working on a film and being paid very well, so she deferred another year…and another…and another.

Roughly fourteen years later, Abby was still in the film business but the long hours, dubious weather conditions (especially in Ireland!), and stressful situations had started taking their toll when she stumbled across a guide to writing romance, and encouraged by friends, decided to give writing for Mills and Boon a go.

Sending off three chapters and a synopsis, her first attempt was rejected but it was a 'good' rejection, a page long letter of do's and don'ts and further encouragement.. In March 2006, she got the call that she had sold my first manuscript and can honestly say that her life changed. “To strive to do something, to wish and hope that your dream might possibly be fulfilled, and then to have it be fulfilled…is a joy on a level that i've never experienced before.”

Daisy Cummins/Abby Green recently featured on the Today With Pat Kenny show offering advise to aspiring Mills and Boon authors as part of the Today with Pat Kenny/RTE Guide Mills and Boon Romance Short Story Competition.

Back to Top of Page

 Martina Devlin

Website

Martina Devlin was born in Omagh, Co Tyrone and lived in London for seven years before settling near the sea in Dublin. She started writing fiction in her spare time after winning a Hennessy Literary Award for her first short story in 1996.

This was followed by four novels:

Her fifth book, ‘The Hollow Heart’, is non-fiction and was published by Penguin in September 2005, out in paperback in June 29, 2006.

She is a columnist for the Irish Independent and the Sunday World magazine. Occasionally she teaches creative writing on both sides of the border as an excuse not to write herself.

Back to Top of Page

 Rose Doyle 

Rose Doyle has been writing for most of her life, more journalism than she cares to remember as well as thirteen novels, short stories, plays for radio, TV documentaries and short film scripts. She has a BA Mod. in English Literature and Language from TCD, a Hennessy New Irish Writing literary award for a short story and a Bisto Book of the Year award for ‘Goodbye Summer, Goodbye’, her novel for teenagers.

Rose Doyle has recently joined other Irish writers writing for the ‘Open Door’ series of literacy novellas and books published by New Island. Just published too is ‘Trade Names’, a collection of pieces from her long running series on Dublin's traditional traders and shopkeepers in The Irish Times.

A move to historical fiction came when she determined to write about a community of unknown and unsung 19th. century Irishwomen. Known as Wrens, they lived bleak, unforgiven lives on the Curragh of Kildare. Their story is told in ‘Friends Indeed.’ Her second historical novel, ‘Fate and Tomorrow’, tells of an Irishwoman's journey to the early 20th.Century Congo Free State. Her story links and parallels the frenzied, changing times in both countries and the work of Sir Roger Casement and others to end genocide and torture. Her third ‘Gambling With Darkness’ is a murder mystery set in the unpredictable world of espionage, obsession and wartime links with Nazi Germany which existed in neutral, World War 11 Ireland. It is also the love story of a young Irishwoman and German doctor teaching in University College Dublin. ‘Gambling With Darkness’ was followed by ‘Shadows will Fall’ bringing Roses’ publications to sixteen.

Her latest book, ’Heros of Jadotville: The Soldiers¹ Story’  was published by New Island in September 2006. It tells, in the words and memories of those who fought there, of the injustice done a group of Irish UN Soldiers in the mining town of Jadotville, Congo in 1961 and its consequence. Unforgettably, the soldiers' story illustrates how life, death and honour are of value only in their usefullness.

Back to Top of Page

 Maeve Friel 

Website

Maeve Friel is the author of the popular series Witch in Training (Harper Collins) which has been translated into a dozen languages and is also available as a BBC audio book. Her latest book is Tiger Lily - Heroine in the Making (Stripes), the first of a series.

Her picture books for younger readers include Felix on the Move and Felicity Floss: Tooth Fairy. Novels for older readers include The Lantern Moon (Poolbeg) which was awarded the Bisto Merit Award.

Her short stories have been widely anthologised e.g. in Midnight Feast (Harper Collins), Christmas Animal Stories (Little Tiger Press) and Scary Stories for 10 year olds (Macmillan).

Winner of the Hennessy Award, her short stories for adults have been broadcast on BBC and RTE radio and she has also written a non-fiction title Here Lies - a guide to who’s buried where in Ireland.

Born in Derry, Maeve is a graduate of University College Dublin. She now divides her time between Dublin and a small village near Valencia, Spain. She has two grown-up children.

Back to Top of Page

 Miriam Gallagher

Website

Miriam Gallagher is an Irish author, playwright and screenwriter.

Her work has been staged and screened in Ireland, Europe, USA & Canada and translated into Irish, Dutch, Finnish and Russian.

Her published Selected Plays are :

Her Novel ‘Song for Salamander’ was published in 2004 (Trafford, Canada) and launched at the United Arts Club, Dublin by Macdara Woods, a leading Irish poet who called it 'A paradigm for our times.'

Her short stories are published in several anthologies of Irish Writing.

Her Films:

‘Gypsies’ had screenings in Ireland, UK, New York, San Francisco and at International Children's Film Festival, Hyderabad, India.

She received Arts Council & European Script Fund awards for ‘Girls in Silk Kimonos’ (feature length screenplay celebrating Constance & Eva Gore Booth)

Other awards include MHA Tv Script Award for Kevin, EU Theatre award and a Writer's Exchange to Finland.

Back to Top of Page

  Noëlle Harrison

Website

Noëlle Harrison was born in London in 1967. She went to the University of London and moved to her mother’s homeland, Ireland, in 1991. While based in Dublin in the early nineties she wrote and produced three stage plays, Northern Landscapes, Black Virgin, and Runaway Wife, and one short film, Blue Void with her theatre company - Aurora.

In 1997 Noëlle moved to Meath and shortly afterwards won The Meath Chronicle / Bookwise Short Story Competition. In 2002 she was short listed for the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award and in 2003 she was short listed for The Hennessy / Sunday Tribune New Irish Writing Award. She was awarded the Meath County Council / Tyrone Guthrie Regional Bursary Award for 2004. She has written extensively on visual art in Ireland, contributing to various journals and artists’ catalogues.

Noëlle’s first novel Beatrice was published in August 2004 by Tivoli/ Pan Macmillan to considerable critical acclaim. She has been described as “a deeply impressive new voice”. A new play The Good Sister premiered in The Ramor Theatre, Cavan in February 2005. Her second novel, A Small Part Of Me, was published by Tivoli / Pan Macmillan in September 2005 and also received great reviews.

Noëlle travelled to the Camargue in the south of France to research her third novel I Remember published by Pan Macmillan in September 2008.

She lives in Oldcastle, County Meath with her son Corey.

Back to Top of Page

 A.J. Healy

Website

By the age of three, A. J. had taken a drugs overdose (accidental*) crashed the family car through the garage (probably accidental) and been suspended twice from school (no accident).

When A.J. was five, his father left the family home and emigrated, leaving his mother (Marguerite) to bring up A.J. and his younger brother alone, until she remarried six years later - subsequently introducing another baby boy to the family (not accidental)

Having completed school and a BComm, A.J. travelled the world, working in Australia, before taking a job with Goldman Sachs in London.

Two years later, he left Goldmans to start a brick factory in one of South Africa’s townships. After a series of mishaps and adventures (including being held-up at gunpoint and losing a number of lorries) A.J. returned to Europe, involving himself in a variety of ventures.

In October 2001, at the age of 32, A.J. ditched the world of entrepreneurial endeavour (and vice-versa) to follow his life-long passion - getting up late and writing plays & stories.

A.J. had put aside a number of years' worth of savings to fund his writing efforts but, due to bad luck (or complete stupidity), he lost all these savings at the start of 2002.

Slightly peeved, humbled and surviving on berries & own-label beer, A.J. shut all financial worries from his mind and wrote ‘Tommy Storm’.

Back to Top of Page

 Kate Holmquist

She is a high profile Irish Times journalist who is highly regarded for her sensitive and nuanced writing on a range of issues. She lives in Dubiin with her husband, journalist, broadcaster and author, Ferdia MacAnna, and their three children. She is also the author of a memoir, ‘A Good Daughter’.

Back to Top of Page

 George Hook 

Presenter of Newstalk 106’s flagship programme ‘The Right Hook’, Cork man George Hook is an instantly recognisable face in Irish media.

Combining hard-hitting news and current affairs with strong comment and opinion the show is presented in George’s inimitable style, unashamedly playing to his strong personality. He has lived a full and varied life and brings that experience to his audience on a daily basis.

In 2005 George published his best selling autobiography ‘Time Added On’, the success of which has been due, in no small measure, George’s ability to connect with his audience and wear his heart on his sleeve.

Back to Top of Page

 Ferdia MacAnna

• ‘The Last of the High Kings’ (London, Viking, 1991) 
• The Ship Inspector’ (Viking, 1995); 
• ‘Cartoon City’ (London, Headline, 2000) 

The film of The Last of the High Kings was released in 1996 staring Gabriel Bryne. A heartwarming comedy of friendship, family and first love, ‘The Last of The High Kings’ is a coming-of-age story that helps us remember that nothing will ever seem as serious as life did at seventeen:

It’s 1977; a time when Dublin rocked to the music of ‘Thin Lizzy’, the year ‘Elvis’ died, and the summer that 17-year-old ‘Frankie Griffin’ walked that line between leaving school and starting his life. Frankie decides to throw himself into the last summer of his teens with reckless abandon.

Along with his lifelong pals, Frankie’s aim is to catch the attention of the two most beautiful girls in town, but his plans for social glory keep running into trouble thanks to his large and eccentric family. With a thespian father, for whom the world is a stage, a mother who claims that her son is descended from the High Kings of Ireland and a crew of brothers and sisters that make the unpredictable seem boring, this summer Frankie might learn more about life than he bargained for.

Starring Jared Leto (Fight Club, Girl Interrupted), Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects, Millers Crossing), Catherine OíHara (A Mighty Wind, Waiting For Guffman).

Ferdia also edited ‘The Penguin Book of Comic Irish Writing’ (London, Penguin, 1996), and has published a memoir, ‘Bald Head, A Cancer Story’ (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, Letters from the New Island series, 1988).

In 1991 he joined RTÉ as a producer/director and worked on programmes including 'Cursaí', 'Upwardly Mobile' and 'Fair City'. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he was better known as Rocky de Valera, lead singer with The Gravediggers and later The Rhythm Kings. He lives in Dublin.

Back to Top of Page

 Monica McInerney

Australian-born Monica McInerney is the author of the best-selling novels ‘Those Faraday Girls’ (‘The Faraday Girls’ in the USA), ‘Family Baggage’, ‘The Alphabet Sisters’, ‘Spin the Bottle’ (‘Greetings from Somewhere Else’ in the USA), ‘Upside Down Inside Out’ and ‘A Taste for It’, and a short story collection ‘All Together Now’, published internationally and in translation.

Her articles and short stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in Australia, the UK and Ireland. Her most recent novel, ‘Those Faraday Girls’, won the General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards.

In 2006, Monica was the main ambassador for the Australian Government's Books Alive national reading campaign, for which she wrote a limited edition novella called Odd One Out

Monica was a book publicist for ten years, working in Ireland and Australia and promoting authors such as Roald Dahl, Tim Winton, Edna O'Brien and Max Fatchen and events such as the Dublin International Writers' Festival.

She has also worked as an event manager and organiser of tourism festivals in the Clare Valley; as a freelance writer/editor and in arts marketing in South Australia; a public relations consultant in Tasmania; a record company press officer in Sydney; a barmaid in an Irish music pub in London and as a temp, grapepicker, hotel cleaner, kindergym instructor and waitress. Her first job out of school as a 17-year-old was as wardrobe girl (and later scriptwriter) for the children’s TV show Here’s Humphrey at Channel 9 in Adelaide. She is now a full-time writer.

For the past seventeen years she and her Irish husband have been moving back and forth between Australia and Ireland. They currently live in Dublin.

Back to Top of Page

 Oisin McGann

Website

Oisin McGann started writing and illustrating stories in copybooks when he was about six or seven, setting himself on a path that would steer him well clear of ever obtaining of a proper job.

He signed up for a design and print foundation course in Ballyfermot Senior College, Dublin, in 1990 and then studied animation at Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design.

After completing his contract, he decided to expand his horizons and left for London in February 1998 to seek his fortune. He found gainful employment as a security guard, watching over trains and then hospitals.

In January 1999, he joined the M&M Consultancy, a small advertising and design firm, as art director and soon expanded into copy writing. After three and a half years of working in advertising he became increasingly concerned for his immortal soul.

He returned to Ireland in the summer of 2002 much as he had left - with no job, no home and some meagre savings. He set himself up as a freelance illustrator once more, before getting his first books published in 2003.

Oisin now works full-time as a writer and illustrator. He lives somewhere in the Irish countryside, where he won’t be heard shouting at his computer. He has won many awards:

In 2008, ‘Small-Minded Giants’ was shortlisted for the Coventry Inspiration Awards, which are open to any book, rather than just those published in the relevant year.

In 2007, ‘Ancient Appetites’ was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.

In May 2007, ‘Small-Minded Giants’ was recommended by the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson and the School Library Association in the UK on a one-off list of Top 160 Books For Boys (No. 44).

In 2006, ‘Under Fragile Stone’ was shortlisted for the Bisto Book of the Year Award.

In 2006, ‘The Gods And Their Machines’, published by Tor in the United States, was shortlisted for Locus Magazine's Best First Novel Award.

In 2005, ‘The Gods and Their Machines’ and ‘The Harvest Tide Projec’t were both shortlisted for the Reading Association of Ireland Award, the first time an author has had two books on the same shortlist for this award.

In 2005, ‘The Gods and Their Machines’ won a Bisto Book of the Year Merit Award

The complete list of his books is:

O’Brien Press

Books for 5+:

• The Baby Giant (out Spring 2009) 

Books for 6+:

• Mad Grandad’s Flying Saucer - 2003 
• Mad Grandad’s Robot Garden - 2003 
• Mad Grandad And The Mutant River - 2005 
• Mad Grandad And The Kleptoes - 2005 
• Mad Grandad’s Wicked Pictures - 2007 

Books for 8+:

• The Evil Hairdo - 2006 
• The Poison Factory - 2006 
• Wired Teeth - 2008 

Novels:

• The Gods And Their Machines - 2004 
• The Harvest Tide Project - 2004 
• Under Fragile Stone - 2005 
• Random House 
• Small-Minded Giants - 2006 
• Ancient Appetites - 2007 
• Strangled Silence - 2008 
• Barrington Stoke 
• The Goblin of Tara - 2007 

Back to Top of Page

 Mary Malone 

Website

Mary had submitted her first book to Dodder Press the previous year and had completely forgotten about it - she was already began working on her next novel. Her debut novel, ‘Love Match’, is set in Kinsale (her favourite place!) and was launched in July 2006. Her second novel, ‘All You Need Is Love’, is set in Bandon and came out in August 2007. As well as working full time Mary is a journalist who has contributed many articles to magazines and newspapers all over the country. She has recently signed with Poolbeg Publishers for her third book.

Back to Top of Page

 Sandra Mara 

Website

In ‘No Job For A Woman’ Sandra Mara, Ireland’s first female private investigator, following in the footsteps of her father Bill Kavanagh who started Irelands first detective agency in 1947, lifts the lid on the secret life of the nation.

An international investigator for over twenty-five years, she acted for government agencies, multi-nationals, professional bodies and media outlets around the world. She was on the board of the International Security Investigation Service (ISIS) - the Swiss based PI equivalent to Interpol and was a founder member and former President of the Institute of Investigators

Sandra was a member of numerous international organisations, including the Forensic Science Society, the World Association of Detective (WAD) the Association of British Investigators and the Council of International Investigators.

She was the recipient of several awards and was voted International Investigator of the Year by the World Association of Detectives, travelling to Singapore to accept her Award. She also won the Irish Security Association ‘Innovation Award’ for ‘outstanding work in raising the standards in her specialised area’.

Sandra holds a masters degree in journalism from DCU and was investigative journalist with Magill magazine for four years, exposing political and other scandals such as the Donegal garda story. Sandra was a journalist with the Sunday Tribune and a contributor to The Examiner and The Dubliner, as well as numerous radio and television programmes both in Ireland and abroad. Sandra is a regular panelist on Newstalk’s Late Night Live. 

Back to Top of Page
 

 Lia Mills

Lia Mills is the author of two novels (Another Alice and Nothing Simple) and a memoir, In Your Face, which tells the story of a diagnosis of oral cancer and its treatment. She also writes short stories and literary non-fiction. An experienced facilitator of creative writing workshops, she has worked on several public art commissions. She is currently working on her third novel. 

Back to Top of Page

 Sinead Moriarty

After university, she went to live in Paris and then London. It was at the age of thirty, while working as a journalist in London that she began to write creatively in her spare time - after work, at lunch times ….and, truth be told, during work hours.

After a couple of years toying with ideas, she joined a creative writing group and began to write The Baby Trail. The bitter-sweet comedy of a couple struggling to conceive hit a nerve in publishing circles. It was snapped up by Penguin publishing in the UK and Ireland and has, to date, been translated into twenty languages.

Since writing The Baby Trail, Sinead has moved back to Dublin where she lives with her husband and her two young sons.

Her second book A Perfect Match has been published worldwide. The US version of A Perfect Match is called The Right Fit.
Her third novel - From Here to Maternity - is the final instalment of the Emma and James trilogy.

Her fourth book - In My Sister's Shoes - has just been published.

Back to Top of Page

 Beth Morrissey

 Website

Beth Morissey is a freelance writer currently living in Dublin, Ireland. Prior to landing in the Emerald Isle, Beth lived in America, England and Singapore, and she is thankful everyday for her globetrotting opportunities.

Beth has written over 300 articles for international print and online publication and uses her Masters Degree in Library and Information Studies to research for both individuals and organizations. Currently, Beth is expanding her horizons by teaching adult education courses in the Dublin area, and in her spare time, enjoys volunteering with children and literacy initiatives. 

Back to Top of Page

 Eilis Ni Dhuibhne 

Website

Her work has received many awards - the Stewart Parker Award for Drama, the Butler Award for Prose, several Bisto Awards for children's books, and Oireachtas awards for writing in Irish. The Dancers Dancing was shorltisted for the Orange Prize in 2000.

Eilis has taught creative writing over many years, facilitating workshops in the Irish Writers' Centre, Peoples' College, Listowel Writers' Week, and other venues. She has been writer in residence at the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College, and currently conducts creative writing workshops on the MA in Creative Writing in UCD. Eilis is also a member of Aosdana

She has written more than twenty works of fiction, including novels ‘The Bray House’ ,’The Dancers Dancing’, ‘Fox’, and ‘Swallow Scarecrow’.

Her short story collections include:

Back to Top of Page

 Anita Notaro

Anita Notaro is a TV producer, journalist and director, who worked for RTÉ for eighteen years. She has directed the Eurovision Song Contest and the Irish General Election, as well as programmes for the BBC and Channel 4.

Take a Look at Me Now by Anita Notaro was shortlisted for the Galaxy Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year in the Irish Book Awards.

Take a Look at Me Now her fourth novel, which was published to great critical acclaim in October 2007 went on to reach number three in the Irish Book Charts.

The shortlist of just six books includes some of the most renowned authors of popular fiction in Ireland today, such as Sheila O’Flanagan and Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. The Irish Book Awards were established in 2006 with the aim of promoting and celebrating excellence in Irish writing.

Novels by Anita Notaro:

Back to Top of Page

 Niamh O'Connor

 Patricia O'Reilly

Website

Patricia O’Reilly’s latest book ‘Writing for Success’ was written to help first-time writers; those looking for guidance on the publishing process and as an informational dip-in for established writers.

Her fiction which is widely translated includes ‘Time & Destiny’, a fantasised biography of Irish designer, Eileen Gray; ‘Felicity’s Wedding’ and ‘Once upon a Summer’.

As well as ‘Writing for Success’, her non-fiction titles are ‘Working Mothers’, ‘Earning your Living from Home’, ‘Writing for the Market’ and ‘Dying with Love’.

Patricia divides her time between researching and writing, and lecturing and convening courses on various aspects of writing.

She has come the route of freelance journalism with features for both newspapers and magazines at home and abroad; and has had her radio plays, documentaries, short stories and cameo pieces produced on both RTE and the BBC.

Back to Top of Page

 Julie Parsons 

• Mary, Mary 
• The Courtship Gift 
• Eager to Please 
• The Guilty Heart 
• The Hourglass 

Back to Top of Page

 Jonathan Stroud

Website

Jonathan Stroud is the New York Times International Best Selling author of the‘Bartimeaus Trilogy’. He left university without a clue what to do, but got an editorial job at Walker Books in London, and began to learn about children's books.

For several years he worked as an editor: helping authors with their ideas and their texts, consulting with designers and artists about the visual side, helping to create books of many kinds. He also worked on encyclopaedias, history books, game books and even a children's Bible.

This taught him a lot of things about structure, pace and style; meanwhile, in his free time, he was busy writing. He did several puzzle books for Walker, and began working on a novel too.

When ‘Buried Fire’ was published in 1999, he knew that he had found what he truly wanted to do, but it took until 2001 before he finally took the plunge, gave up being an editor and began to write full time. Between 2003 and 2005 he published‘The Bartimaeus Trilogy’ consisting of ‘The Amulet of Samarkand’, ‘The Golem’s Eye’ and ‘Ptolemy’s Gate’. These are his most popular books, and are being published in 38 countries worldwide.

In addition to ‘The Bartimeaus Trilogy’ and ‘Burried Fire’ Jonathan has written ‘The Last Seige’, ‘The Leap’, ‘The Viking Saga of Harri Bristlebeard’, ‘The Lost Treasure of Captain Blood’. His latest book, due out in early 2009 is ‘Heroes of the Valley’. His books have won many international awards.
http://www.jonathanstroud.com/index.htm

Back to Top of Page

 Sarah Webb

Website

Sarah Webb worked in the book business for many years and now writes full time as well as working as a children’s book consultant.

She has written seven bestsellers:

• Three Times A Lady 
• Always A Bridesmaid 
• Something To Talk About 
• Take A Chance 
• It Had To Be You 
• When The Boys Are Away 

She also compiled and edited ‘Travelling Light’, a non-fiction travel book in aid of Kisiizi Hospital in Uganda.

Sarah has also programmed and spoken at many popular and successful readers’ days.

 Trish Wylie

Website

Trish Wylie is one of the few Irish Mills and Boon authors and lives in Fermanagh. Trish Wylie is a Romantic Times Award Winner, wrote the Best First Series Romance in 2005 and Best Silhouette Romance in 2006. She has also received the Virginia Romance Writers Holt Medallion Award for outstanding literary talent.

Her latest book, The Firefighter's Chosen Bride is the story of Finn and Shane who have been fighting the attraction between them for a while before Finn manages to burn her house down and end up under Shane's roof where it's a little tougher to fight that attraction! Known in the Modern Extra/Sexy Sensation world's as White-Hot! it won a Cataromance Reviewers Choice Award as Best Modern Extra in the second half of 2006... and made the Waldenbooks best seller list.

Back to Top of Page

 Grace Wynn-Jones 

Website

Her short stories have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and Australia, and have also been broadcast on RTE and BBC Radio 4.
 

Grace is the author of four critically acclaimed novels:

• ‘Ordinary Miracles’ (Simon & Schuster/Pocket), which reached number 3 on the Irish bestseller lists 
• ‘Wise Follies’ (Simon & Schuster/Pocket ) 
• Ready Or Not?' (Tivoli) which reached number 6 on the Irish bestseller lists and was described as 'one of the best Irish novels this year' (Valerie Cox, Evening Herald, 2003) 
• 'The Truth Club'(Tivoli), which was selected for the Barry's Tea Book Club Summer Reading List. 

Accent Press will publish new editions of all her novels in 2007. Grace has frequently been praised for the warm belly-laugh humour and tender poignancy in her writing and has been described as 'a novelist who tells the truth about the human heart.

Back to Top of Page

Claire Hennessey

Claire Hennessy is author of nine young adult novels. She was born in Dublin in 1986 and attended Trinity College Dublin. She teaches creative writing workshops and is the editor of an online magazine for gifted teenagers. Her first book, Dear Diary..., was written when she was twelve and published by Poolbeg shortly before her fourteenth birthday. Her latest book Every Summer is out now.

Back to Top of Page

David Maybury

Website

David Maybury is a writer, reader, blogger, editor, the Oddbally nose-picking champion 2009 and judge for the Bisto Book of the Year Awards 2010. He reads books and talks about them at his website.

Back to Top of Page

Jacinta McDevitt 

Jacinta McDevitt is the author of three best selling novels, ‘Sign’s On’, ‘Handle With Care’ and ‘Excess Baggage’.   She has also won awards for her short stories and her stories have been included in short story compilations, "Thirty and Fabulous”, "Party Animals" and "Mum's the Word".  She has also had a series of articles called "That's Life"  published in Woman's Way.   Jacinta was short-listed for the Francis McManus Awards with her short story “Way To Go, Dad”. 

Jacinta has one non-fiction book published "Write A Book In A Year Writing Workshop & Workbook'.   For a number of years she has been giving writing workshops privately and for public bodies such as the County Councils and libraries. The popularity of these workshops and a demand she couldn’t keep up with led her to put her workshops into book form and  so  the hugely successful "Write A Book In A Year Writing Workshop & Workbook"  was born.

Back to Top of Page

Sarah Traynor

Sarah Traynor  is author of "How to have a Champagne Wedding on a Buck's Fizz Budget" published by Gill and Macmillan. Sarah won the inaugural Sunday Tribune Roberta Gray Feature Writing Award in 2007 for her short story 'Coming Home'. She is also a freelance journalist and co-founder of www.budgetwedding.ie launched earlier this year. When not writing, she works in the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.  Following a Degree in Geography and Anthropology in NUI Maynooth Sarah completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and a Masters in Communications and Cultural Studies in DCU.

She lives in Meath with her husband and two young sons and is working on her next book (fiction!).

Back to Top of Page

Niamh O'Connor

Niamh O'Connor is the number one bestselling author of The Black Widow – The Catherine Nevin Story, and Cracking Crime – about the Forensic detective, Jim Donovan, on which an RTE series was based.

She has a degree in English and Masters in Journalism, and works as a full time crime reporter with the Sunday World newspaper. Her true crime book Blood Ties (Transworld Ireland) was a best seller in September 2009, and Niamh’s novel If I Never See You Again hit the best seller list at number 5 in June 2010. It is due out in the UK in May 2011.

Back to Top of Page