About our readers
Michael Farry has been writing poetry since 2004 and has had collections published by Doghouse Books and by Revival Press. He has been published in magazines and has won and been shortlisted in a number of poetry competitions. He is a founder member of Boyne Writers Group and of LitLab Writers Group.
William Wall is the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature. He has also won the Doolin Prize for poetry, Virginia Faulkner Award, The Sean O’Faoláin Prize, several Writer’s Week prizes and The Patrick Kavanagh Award. He was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Manchester Fiction Prize. He was shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award, the Irish Book Awards, the Raymond Carver Award, the Hennessy Award and numerous others.
Teacher and poet living in Belfast, 'The Work of a Winter' and 'Strabane' published by Arlen House Press Dublin, ACNI supported. Books available from No Alibis Belfast, Kenny's Galway and Book Depository. Tweet @BoyleMo
Born in Donegal 1959, I have been living in County Cork since 1986. My poems explore the nuances of memory and experience ranging from the personal and local to the universal and global. They include poems on life, love, humanity and nature to poems on refugees and war. Some of these poems have been published in Irish Examiner, Boyne Berries, ROPES, Stanzas, US peace journal DoveTales and online at HeadStuff.org, Picaroon Poetry, Poethead, The Incubator, Live Encounters, Backstory, Other Terrain and The Galway Review.
Jean O’Brien was born in Dublin where she now lives after an eight year sojourn in the Irish Midlands where she was Writer-in-Residence. She has four previous collections to her name; The Shadow Keeper (1997), Dangerous Dresses (2005), Lovely Legs (2009) and Merman (2012). Her Awards include the Arvon International Poetry Award, and the Fish International Poetry Award. Her work has been placed and highly commended in a number of other competitions including the Forward Prize. She holds an M. Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin, and tutors in Creative Writing.
Celia de Freine writes in many genres in Irish and English. Her poetry, plays and screenplays have won many awards in Ireland, England and America. 'I bhFreagairt ar Rilke : In response to Rilke' is the title of her most recent poetry collection. Where can people find more information about you?: www.celiadefreine.com @ansiopaleabhar www.scotuspress.com https://comhar.ie
Winner of the 2015 Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition, he has been runner-up or short listed in Listowel, Cuirt, Patrick Kavanagh, Interpreter’s House an d Cork Literary Review. He is curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, chairperson of the Hibernian Writers’ Group and has recently published his debut collection ‘Growing Up in Colour’ with Doire Press.
Brian Kirk’s first poetry collection After The Fall was published by Salmon Poetry (2017). His poem “Birthday” won the Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2018. His award-winning short fiction chapbook It ’s Not Me, It’s You was published by Southword Editions in 2019.
Irish poet and fiction writer. Eighth collection 'Massacre of the Birds' due from Salmon next October. Most recent collection 'Those April Fevers" (Arc UK). She is interested in the protection of the biosphere and her work charts the full spectrum of female experience. O'Donnell has published four novels and three collections of short fiction and is a member of Ireland's affiliation of artists, Aosdana. Where can people find more information about you?: www.maryodonnell.com and Twitter: maryodonnell03
Grace Wells was born in London in 1968. Formerly an independent television producer, she moved to Ireland in 1991. Her first book, Gyrfalcon (2002), a novel for children, won the Eilis Dillon Best Newcomer Bisto Award, and was an International White Ravens’ Choice. Other publications for children include Ice-Dreams (2008) and One World, Our World (2009). Her debut poetry collection, When God Has Been Called Away to Greater Things (Dedalus Press, 2010) won the 2011 Rupert and Eithne Strong Best First Collection Award and was short-listed for the London Fringe Festival New Poetry Award. Her second, Fur, was published by Dedalus in October 2015.Where can people find more information about you?: www.maryodonnell.com and Twitter: maryodonnell03
Moyra Donaldson is from Northern Ireland. She has published nine collections of poetry, including a limited edition publication of artwork and poems, Blood Horses. Her most recent collection is Carnivorous, Doire Press, 2019. In 2019, she received a Major Individual Artist award from Arts Council NI.
Briana was the lead singer for the English band, The Beautiful South, with whom she enjoyed huge international success. She left the band in 1993 and as a solo artist released two critically acclaimed, self-penned albums, one on the Warners Bros label- East/West, and the second on her own label. Briana trained as an actor and has various credits as such on stage, film and TV. As a writer, her poetry, short stories and plays have been published and performed. Briana holds a BA Hons Degree in Creative and Performing Arts and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Queens University, Belfast. Briana is the Creative Director of The Creative Train, (www.thecreativetrain.org) a company specialising in unlocking creative thinking within business. In this role she has worked with global companies such as JP Morgan, Naspers, Brunswick and Invesco, delivering workshops internationally in South Africa, Brazil, India, Europe and the Middle East. She has recently finished recording a third album under her own name, which is due for release in the Autumn. She lives with her husband and their two children.
Anne Walsh Donnelly is a multi-award winning writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. She is a single mother of two teenagers. Originally from Carlow in the south-east of Ireland, she moved to Mayo in the west of Ireland, twenty-four years ago, where she now lives.