Michelle McDonagh
I was keen to talk to Michelle McDonagh about her third novel – and not just because it’s a great read. I’ve been thinking about her recently, because her first crime drama, published in 2020, centred […]
Timothy O’Sullivan.
In 1989, Timothy O’Grady’s publishers were asking for a book – and he didn’t have one in his head. Meanwhile, Iris Murdoch had taken a box of photographs to her publisher, Carmen Callil. Taken over a […]
Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter looks around the drawing room in the Merrion Hotel and smiles. And agrees that, after selling more than 40 million copies of her books around the world, she sometimes has to pinch herself. “When […]
Cecelia Ahern
For some years, Cecelia Ahern has wanted to write about empathy. Describing herself as sensitive – as someone who picks up the energies in a room, and the emotions of those around her, she wanted to […]
John Banville
When John Banville wrote Christine Falls back in 2007, he invented the pseudonym, Benjamin Black to show that this wasn’t some post-modernist joke. Describing his crime writing as craft – compared to the Art of his […]
Charlene Hurtubise
In August 2020, when I was on a retreat in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, one of the writers, Charleen Hurtubise, read the first chapter of her novel in progress. Hauntingly atmospheric, it had the whole […]
Serena Molloy
Wider by the Sea, a children’s book from debut writer, Serena Molloy, features a young girl, Ró, her only friend, The Bean, and a dolphin called Sunny. An only child, life is tough for Ró. She’s […]
Jane Casey
Jane Casey has an incredibly loyal fanbase. They love her crime novels featuring DS Maeve Kerrigan so much, that they are constantly asking her when the next one is due out. One reader, who bought her […]
Dermot Keane
Dermot lived in County Cork until he was nine, when the family moved to Kildare. An only child, he was a voracious reader. “I never thought of being a writer,” he says, “but I loved writing […]
Karl Geary
Karl Geary is in his car, in Glasgow, talking to me via zoom. After spending many rackety years in the States, the Dubliner is happily settled in Glasgow. After a lifetime of yearning to be a […]
Sheena Wilkinson.
Sheena’s childhood was a typically imaginative one. “I wrote from the age of nine,” she says, “and I always loved reading. I’d take a book to birthday parties in case I got bored.” She was always […]
Declan Toohey.
Declan has been reading for as long as he can remember. “Yet as a small child, I couldn’t sit still. I was frequently climbing a tree or climbing out of a window.” He wrote his […]