Renee Knight
Leaving school at 16, Renee took a secretarial course, with French A’Level, then she started temping at the BBC. “And I stayed. I worked my way up the ladder, and became a documentary maker. Then I…
Sheena Lambert
As a child, Sheena had little interest in books. She was into science and maths, and she became an engineer working in waste management. “I was on landfill sites a lot, it was all wellingtons and…
Waterford Writer’s Weekend
I had a great time at the Waterford Writer’s Weekend on May 9th to 10th talking with Corrinna Moore to talk about her amazing mother, Marie Fleming, in conversation with Dave Kenny. We discussed the book…
Máire T Robinson
A writer from birth, Máire studied film at college, where she wrote screenplays and short films; then she stayed on in Galway working for the youth theatre. “I was studying film production at the time, and…
Liza Klaussmann
The American writer Liza Klaussmann has long been fascinated by literature of the 1920’s. She loved the stories around this time, about the excessive parties on the French Riviera. And at college, at the University of…
Claire-Louise Bennett
Reading “a lot of rubbish,” as a child, Claire-Louise discovered literature in her late teens. Writing came earlier, but it seemed, to her, to be a completely different endeavour. “I wrote with no sense of…
Christine Dwyer Hickey
‘I’m terrified I’ll run out of time’ ONE afternoon in 2011, Christine Dwyer Hickey looked out of her bedroom window and noticed that the neighbours opposite were moving house. All this 1970s-style furniture was being brought…
Sarah Webb
Mollie Cinnamon is Not a Cupcake (The Songbird Café Girls 1) Walker Books, €6.38; Kindle, €7.86 A FEW years ago, the writer Sarah Webb was staying in a yurt on Cape Clear Island, off the west…
Carole Gurnett
As a child, Carole wrote long diary entries and letters to anyone who would reply, and as a teenager she wrote short stories. Some were published, and others shortlisted in competitions. In the late 1990s, she…
Steve Cavanagh
AS a lawyer, Steve has conducted several high profile cases. In 2010, representing a factory worker, he won the largest award for damages in race discrimination in Northern Ireland’s legal history. In his 20s, he wrote…
Henrietta McKervey
HENRIETTA has always adored reading. It’s something that has informed her life, but eight years ago, she was in danger of losing that love. The reason? She wanted to write, but hadn’t the time or the…
Darren Kelly
With a lifelong fascination for history, and especially for the 1916 Rising, Darren never had any particular wish to write. In fact, he thought he was no good at it. After school, he became a roadie,…