2014

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Dermot Bolger

Born in Dublin in 1959, Dermot Bolger is poet, playwright and novelist whose many novels include The Journey Home, The Valparaiso Voyage and The Family on Paradise Pier. His fifteen plays include, The Lament for Arthur Cleary, which received The Samuel Beckett Award in Britain and most recently his acclaimed adaptation of Ulysses. His latest collection of poems, The Venice Suite: A Voyage Through Loss , appeared in 2012, along with a novella, The Fall of Ireland. He regularly writes for most of Ireland’s national newspapers and in 2012 was named Newspaper Commentator of the Year.

Juanita Browne

Following a degree in Zoology and a Masters in Media Studies, Juanita Browne published her first book, ‘Ireland’s Mammals’ in 2005; ‘Kildare’s Natural Heritage’ in 2008; and she is currently working on a children’s wildlife book ‘My First Book of Irish Animals’, due to be published in November 2014. She works as a researcher for natural history documentaries for television and radio and is a Heritage Expert with the Heritage in Schools Scheme, visiting primary schools to talk to children about Ireland's wildlife. But in addition to her love of wildlife Juanita also loves her tea, and in 2013 published "Put the Kettle On: Ireland's Love Affair with Tea" with Collins Press.

Jennifer Burke

Jennifer Burke is a Dublin-based contemporary fiction author. In 2013, a TV3 camera crew burst into her office where she works as a solicitor to announce that she had won their Write A Bestseller competition. The prize was a three book deal with Poolbeg Press and her first novel, The Secret Son, was published in September 2013 to critical acclaim. Levi’s Gift, her second novel, will be published in September 2014. Jennifer also writes shorter fiction. She contributed a short story to the 2013 book If I Was A Child Again, in aid of Barnardos, and was published in the 2012 From the Well Anthology. For the past three years, Jennifer has been shortlisted in the Fish Flash Fiction competition. www.jenniferburke.ie

Trevor Byrne

Trevor Byrne's debut novel, Ghosts & Lightning, was selected as a Book of the Year in The Guardian and The Irish Times. He was Writing Fellow at the University of Manchester in 2012, and Artist in Residence at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris in 2013. His short stories have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies and prize listings. He is Senior Editor at The Editing Firm, which he co-founded with author M.J. Hyland in 2011.

Byrne is currently working on his second novel. For more, see www.trevorbyrne.net

Colette Caddle

Born and bred in Dublin, Ireland, Colette came to writing late in life after a chequered career that included computer programming and marketing insurance products.

It was only when she grew tired and bored with office life that Colette finally picked up a pen. She sent off a few chapters of her first book, Too Little, Too Late, to Poolbeg Publishers and was offered a three-book contract on the back of it. That first book went to number one and Colette subsequently secured a contract in the UK. She has since produced fourteen novels that are available worldwide.

Ciaran Carty

Since incurring the wrath of his first editor in 1960 by making Hitchcock¹s Psycho his film of the year, veteran cineast Ciaran Carty has consistently championed the arts, developing a career as one of Ireland¹s leading critics and broadcasters. He was deputy editor of the Sunday Independent before becoming arts editor for the Sunday Tribune. Since 1988 he has edited the New Irish Writing page for both the Tribune and the Irish Independent, and is curator of the prestigious annual Hennessy Literary Awards.

Eileen Casey

Eileen Casey is a poet, fiction writer and regular contributor to journals and magazines. A recipient of a Hennessy Literary Award (Emerging Fiction) and a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship (Poetry), she holds an M.Phil in Creative Writing from The School of English, Trinity College, Dublin.

Poetry in public places exhibitions include Reading Fire, Writing Flame, Seagulls, and The Jane Austen Sewing Kit. Her most recent collection, A Fascination with Fabric, (Arlen House 2014) is a selection of essays and memoir published over the last decade in Ireland’s Own. Arts Council Bursaries were awarded in 2010/2011.

Tom Clonan

Dr. Tom Clonan is the Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland’s oldest Journalism school. He lives in Dublin and has four children. He served as an officer in the Irish Army from 1989 and has direct experience of the conflicts in Ireland, Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. As Irish Times Security Analyst, Clonan has had exclusive access to all aspects of the Global War on Terror including experiences in Iraq, Syria, continental Europe and Guantanamo Bay. He also provides expert military and security analysis to Irish national television and radio, and international broadcasters including the BBC and Sky News. Tom is author of the bestselling Blood, Sweat and Tears: An Irish Soldier’s Story of Love and Loss.

Declan Collinge

Dr Declan Collinge. Born Dublin. Attended Drimnagh Castle schools in an all Irish class. Graduate of UCD with a PhD in Anglo-Irish literature. Was a teacher and lectured in Maynooth in Anglo-Irish literature. Has published 4 collections of poetry in Irish: Sealgaireacht, Faoi Léigear, Teachtaireacht Téacsa and Súnámaí. Has published 2 collections in English: Fearful Symmetry and Common Ground as well as The Lonely Hush of Eve Selected and New Poems.

Has published 20 Irish textbooks from Saibhreas to Gléasnótaí. Plays guitar and harmonica. Married with 3 married daughters and lives in Templeogue. His eldest daughter, Dr Nessa Collinge, works in UCD library and was a contestant on Masterchef! He is a keen amateur ornithologist.

Aoife Curran

Aoife is a 31-year-old mother of three from Dublin, now living in Kildare. All of her life she has known that she is adopted, but she could never have imagined the ups and downs she would face when finding her birth parents.

Her's is a beautiful story of a girl filled with admiration and respect for the wonderful couple she has called Mum and Dad for as long as she can remember. A girl who also showed unimaginable insight and maturity when confronting her birth parents and understanding their decisions - the ones that shaped the rest of her life.

In telling her story Aoife is a breath of fresh air and Searching for Me - My Adoption Story, is sure to help those in similar situations as well as enlighten those for whom adoption was never, and never will be, an issue.

Anna Davies

Anna Davies is Professor of Geography at Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD). She obtained her PhD from Cambridge University and lectured at Kings College London before her current appointment at TCD. Anna conducts research in the arena of environmental governance particularly focusing on the ways in which different actors and institutions attempt to mediate environmental management within the areas such as waste, water, food and climate change. She has published widely in this field including more than 50 peer reviewed publications. Anna is on the editorial board of Local Environment: the international journal for justice and sustainability and Geography Compass, she is an independent member of National Economic and Social Council advising the Irish Government on environmental policy and is also on the management board of The Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun; a social enterprise dedicated to providing community employment and training via innovative reuse enterprises. Anna is currently Principal Investigator of CONSENSUS, an EPA-funded project examining consumption, environment and sustainability project: www.consensus.ie

Sarah Davis-Goff

Sarah Davis-Goff was born and raised in north County Dublin. She went to college at a small, strange liberal arts college called St John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and went on to receive an MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University. She gained experience with Penguin in London and Continuum in New York before moving back to Dublin, where she worked with The Lilliput Press. Here she was credited with discovering novelist Donal Ryan, and she met business partner and Tramp co-founder Lisa Coen.

Theo Dorgan

Theo Dorgan was born in Cork in 1953; he has made his home in Dublin for many years.

Poet, prose writer, editor and translator, he has also written scripts for film documentaries and worked as a presenter of literature programmes on radio and television for over 25 years. Theo's latest collection of poetry Nine Bright Shiners is being launched by Deadalus Press this Autumn.

Theo Dorgan is a member of Aosdána

Rob Doyle

Rob Doyle’s debut novel 'Here are the Young Men' was published by Lilliput Press in May 2014. His fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Gorse, The Moth, The Penny Dreadful, and elsewhere. His work has also appeared on RTÉ national radio and the BBC World Service, and has been translated into French and Serbian. He studied Philosophy and Psychoanalysis at Trinity College Dublin. After several years abroad, he now lives in Dublin.

Myles Dungan

Myles Dungan is an historian and well-known radio broadcaster with RTÉ Radio 1. He currently presents ‘The History Show’. He presented the ‘Drivetime’ programme on Radio 1 for twelve years and also presented the RTÉ arts programme ‘Rattlebag’ from 2000 to 2006. He is the author of a number of books on various historical topics. These include Irish Voices from the Great War (1995), They Shall Grow Not Old (1997), The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels (2003), How the Irish Won the West (2005), The Captain and the King: William O’Shea, Parnell and Late Victorian

Catherine Dunne

Catherine Dunne is the author of nine novels including The Things We Know Now, which won the 700th anniversary Giovanni Boccaccio International Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2013.

Catherine has also been short listed for, among others, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Italian Booksellers’ Prize. She was appointed one of five judges for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2014.

Catherine has also published one work of non-fiction: a social history of Irish immigrants in London, called An Unconsidered People. Her work has been translated into several languages.

Christine Dwyer Hickey

Christine Dwyer Hickey has published six novels and one short story collection. The Cold Eye of Heaven (Atlantic Books UK) won the Irish Novel of the Year 2012 and was nominated for the IMPAC award. Tatty (New Island and Vintage uk) was nominated for The Orange Prize and was one of the 50 Irish Novels of the Decade. Last Train from Liguria (Atlantic Books) was nominated for the Prix L’Européen de Littérature. Her short story collection The House on Parkgate Street and other Dublin Stories (New Island) was published in November 2013. Her first play Snow Angels premiered at the Project Arts Centre in March 2014 to full houses and wide critical acclaim. Her seventh novel, The Lives of Women will be published in May 2015 by Atlantic Books.

She is a member of Aosdana.

Fionnuala Fallon

A horticulturist, garden writer and garden designer, Fionnuala Fallon has been the gardening correspondent for The Irish Times since 2011 and is also a longtime regular contributor to other publications including The Irish Garden magazine. Her first book, From the Ground Up: How Ireland is Growing Its Own produced in collaboration with her photographer husband Richard Johnston, was published by Collins Press in 2012.

Oona Frawley

Born in New York City to Irish actor parents, Oona Frawley spent a lot of her childhood backstage, hearing plays through green room speakers, cueing her father for roles and listening to her mother sing. Her parents’ attachment to Ireland meant that the family travelled ‘home’ once a year. Oona eventually settled in Ireland in 1999 full-time, and completed her Ph.D (City University of NY) in 2001. Prior to becoming a full-time academic Oona worked in a beer factory, and as a lifeguard, a waitress, an ad copywriter, and a freelance editor. Oona has taught at UCD, QUB and TCD, and has lectured English at Maynooth since 2008. She is married, has two children, and runs daily – slowly but compulsively. Flight is her first novel.

Brian Gallagher

Brian Gallagher is a full-time writer whose plays and short stories have been produced in Ireland, Britain and Canada. His first book of historical fiction for young readers was Across the Divide, set in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, followed by Taking Sides, set against the background of the Civil War, and Secrets and Shadows, an exciting spy novel that begins with the North Strand bombings during World War II.

Mia Gallagher

Mia Gallagher’s short fiction has been published in Ireland, the UK and US. Her collection You First won the START award (2005) and she was also shortlisted for Hennessy, Fish and Trevor/Bowen Awards. Her debut novel HellFire (Penguin Ireland, 2006) was widely acclaimed and won the Irish Tatler Literature Award (2007). Extracts from her second novel have been published in Literary Imagination (OUP), Spolia (New York) and Colony (Dublin) and will feature in two new anthologies from New Island in 2015, one a dual-language publication with Guanda (Milan). Mia has received several Bursaries for Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and was writer-in-residence with IADT/dlr Arts Office (2009-2010). Mia is currently on the Board of the Irish Writers Centre.

Ciara Geraghty

Ciara Geraghty is the author of Now That I’ve Found You (published in July 2014), Lifesaving for Beginners, Saving Grace, Becoming Scarlett and Finding Mr Flood. She lives in Dublin with her husband, three children and a dog. You can find out more at www.ciarageraghty.com or follow her on Twitter @CiaraGeraghty

‘A most gripping read…humorous and heartbreaking’ Image on Lifesaving for Beginners

‘A beautifully written, somewhat whimsical and very encouraging tale about grabbing hold of life’s reins, breaking away from the monotony of a dull routine and following your dreams … emotional, joyous … I adored it’ Daily Mail on Finding Mr Flood

‘A perfect mix of romance and comedy … witty, sharp and intelligent’ RTÉ Guide on Becoming Scarlett

Shauna Gilligan

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Shauna has lived in Mexico, Spain and England. She currently lives in County Kildare, Ireland with her family. Her fiction has been published widely and she has read from her work and presented on writing at conferences in Europe and the USA. She holds a PhD (Writing) from the University of South Wales. She volunteers in Fighting Words, a creative writing centre in inner city Dublin. She is on the Arts Council of Ireland Writers in Prisons Panel and has taught creative writing at certificate level at NUI Maynooth. She currently works with MPhil students in creative writing at the University of South Wales. Her debut novel Happiness Comes from Nowhere was published in 2012.

Liz Gillis

Liz Gillis is from Dublin and worked as a local history researcher in the St. Nicholas of Myra centre from 2004 to 2006, during which time she collaborated on a number of exhibitions relating to the history of Dublin. Liz is an exciting new historian whose passion for Irish history is clear through her work. Born and reared in the Liberties, she's done an excellent job at helping to preserve the area's history. She is the author of The Fall of Dublin, Revolution in Dublin, and the upcoming book Revolutionary Women. She also works in Kilmainham Gaol, where you may have been lucky enough to have her as your guide.

Mark Graham

Mark Graham is the renowned Conker Champion of Ireland, All-Ireland Bucket-Singing Champion and the sixth-best bog snorkeler in Ireland. Rejected by the banks as he looked to start on the journey to home ownership, Mark started in an altogether more interesting and exciting journey to attend three festivals a week for a year.

In his entertaining book A Year of Festivals in Ireland, Mark paints a picture not of a broken and maudlin country that lost the run of itself, but of a people with a wealth of character, imagination, generosity, wildness, curiosity, creativity and an insatiable hunger for fun and divilment. The surprising array of weird and wonderful festivals around Ireland are matched and surpassed by the cohort of characters and clients who attend them. Throwing himself into the thick of these gatherings may have nearly killed him, but he survived his year of festivals, enjoyed almost every minute and was left with a tale or two to tell.

Lisa Marie Griffith

Waterford born Lisa Marie Griffith studied history at University College Dublin and went on to study for a PhD at Trinity College. She became fascinated by the history of Dublin and throughout her studies worked as a walking tour guide in Dublin. She also presented a radio series on Anna Livia (now Dublin City FM) for two years on Dublin history. She taught history and is now Coordinator of the Cultural and Heritage Studies Programme at the National Print Museum in Dublin. She is the author of Stones of Dublin: A History of Dublin in Ten Buildings published by The Collins Press in September 2014.

Xiaolu Guo

One of Granta’s Best of British writers under 40, Xiaolu Guo is profound, incisive, funny and often disturbingly accurate. Guo is author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and Writer and Director of UFO in Her Eyes, “City of Venice” prize at the Venice Film Festival. Xiaolu is in Ireland as a part of an international project, called Weather Stations that places literature and storytelling at the heart of discussions about climate change.

Weather Stations brings Oisín McGann and Tallaght Community Arts together with international Writers in Residence, who are working with cultural organisations in Berlin, London, Melbourne and Warsaw, to explore how literature can inspire new ways of living in the context of the most fundamental challenge facing humanity today – our changing climate. Xiaolu Guo says: “Weather Stations is a wonderful opportunity to explore and develop in new directions my concerns with the environment, human culture and its often destructive presence, but also the resilience and potential of self-renewal of the human spirit.”

Sue Hassett

Sue Hassett grew up in Cork and now lives in Dublin. Her current work in progress, Acquittances 1, 2, 3, is a fictional story set in a mixed English and Irish family who live in Cork city and west Cork in the 1960's, 197's and 1980's. Acquittances 1,2,3 explores 'difference' in Irish society, as experienced by its main character, Alanna, in her childhood, teen years and young adulthood. Sue is editor of Sláinte - Alternative and Complementary Medicine in Ireland, published by Wolfhound 1991. She has carried out a range of commissioned social research and has worked in independent publishing.

Liam Hayes

Liam Hayes is a former Meath GAA footballer and journalist Liam Hayes is the award-winning sports writer and best-selling author of Out of Our Skins and Heffo: A Brilliant Mind.

Rosanne Hewitt-Cromwell

Rosanne Hewitt-Cromwell has been locked in a love affair with cake and baking for as long as she can remember, from the early days listening as her mam sang happily in the kitchen, delicious sweet smells filling the house, right up to today, standing in her very own kitchen singing and baking more treats than her poor husband can eat.

Some favourites from Rosanne's popular baking blog, www.LikeMamUsedtoBake.com, are included in her latest book alongside a whole host of new recipes from childhood memories and experiments in her kitchen. From the ever-popular mint-crisp pie, almond fingers and upside-down cake, to her addictive rocky road, there really is something to suit all tastes. Rosanne even dedicates a chapter to Christmas baking, her favourite time of year. Peppered throughout with helpful hints and strolls down memory lane, Like Mam Used to Bake is much more than a cookbook.

Neil Horgan

Dublin-born Neil Horgan was Managing Director of a large travel firm for years, and after a life-changing event took a leap of faith to become a professional storyteller. Now a graduate of the International School of Storytelling, Emerson College, UK, Neil has told stories in London, Nepal and India. He has just finished a series of six storytelling shows at the Powerscourt Townhouse Theatre. He specialises in healing stories from around the world, as well as biographical pieces from his own varied life experience.

"Stunning honesty, riveting brave storytelling, a modern-day Seanachi"

- The John Murray Show, RTE Radio 1

Colm Keegan

Colm Keegan is a writer and poet from Clondalkin, Dublin. Since 2005, he has been shortlisted four times for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, for both poetry and fiction. He was shortlisted for the International Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition in 2008 and won the All Ireland Poetry Slam in 2010.

He is Writer in Residence for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council 2014-2015. He co-runs the monthly arts event Nighthawks at the Cobalt’ and is co-founder and facilitator of the Inklinks Project, a creative writing initiative centred around a young writers’ club in Clondalkin. He also teaches creative writing to adults and to teens in secondary schools across Ireland.

In 2011, he was nominated for the Dublin Fringe's 'Little Gem' Award for the play he co-wrote with Stephen James Smith and Kalle Ryan - Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About - which has toured Ireland and sold out in Bristol, London and Paris.

Colm contributes to RTÉ Radio One’s Arena and is currently working on his first novel. His debut collection, Don’t Go There, was released in 2012 and is available from www.salmonpoetry.com He is one of the organisers of Lingo, Ireland’s first Spoken Word festival, taking place this October.

Conor Kostick

Conor Kostick is a writer and a medieval historian living in Dublin. His current research project - for the University of Nottingham - is on medieval climate extremes and their impact on society. He has discovered, for example, unusual patterns relating cold weather and outbreaks of epidemics. His most recent history book is Strongbow, the story of the Norman invasion of Ireland.

As a novelist, Conor mainly writes science-fiction and has won several awards, including the Special Merit Award of the Reading Association of Ireland, 'in recognition of his significant contribution to writing for children in Ireland.' His most popular book, Epic, has been translated into twelve other languages.

Over the years, Conor has been involved in several campaigns concerning the climate and was the organiser of a protest to shut down the nuclear power plant at Sellafield.

Paul Lynch

Paul Lynch is the author of the critically lauded Irish novels Red Sky in Morning — currently nominated for France’s best foreign book prize, le Prix du meilleur livre étranger — and The Black Snow, and has been hailed as a major new writer by authors such as Sebastian Barry, Colum McCann and Daniel Woodrell.

After a six-publisher bidding war, his debut novel Red Sky in Morning was published to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic in 2013. It was an Amazon.com Book of the Month, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, a Huffington Post book of the week and The Daily Beast’s Hot Read. It was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, where Lynch was hailed as “a lapidary young master”. It was a book of the year in The Irish Times, The Toronto Star, the Irish Independent and the Sunday Business Post.

His second novel The Black Snow was published this spring in the UK and Ireland. It was hailed as “masterful” and “a significant achievement” by The Sunday Times, “dazzling” by The Sunday Business Post and “powerful” by the Irish Times, which praised his ability to “reinvent the English language”. It will be published in America by Little, Brown in Spring 2015.

Paul was born in Limerick in 1977, grew up in Donegal, and is now living in Dublin. He was the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper from 2007 to 2011, when the newspaper folded. He has written regularly for many Irish newspapers and has written regularly for The Sunday Times on film.

Dave Lordan

Dave Lordan is a writer, editor and creative writing workshop leader based in Dublin. He is the first writer to win Ireland’s three national prizes for young poets, the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2005, the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award in 2008 and the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award in 2011 for his collections The Boy in The Ring and Invitation to a Sacrifice, both published by Salmon. In 2010 Mary McEvoy starred in his debut play Jo Bangles at the Mill Theatre, directed by Caroline Fitzgerald. Wurm Press published his acclaimed short fiction debut First Book of Frags in 2013. Also in 2013, in association with RTÉ Arena and New Island Books, he designed and led Ireland’s first ever on-air creative writing course. Alongside Karl Parkinson he makes up the popular performance poetry duo Droppin The Act and he is a renownedly passionate performer of his own work. Lordan is a contributing editor for The Stinging Fly and he teaches contemporary poetry and critical theory on the MA in Poetry Studies at the Mater Dei Institute of DCU.

John Lowe

John Lowe, the Money Doctor, has over 30 years’ experience in the finance sector and is an authorized independent financial adviser, Fellow of the Institute of Bankers and successfully completed the Chartered Director course. John is best known for his popular books on personal finance, The Money Doctor and The Money Doctor Finance Annuals. John currently writes a weekly column for the Sunday Business Post and the Irish Daily Star and is a commentator on radio stations across Ireland.

The Money Doctor 2015 will be published on November 6th 2014.

Rory McConville

Rory McConville has been working in the comic book industry since he was sixteen. In that time he has written for DC Comics, Newbold Enterprises, Shadowline Comics and Fan-Atic Press. He is the author of Big Jim: Jim Larkin and the 1913 Lockout.

Oísín McGann

Oisín McGann is currently Writer in Residence for Weather Stations with Tallaght Community Arts. He was born in Dublin and spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. He studied at Ballyfermot Senior College and Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design, and went on to work in illustration, design and film animation, later moving to London to work as an art director and copy writer in advertising.

He now lives back in Ireland and works full time as a writer and illustrator. He has produced numerous books for all ages of reader, including the Mad Grandad series and The Forbidden Files series. He has produced nine Young Adult novels; The Gods And Their Machines, The Harvest Tide Project, Under Fragile Stone, Small-Minded Giants, Ancient Appetites (the first book in the steampunk series, The Wildenstern Saga), Strangled Silence as well as The Wisdom of Dead Men and Merciless Reason (the second and third Wildenstern books). His latest novel, Rat-Runners, was released in March 2013.

Zoe Miller

Zoe Miller’s latest book The Husband’s Confession was published earlier this year. Zoe loves

exploring family relationships in her books which always feature memorable characters. Her latest offering does not disappoint!

Geraldine Mills

Geraldine Mills is a poet and short fiction writer. She has four collections of poetry and three of short stories. She was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in 2006 for

The Weight of Feathers (Arlen House), and a Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in 2007. She was the Millennium winner of the Hennessy/Tribune Emerging Fiction Award and the overall winner of the New Irish Writer Award for her story ‘Lick of the Lizard’. She is a mentor with NUI Galway and is an online tutor in the short story with Creative Writing Ink. Her third short story collection Hellkite (Arlen House) was launched in 2013.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir

Nuala Ní Chonchúir was born in Dublin in 1970; she lives in East Galway. Her fourth short story collection Mother America was published by New Island in 2012. A chapbook of flash Of Dublin and Other Fictions was published in the US in late 2013 by Tower Press and nuala's second novel The closet of Savage Mementos appeared April 2014 from New Island. Penguin USA and Penguin Canada will publish Nuala’s third novel, Miss Emily, about the poet Emily Dickinson and her Irish maid, in 2015. www.nualanichonchuir.com

Joe O'Brien

Joe O’Brien needs little or no introduction. He is the author of 9 Alfie Green books, for the younger reader, and the fantasy novel Beyond the Cherry Tree as well as three books in the Danny Wilde GAA series for older reders. Joe will be talking about his Alfie Green books and will go down a storm with all our readers from 1st to 3rd class.

Mary O'Donnell

Mary O’Donnell is the author of eleven books, both poetry and fiction. Her titles include the best-selling literary novels The Light-Makers, Virgin and the Boy, and The Elysium Testament, as well as poetry such as The Place of Miracles, Unlegendary Heroes, and her most recent critically acclaimed sixth collection The Arc Builders (Arc Publications UK, 2009).

She has been a teacher and has worked intermittently in journalism, especially theatre criticism. Her essays on contemporary literary issues are widely published. She also presented and scripted three series of poetry programmes for the national broadcaster RTE Radio, including a successful series on poetry in translation during 2005 and 2006 called 'Crossing the Lines'. Today, she teaches creative writing in a part time capacity at NUI Maynooth, and has worked on the faculty of Carlow University Pittsburgh's MFA programme in creative writing, as well as on the faculty of the University of Iowa's summer writing programme at Trinity College Dublin.

Sheila O'Flanagan

Sheila O' Flanagan is an international bestselling author with fifteen books to her name. Her latest novel, If You Were Me was published in July 2014. Her novels including Stand By Me, Bad Behaviour and Suddenly Single have been translated into over twenty languages. The former financial services executive has won the Irish Tattler Woman of the Year for Literature award and currently is a director of the Irish Sports Council.

Sheila O'Flanagan is the author of Dreaming of a Stranger, Caroline's Sister, Isobel's Wedding, Suddenly Single, Far From Over, My Favourite Goodbye, He's Got to Go, Too Good to be True, Anyone But Him, How Will I Know, Yours Faithfully, Bad Behaviour, Someone Special, The Perfect Man, Stand By Me, All For You and the short story collections, Connections, Destinations and A Season to Remember.

Peadar Ó Guilín

In September 2007, Peadar Ó Guilín published his first novel, The Inferior, which the Times Educational Supplement called "a stark, dark tale, written with great energy and confidence and some arresting reflections on human nature." Foreign editors liked it too, and over the following years, it was to be translated into numerous languages from Turkish to Korean, from Italian to Japanese.

Two more titles were to follow: The Deserter in 2011, and the closing volume, The Volunteer, in June 2014.

Peadar also loves writing at shorter lengths. His stories have appeared in numerous venues, including Black Gate magazine and an anthology celebrating the best of the iconic Weird Tales. More recently, his work has been turning up in podcasts. Listeners can find his Irish horror stories on pseudopod.org. Peadar has also explored environmentalism through the medium of traditional fantasy. Two of his stories in this vein, The Sunshine Baron, and Heartless, can be listened to free of charge on podcastle.org.

Peadar currently lives in Dublin, where he toils day and night for a giant computer corporation. So, please be nice to him ;)

Professor Des O'Neill

Professor Desmond (Des) O’Neill, a specialist in geriatric and stroke medicine, is also a writer and commentator in national media. Based in Tallaght Hospital and Trinity College Dublin, his practice and research are focussed on ageing and the neurosciences, and how they interact with the humanities. His particular interest in the longevity dividend - the many ways in which we have gained from our increase in life span - has contributed to national and international initiatives in many aspects of ageing. In 2010 he was awarded the All Ireland Inspirational Life Award for his work on behalf of older people.

Although it is something that affects all of us, directly or indirectly, ageing can all too often be perceived negatively. Ageing and Caring is an essential, positive guide for older people, their carers and their families. It seeks to outline not only the challenges that can arise from ageing but also how active and rewarding life can continue to be in old age.

Nessa O'Mahony

Nessa O’Mahony was born in Dublin and lives in Rathfarnham where she works as a freelance teacher and writer. She won the National Women’s Poetry Competition in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and Hennessy Literature Awards. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland literature bursary in 2004 and 2011, a Simba Gill Fellowship in 2005 and an artists’ bursary from South Dublin County Council in 2007.

She has published three books – Bar Talk, appeared (1999), Trapping a Ghost (2005) and In Sight of Home (2009). A fourth, Her Father’s Daughter, is published by Salmon this year.

Colm O'Regan

Colm is a critically-acclaimed stand-up comedian, columnist, broadcaster and bestselling author. His stand-up has featured on RTÉ’s Late Late Show and Comedy Central and he has gigged in Canada, USA, Japan, South Africa and all over Europe. He writes a weekly column for The Irish Examiner and the BBC World Service Business Show In the Balance. His two books about the social and cultural phenomenen The Irish Mammy were both in the bestseller list for months and his Twitter account @irishmammies has over 145,000 followers.

Tom Palmer

Tom is the author of three Puffin fiction series for children: Football Academy, Foul Play and The Squad. He has also written a rugby story, Scrum! for Barrington Stoke. His first novel Foul Play was short listed for the Blue Peter Book Award. Black Op won the 2013 Solihull Children’s Book Award. Ghost Stadium is currently shortlisted for Leicester Libraries Our Best Book Award 2014.

Alessandro Perissinotto

Alessandro Perissinotto was born in Turin in 1964 and is a Professor at the University of Turin. He has written a number of detective novels as well as the Anna Pavesi trilogy, which starts with Blood Sisters (Una Piccola Storia Ignobile), continues with L’ultima Notte Bianca, and ends with L’orchestra del Titanic. His last novel, Per Vendetta, is a literary novel set in Argentina. He is also a contributor to the daily newspaper La Stampa, with articles and short stories published in the daily Torino Sette supplement.

Nicola Pierce

Nicola Pierce is the author of two books for children, Spirit of the Titanic and City of Fate, both featuring well known historical events. Her newer title City of Fate is set in Stalingrad during World War II and is described by Guardian Children’s Books as “gripping, exciting and unimaginably shattering”.

Marion Reynolds

Marion Reynolds attended Trinity College, Dublin where she read English Language and Literature. She has an M.A. in Communications from Dublin City University. She was a teacher of English and Drama in Ireland and a lecturer in English Literature and Media Studies in the U.K. Originally from Dublin, she now lives in West Cork with her husband and has two grownup children. She has been a regular contributor to the Irish Examiner and the Evening Echo, writing articles, book reviews and interviews with writers. She has also contributed to The Irish Times and had a regular column in the Evening Herald. She has had a number of short stories published. She was a joint winner of the Novel Fair 2013, organised by the Irish Writers’ Centre.She is a member of the Irish Writers' Centre and has attended a number of writing courses there.

Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan is from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. He lives in Limerick with his wife Anne Marie and their two young children. He is Writer-in-Residence at the University of Limerick.

Donal’s number one bestselling debut novel, The Spinning Heart, co-published by The Lilliput Press and Doubleday Ireland, won two Irish Book Awards in 2012 and the Guardian First Book Award in 2013. It was a finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize.

Donal’s second novel, The Thing About December, topped the Irish bestseller charts shortly after its release in October 2013. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2013 and was on the five-strong shortlist for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year for 2014.

Donal’s novels are published worldwide and have been translated into several languages.

Patrick Ryan

Patrick Ryan has worked as a teacher and professional storyteller for over thirty years. He regularly tours Britain, Europe and the US performing, lecturing and conducting a variety of workshops. Patrick has written for the BBC and has also actively participated in several major storytelling projects.

Patrick is based in London. He grew up in Illinois in the USA, and attended the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. He taught primary school in the USA and Britain for ten years. In 2004 he completed his doctoral degree at the University of Glamorgan, where he is currently a research fellow at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling.

Daniel Seery

Daniel Seery is a writer from Dublin. His work has appeared in local and national publications including The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly and REA Journal and he has worked on a number of public arts commissions. In 2012 he was the resident writer in the Axis Centre, Ballymun. He has also been shortlisted for an RTÉ drama competition, has recently been one of the winners of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition and he has written and directed a play The One We Left Behind which ran in the Irish Writers’ Centre in May 2012 and in the Helix in August 2012. His debut novel A Model Partner was published by Liberties Press in March 2014.

John Sheahan

John Sheahan is a Dublin legend. A notable Irish violinist, tin whistle player, folk musician and composer, he is the last surviving member of the original and definitive five member line-up of world famous band, The Dubliners. John is a composer in his own right of such beloved tunes as The Marino Waltz and, in recent years, a poet of considerable reputation. His conversation with Dermot Bolger will include extracts from his poetry, his music and reminiscences about the famous friends and musicians with whom he embarked on a lifetime of music.

Valerie Sirr

Valerie Sirr has published poems, flash fictions and short stories in Ireland, UK, US, Australia and Asia. Several of her stories have been broadcast on RTE radio.

Valerie's collection of short stories received Arts Council funding to be published in 2014. She has won national and international literary awards including in 2008 when she received the overall Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writer and the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Fiction. Arts Council and South Dublin County Council bursaries were awarded in 2000 and 2008. She holds an M.Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin.

Aidan Storey

Aidan Storey was born and brought up in Dublin. In his story of hope and forgiveness (On Angel’s Wings; Angels of Divine Light) Aidan vividly recalls how the presence of angels sustained him through years of great turmoil - years when his happy, carefree world turned into one of misery and torment. As he recalls the sexual and mental abuse he suffered early in life, and the desperate, dark days of depression and isolation which followed, he tells of how the Angels helped him to claw his way back to life and, through the power of angelic healing, taught him how to bring light and love into his life.

Michael Whelan

Michael J. Whelan is a soldier-poet, writer & historian (Curator – Irish Air Corps Aviation Museum) living in Tallaght County Dublin. He served as a United Nations peacekeeper with the Irish Army in South Lebanon and Kosovo during the conflicts in those countries, which informs much of his poetry. He was 2nd Place Winner in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2011, 3rd Place Winner in the Jonathon Swift Awards 2012, shortlisted in the Doire Press and Cork Literary Manuscript Competitions and selected for the Eigse Eireann/Poetry Ireland Introductions 2012. His work has appeared in the An Cosantoir, Hennessy New Irish Writing, Poetry Ireland Review, the Red Line Book Festival and many other literary magazines and newspapers. A number of his poems appeared most recently in The Hundred Years War - Modern War Poems anthology edited by Neil Astley and published by Bloodaxe (UK) He has published two books The Battle of Jadotville: Irish Soldiers in Combat in the Congo, 1961 (2006) and Allegiances Compromised: Faith, Honour & Allegiance - Ex British Soldiers in the Irish Army 1913 - 1924 (2011). He was awarded an MA in Modern History from the National University of Ireland (2006) and an Arts Bursary for Literature from the South Dublin Arts Office in June 2014. To sample his work visit michaeljwhelan.wordpress.com/

Enda Wyley

Enda Wyley was born in Dublin and has published four collections of poetry with the Dedalus Press: Eating Baby Jesus (1994), Socrates in the Garden (1998), Poems For Breakfast (2004) and To Wake to This (2009). She has twice been a winner in the British National Poetry Competition and was the inaugural recipient of The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. She has also received an M.A. in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She has been widely anthologised, including in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Irish Women's Writing and Tradition, Vols. 4 & 5, The Harvard Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry 2010 and The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry 2011. She is also a published children's author and her books include The Silver Notebook and Boo and Bear. Her book for 7-9 year olds I Won't Go to China! was awarded a Reading Association of Ireland Special Merit Award 2011. Borrowed Space: New and Selected Poems is due from Dedalus in September 2014.