Debut Roundup for Books Ireland, January 2019.
Sweet Home. By Wendy Erskine. The Stinging Fly. There’s been some impressive writing to come out of Northern Ireland in recent years, and the latest, a collection of stories published by The Stinging Fly, focuses on…
Hazel Gaynor
Hazel Gaynor has long been fascinated with Grace Darling, the Northumbrian heroine who, in 1828, risked her life to rescue the survivors of a shipwreck. She learned about her in primary school. “Grace’s story had everything,”…
Debut Roundup. November and December
Notes to Self. Emilie Pine. Tramp Press. The opening essay in Emilie Pine’s excellent collection, takes us to Corfu, where Emilie and her sister discover the inadequacies of the Greek health system. Their father’s liver, abused…
Betty Stenson
Aged 10, Betty was made school librarian, and after leaving school she joined the library service. Whilst working there, in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, then in South Dublin, she took a degree, gaining a double first. She…
Marc McMenamin
Marc has always had a passion for history, and it was fuelled by a wonderful history teacher in Donegal. “I remember reading history books instead of doing my homework,” he says. “Research became an obsession to…
Anne Youngson
After university Anne went into the Motor Trade, where she stayed all her working life as a senior executive. She always wrote, but did so in secret. “I always assumed that writers were other people,” she…
Charlotte Duckworth
Charlotte grew up surrounded by books. “Grandad was an antiquarian bookseller, selling the rarest books, and there were about 3,000 books in my parent’s house.” At 12, she finished a novel. “I typed it out on…
Christy Fleming
Christy and his three siblings were brought up by their widowed mother. “My father died when I was 13 months old, so I can’t remember him.” Christy walked out of school aged 12. He did various…
James Kavanagh
James has always been interested in food. “My mum was always cooking for her friends, and she made sure I knew how to cook. And I did home economics at school.” Leaving college half way through…
Aoibheann McCann
Book mad, Aoibheann taught herself to read aged 3, and by junior infants was reading the Famous Five. After college she worked for an environmental theatre before moving to London with her husband to be. She…
Daisy McNally
The third of five children, Daisy gained her love of books from her mother. “She was a great reader.” After university, Daisy moved to London and worked in publishing, starting out as an editorial assistant….
Eoghan Smith
Brought up in Balinteer, Eoghan was a prolific reader. “I wrote terrible poetry as a teenager, but any other writing I tried, never worked out.” He pursued an academic career, working in a video shop between…