Wendy Erskine is the author of short story collections Sweet Home (2018) and Dance Move (2022). Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Winter Papers, Female Lines: New Writing from Northern Ireland and Being Various: New Irish Short Stories and read on BBC Radio 4. Sweet Home was Book of the Year in the Guardian, The White Review, Observer, New Statesman, and TLS. It won the 2020 Butler Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2019 and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019. The story ‘Inakeen’ was longlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Prize 2019.
Wendy Erskine’s Festival appearance is generously supported by Culture Ireland.
Áine Ní Ghlinn is a poet and children’s writer. She is the current Laureate na nÓg/Children’s Literature Laureate (2020-2023). She has written 35 books, poetry for adults as well as stories, novels and plays for young people. Awards include Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship; Listowel Writers’ Week poetry award (2022/2020/2019); Gradam Reics Carló Children’s Book of the Year 2014 (Daideo), 2016 (Hata Zú Mhamó), 2019 (Boscadán); Literacy Association of Ireland Book of the Year 2015 (Daideo), Children’s Books Ireland Fiction award 2014/2015 (Daideo) as well as a range of Oireachtas na Gaeilge awards for poetry, drama and fiction.
Áine Ní Ghlinn’s Festival appearance is generously supported by Culture Ireland.
Liz Nugent has worked in Irish film, theater, and television for most of her adult life. She is an award-winning writer of radio and television drama and has written critically acclaimed short stories both for children and adults, as well as the bestselling novels Unraveling Oliver and Lying in Wait. She lives in Dublin. Little Cruelties is her latest novel. Visit her at LizNugent.ie or follow her on Twitter at @Lizzienugent.
Liz Nugent’s Festival appearance is generously supported by Culture Ireland.
Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He studied philosophy at Oxford University before moving to Australia and to New York. He is the author of more than a dozen crime novels, including the Dagger and Edgar-award nominated debut Dead I Well May Be, the critically acclaimed Sean Duffy series, and the award-winning standalone thriller The Chain, which was a New York Times and #1 international bestseller. McKinty’s books have been translated into over 30 languages, and he has won the Edgar Award, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Ned Kelly Award and more.
Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor of Economics and International Development Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada.
Colm Tóibín is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning author. His novels include The Master, winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Le prix du meilleur livre étranger and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction; and Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award. His works also include The Empty Family, The Testament of Mary and Nora Webster. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone and City of Bohane and the story collections Dark Lies the Island and There Are Little Kingdoms. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His previous novel Night Boat to Tangier was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. His stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland.
Colin Barrett was born in Canada in 1982 and grew up in County Mayo, Ireland. In 2009 he was awarded the Penguin Ireland Prize, and in 2014 his debut collection of stories, Young Skins was published and awarded The Rooney Prize, The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and The Guardian First Book Award. He is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree. He lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter.
Shani Mootoo is a writer and visual artist. She was born in Ireland, grew up in Trinidad, and moved to Canada in her early twenties. She’s the author of two poetry books, The Predicament of Or, and her latest, Cane | Fire. She’s the author of several novels, including Polar Vortex, finalist for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the acclaimed Cereus Blooms at Night, now a Penguin Modern Classic. Mootoo is the recipient of a Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Award and has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Western University. She lives in Southern Ontario.