Trudy Hayes is an author, playwright, and journalist. She wrote “The Politics of Seduction”, and her last play, “Do Nothing, Say Nothing, Be Nothing” was produced by Fishamble Theatre. Her stories have been widely published and anthologised, and she was nominated for a Hennessy Award. Her play, “Out of my Head”, was nominated for the Stuart Parker Theatre Award.” She is currently writing a memoir.
Anne Walsh Donnelly lives in the west of Ireland. She was recently appointed as the Poet Laureate for the town of Belmullet in Co Mayo. She describes her writing process as ‘Bungee jumping, naked, off the Cliffs of Moher.’ Her poetry is wild and wonderful, honest and brave. Her full length poetry collection, “Odd as F*ck,” was published in May 2021 by Fly on the Wall Poetry Press who also published her poetry chapbook, “The Woman With An Owl Tattoo” For more information go to: annewalshdonnelly.com
Rachel Coventry’s poems appear in The North, The Moth, Abridged, Poetry Ireland Review, Stand, The Irish Times, and The Shop. Her debut collection Afternoon Drinking in the Jolly Butchers (2018) is published by Salmon Poetry.
Bio: Gerard Beirne has published two collections of poetry and 4 books of prose. Hennessy Award winner, shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, Bord Gais Irish Book Awards, and Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. He lectures on the BA Writing and Literature Program, IT Sligo.
Writer Moya Roddy’s debut collectionOut of the Ordinary was shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award 2018. She was also shortlisted for the Hennessy Award. Rita Ann Higgins called her poems “stunning and memorable” and Leontia Flynn commented that their “deceptive lucidity … belies how very far from ordinary such directness and perceptiveness are in poetry”. Her poems have appeared in the Irish Times, Crannog, Stoney Thursday, Stinging Fly, Boyne Berries among others. Moya’s novel The Long Way Home was described as “simply brilliant” in Irish Times; her short story collection Other People was nominated for Frank O’Connor Award. Her new novel A Wiser Girl was described by Ruth McKee in the Irish Times as a “blast of Italian sunshine, a sparkling glass of wine for these chilly and uncertain times”.
Brian Kirk is a poet and writer from Dublin. His first poetry collection After The Fall was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017. His poem “Birthday” won the Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2018. He was awarded a bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2020 to write and film a sequence of formal poems on the Covid 19 pandemic. He published a novel for children 9 – 12 years in 2016 called The Rising Son. His short fiction chapbook It’s Not Me, It’s You won the Southword Fiction Chapbook competition and was published in 2019 by Southword Editions. He blogs at www.briankirkwriter.com.
Matt Mooney. Born, a farmer’s son, in Kilchreest, Co. Galway in 1943. A graduate of UCG and UCC he has been a Vocational Teacher in Listowel where he is proud to be one of its townspeople. His collections of poems are: Droving (2003), Falling Apples (2010),Earth to Earth (2015), The Singing Woods (2017), Steering by the Stars (2021), Éalú agus Dánta Eile (forthcoming 2021).
Winner of The Pádraig Liath Ó Conchubhair Award 2019. (Filíocht/Poetry). He is a reviewer, copy editor and proof reader with the Galway Review Literary Magazine. His poems and writings have been published in: The Blue Nib; The Amaravati International Poetic Prism Anthology; The Galway Review, Feasta; The Galway Advertiser (Peann agus Pár), Pendemic, Live Encounters and in Musings during a Time of Pandemic, a World Anthology.
Some of his poems have been translated in Colombia, South America, and published in Spanish literary magazines. One of his poems appears on the syllabus of UK Primary Schools.