Mary Manning
A lifelong reader, Mary started with Enid Blyton, progressing to Jane Austen. After school, she took an ANCO – (now FAS,) course in office work, then spent 10 months working in an office in Jordan Street….
Anthony Carragher
Anthony has always loved reading. “As a child, I devoured books from the library,” he says. “My grandfather used to drink with the poet, Patrick Kavanagh, and I found the stories he told very romantic.” Mad…
Alison Hackett
Alison worked at the Central bank for a summer, whist still at university. Afterwards, taking an H DIP, she taught for a year, then followed her husband around whilst he pursued his medical career. “We lived…
Fiona Mitchell
Sending poems off, aged 12, Fiona became used to rejection! She worked in publishing; first at her university, on the alumnae magazine, then for Zigzag as an editor for children’s nonfiction publishing. Then she moved into…
Stephen McGann
Stephen left school having flunked his A’levels, suffering from agoraphobia. He became involved in the Everyman Youth Theatre in Liverpool, and followed his three brothers into acting, starring, with them, in the West End hit musical,…
Melanie Murphy
When Melanie was young, she wanted to be a teacher, but, being terrible at Irish, she didn’t get enough points in her Leaving Certificate. “I was really upset,” she says. “I worked in shops, and then…
Carlo Gebler
I meet Carlo Gébler at the main gate of Trinity College, in the heart of Dublin, where, as an assistant professor, he is teaching a course on writing for a living. In ebullient form, he tells…
Lee Child
Lee Child adores Ireland. An admirer of the late Seamus Heaney, he loves it for the storytelling and lyricism of the language, so when we meet in Dublin on a rainy Friday morning, the 63-year-old is…
Peter Cunningham
Peter Cunningham’s father served in World War Two. And though Peter knew he was brave – he was the only Irishman to be awarded the Military Cross – he always wondered how his fortunes had, suddenly…
Roddy Doyle
When Roddy Doyle was thirteen years old, and in first year at the Christian Brothers School in Sutton, the class were trying to convince their French teacher not to give them homework. The Brother looked at…
Karen Perry
When the poet, and short-story writer Paul Perry suggested that he and his friend Karen Gillece should write a novel together, Karen was sceptical. The novelist of four successful books was busy working on a fifth….
Nicole Krauss
It’s been seven years since Nicole Krauss last produced a novel. Her publishers have made much of this in their publicity for her new novel, Forest Dark, but the 43-year-old, recognised both by Granta and The…