Tara Westover
Following a dysfunctional childhood, Tara embraced education. In 2014, after ten years as an academic, she moved from Cambridge to London to write a memoir. But after concentrating on academic writing for ten years, she had…
Dervla McTiernan
As a child Dervla moved from Cork to Dublin, Limerick, and then to Galway where she spent her teens. A lawyer, she worked in Dublin before setting up practice in Oranmore at 26. “I worked for…
Rhiannon Navin
Brought up in Germany, Rhiannon moved to New York, when the advertising agency she worked for in Düsseldorf sent her there for four months. “I met my husband the first week I was there, and I…
Debut Roundup for March
Restless Souls by Dan Sheehan. Orion. When I’m sent a debut that’s been garlanded with advance praise, I tend to be a tad nervous; and when the book’s protagonists are young men who have lost their…
Emma Quigley
Emma loved writing in school, but she was more interested in film. After college, however, she turned to the world of IT, and has been working in that industry since. “I worked in Limerick, then moved…
Dan Sheehan
Dan Sheehan’s mother wanted her four children to study for an employable job; instead they chose the arts, with Dan’s youngest brother following him into a career in writing. This was, perhaps, inevitable. “There’s weren’t writers…
Mary Watson
Always a prolific reader, Mary wrote and illustrated her first book, aged five. She loved learning, and adored life at university. Studying Creative Writing in South Africa, under the tutelage of Andre Brink, she wrote a…
Patricia Gibney
Patricia’s first ambition was to be a journalist, but after school, she went into the civil service. “I started in the postal section of children’s allowance during Ireland’s longest postal strike in 1979. After three months…
Norma MacMaster
Norma sent her first story to RTE when she was 8. They sent it back saying there was a flaw in the plot. Her parents wanted her to become a pharmacist, and work in the family…
Patrick Chapman
Patrick’s writing life started at age 6, with comics. Then he started writing adventure stories. After college, he worked in advertising, for various companies, covering accounts such as Aer Lingus, An Post, and Guinness. “I worked…
Dr Rangan Chatterjee
Son of a hospital consultant, Rangan has always been interested in medicine. But he’s also passionate about sport, and music; at 11, he learned four instruments. “After university I worked in Edinburgh for two years. I’d…
Sheila Llewellyn
When Sheila was 8, she moved, with her father, to British Ghana. There was no school, so She spent her days reading in the mining camp library, or being tutored by her father, up country. But…