Author Interviews

Eimear McBride on getting her critically-acclaimed novel A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing published after five years of rejection Read more

Shane Hegarty, the former arts editor of The Irish Times, made headlines in 2013 when he signed a substantial six-figure four-book deal with HarperCollins for his Darkmouth series of children’s fantasy books. In January 2015, the film rights for the Darkmouth series were sold in a high six-figure deal. Read more

Niamh Boyce, author of the bestselling The Herbalist, on how the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair led to her first book deal It didn’t occur to me to be a “writer”… I’d always written poems, but for myself. When I moved from Galway to Laois I was looking for something creative to do, so I did… Read more

The No. 1 International bestseller Liz Nugent, whose latest novel Strange Sally Diamond has topped the Irish charts for weeks, explains how she landed her first book deal with Penguin Ireland… (Note: This interview was originally conducted and posted in 2015. The manuscript referred to in the interview is Liz’s hugely successful debut novel Unravelling… Read more

Booker-nominated author Donal Ryan on getting published after 47 rejections (This interview was originally posted in February 2015) Where did the inspiration for The Spinning Heart come from? I’d been thinking for years about writing a novel in the polyphonic form, thinking that if I ever did, it’d be burnt or shredded like nearly everything… Read more