Edel Coffey
Edel has always wanted to write fiction. “I got into journalism as a pragmatic response to a romantic dream of being a writer,” she says. After doing placements at The Tribune during her degree, she…
Nita Prose
Nita remembers the moment, at 3 ½, that she realised she could read, and the world of stories opened up. “I was always good with words,” she says, “and hopeless at almost everything else.”…
Claire Lynch
Claire’s family were great users of the library. “I always wanted to be a writer, but in the way people who love to read want to – as an abstract fantasy. I wasn’t chasing it.”…
Niall Bourke
Niall came from a house full of books. But at college he became fascinated by the whole area of economics. After college he spent a year in Australia doing any job he could find. “I put…
Ian Mark.
When Ian was 5 years old, and living in Derbyshire, he wrote a story, and his English teacher was so impressed that she bound it and made a cover. “That’s when I decided I wanted to…
Declan O’Rourke
From an intensely musical family, Declan took up the guitar at 13, and hasn’t put it down since. “I started writing songs at 15, when a singer we auditioned for our band said, ‘Let’s play…
Beginner’s Pluck. Lara Cullen.
As a child Lara wanted to be a psychologist or a TV presenter, but after university she gained a graduate position in HR with Corrs Brewers. “It gave me an amazing foundation.” After five years she…
Maeve Murphy
A precocious young reader, Maeve became involved in the Cambridge Footlights at University, acting and writing sketches. Graduating, she moved to Camden Town, London, and co-founded the theatre company, Trouble and Strife. “Later, living in…
Robert L Harris
Robert’s American parents moved around a lot when he was a child. And he hasn’t lived in America since going to Edinburgh in the late 1970’s to take a postgraduate degree. His wife is from Kerry…
Breda Joyce
From the time she was a young child, Breda always had her head in a book. “There were 10 of us,” she says. “I was number two. It wasn’t a bookish house, but I loved…
Evanna Lynch
An imaginative child, Evanna loved craft and design; she also adored reading and writing. “Books were everything to me,” she says, “and I loved writing letters. I joined a pen pal club when I was really…
James Conor Patterson
James’s parents had emigrated to England for work before his birth; they returned to Newry when James was six. “It coincided with the ceasefire,” says James. He became interested in writing through music and lyrics and…