Ally Bunbury.
Ally Bunbury’s earliest memory is of driving round the drawing room on a little cart, smoking a candy cigarette. “I was pretending to be Alexis Carrington,” she says, talking of Joan Collins’s character in the…
Judith Mok
When Judith Mok was fifteen, she became a student at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague. A gifted singer, she was thrilled to receive a Masterclass from Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, the diva whose voice had filled her…
Anne Booth
When the writer Anne Booth was a child, she wanted to become a priest. As the youngest child of Irish parents, who, having emigrated to England, were strictly practising Catholics, she never rebelled. “I felt…
Andrew Meehan.
Andrew Meehan has recently published his third novel. Set in Heidelberg, it charts an uneasy love affair between a German woman, Ute Pfeiffer, and Seanie Donnellan from Ireland. Both are cautious about love, and being recently…
David Park.
David Park, 68, is the most self-effacing author I have ever come across. He didn’t even call himself a writer until his seventh novel was published back in 2012 – and only then because, faced with…
The Swimmers by Chloe Lane.
Gallic Books London: €13.95. Kindle: €6.15. The Swimmers, by this debut author from New Zealand, takes place over just five days. It’s the Queen’s Birthday Holiday weekend in suburban New Zealand, and Erin is spending the…
Audrey Magee
Audrey Magee simply has to write. It’s as essential to her, as breathing. It’s through writing that she works out what she thinks about the world and explores its many complexities. She conveys and illustrates these…
David Butler and Tanya Farrelly
When David Butler met Tanya Farrelly back in 2014, the writers hit it off at once. Within a month the friends became a couple and, shortly afterwards, Tanya moved into David seafront home in Bray. Two…
Louise Phillips
Louise Phillips has always wanted to write. And she started in her early twenties, when, having left school to start work at 15, she returned to education. She adored the craft, but before she’d had any…
Freddie Alexander
Freddie Alexander is not a typical children’s writer. The 35-year-old Dublin based solicitor was not a bookish child; he rarely reads these days – saying he simply doesn’t have the time, and there are no appropriately…
Caitriona Lally
It’s a warm September day when I meet Caitriona Lally in the garden of MOLI – the Museum of Literature, Ireland. It’s my first interviewing trip to Dublin since the pandemic hit. Caitriona arrives fresh from…
Declan Murphy
When Lilliput Press were preparing to publish The Spirit of the River, they were so impressed with Declan Murphy’s lyrical prose, that they suggested a literary prize winner should write the foreword. But Murphy wouldn’t agree….