Mia Doring
A prolific reader, Mia was always writing. As a child, she wrote sequels to the books she loved. After Art college, Mia moved to Berlin where she made some art, and taught English as a Foreign…
Tracey Lange
Brought up in Manhattan, Tracey comes from a large extended Irish family. “We spent a lot of summers in Northern Ireland,” she says. “My Dad comes from County Down, and Mum’s family came from Dublin…
Richard Chambers
Richard’s love of reading and learning came from his mum. “I never thought I’d be a journalist,” he says, “but as a child I was always writing stories. And aged 10, and 11, I sat…
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…
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…
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…