Vera Twomey
An only child who grew up on a farm, Vera loved the outdoors. “I was interested in camogie, and I’d read anything. I loved writing too, and had two short stories published when I was at…
Isabel Vincent
When Isabel Vincent’s friend Valerie asked her to look in on her father, Edward, and have dinner with him, she didn’t know what to expect. She knew the nonagenarian was depressed – that his wife had…
Úna-Minh Kavanagh
Úna-Minh was born creative. “I’ve always loved the radio, and I used to create my own plays and stories.” Brought up in an Irish heritage, Úna-Minh is passionate about the Irish language. Graduating from DCU, she…
Catherine Chung
Catherine always wanted to be a poet. But, with no creative writing programmes on offer at her university, she studied mathematics instead. “I fell in love with maths. It’s so poetic. But literature felt like my…
Maura McElhone
Eldest child of a journalist and a pharmacist, Maura loved the Arts at school. “We had a drama festival and a musical every year.” She took drama A ‘level and played the fiddle in a traditional…
Stacey Halls
Stacey wrote and illustrated story books as a child and gave them away as presents. “I took a favourite Enid Blyton story and put myself in it. It wasn’t creative – it was plagiarism.” Daughter of…
Ken O’Sullivan
Spending all his childhood summers, fishing, on Fenit Island, Ken has always felt at one with the sea. “I connected with it; with the seasons and the tide.” He also loved music. And when he left…
Review. The Danger and the Glory. Irish Authors on the Art of Writing
How do writer’s write? Where does their inspiration come from, and what is their process of putting their words on the printed page? All this holds endless fascination for passionate readers, and for those who, eager…
David Brennan
David read everything he could, as a child, and in his teens he loved poetry. “I wrote my first poem when I was on detention,” he says. “I loved Emily Dickinson and John Milton, but, playing…
Anna Hope
There’s a scene in Anna Hope’s new novel, where Lissa, an actress auditioning for a TV advertisement, is told to flirt with a plate of chocolate cookies in front of a roomful of men. It’s humiliating…
Debut Roundup November/December 2019
Call Him Mine by Tim MacGabhann. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. ISBN 978 1 4746 1045 2` There’s been a dearth of interesting debuts by Irish males of late, so I was pleased when this literary thriller by…
Pat Marry
Pat has wanted to be a Garda since he encountered one, aged 8. He applied at 17. “They said, ‘you’re too skinny, go and get flesh on your bones – and you have to be 18…